Keeping your license current — California Permit Test
Keeping your license current on the California permit test — 5 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
You must notify DMV of a new address within ten days of moving.
Every notice the state sends goes to the address it has, including the one about your license.
If you move, you must notify DMV of your new address within ten days.
Changing your address does not automatically get you a new driver’s license, and a replacement card may be requested for a fee.
The old card keeps the old address on it until you ask for a new one and pay for it.
You do not automatically get a new driver’s license when you change your address.
It is against the law to drive with an expired driver’s license.
An expired card is not a late card. It is no license at all until you renew it.
It is against the law to drive with an expired driver’s license.
Once you receive a replacement card the old card is no longer valid, and a found old card should be destroyed.
Two cards with your name on them is one more than anybody needs, and the old one is now false.
Once you receive your replacement card, your old card is no longer valid.
A driver who is out of state and cannot renew may request a one-year extension of their driver’s license before it expires.
Being far away is a reason the state accepts, but only if you ask before the date passes.
If you are out-of-state and cannot renew, you may request a one-year extension of your driver’s license.
On the test
How long do you have to tell DMV about a change of address?
Ten days. Every notice the state sends goes to the address it has, including the one about your license. California Driver’s Handbook, p.8: “If you move, you must notify DMV of your new address within ten days.”
How this works
Most practice tests hand you a bank of questions and leave the manual somewhere else. This one puts them together.
You read one law and the reason behind it, then answer a question on that law while it is still fresh. Get it right and you move on; get it wrong and you have found the gap while it is cheap to fix, not on the morning of the exam.
Learning one rule at a time, and proving it immediately, is what turns a manual you skimmed into something you actually know — and it makes studying feel like getting somewhere rather than like waiting to find out.
What it costs
- One payment, once — not a subscription. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel, for an exam you sit one time.
- Free to start: a 10-question test and the first section of cards. No sign-up and no account.
- Paying opens the rest of the cards, unlimited full-length practice tests, and retests built from exactly the questions you got wrong.
- Every level up to Prepared — 3 tests passed in a row.
- Do the work, fail the real exam, and we refund you.
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against California Driver’s Handbook, published by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-21.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/CA.pdf (California Driver’s Handbook, DL 600 ENGLISH (REV. 6/2025), retrieved 2026-09-14; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/CA.pages.txt (the pdftotext -layout fixture every citation here was cut against and verified against; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json, CA entry — the folio offset of 6 and its basis, the three non-law pages, the two sign gallery pages, and the record of why California’s exam shape is this app’s own
- docs/plans/chosen-exam-shapes.md section 5 — the decision that a state publishing neither exam figure ships 40/32 with both disclosed
- docs/plans/how-to-build-laws.md — the rule that the handbook is the syllabus and nothing enters this file without a page in it