License classes — New Hampshire Permit Test
License classes on the New Hampshire permit test — 7 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.
The rules
A Class D license allows a driver to drive a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 26,000 pounds or less.
Class D is the ordinary license almost everybody holds. Knowing its weight ceiling is how you tell it from the ones a truck needs.
Class D: Allows a driver to drive a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 26,000 pounds or less if not towing a trailer of over 10,000 pounds, transport hazardous materials, or is designed to seat more than 16 or more persons, including the driver.
A Class A license covers any combination of vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds, where the towed vehicle is over 10,000 pounds.
Class A is the combination license. What sets it apart is the trailer behind, not the truck in front.
Class A: Any combination of vehicles with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
A Class B license covers any single vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds.
Class B is the heavy single vehicle: a dump truck or a coach that carries its weight in one piece rather than on a trailer.
Class B: Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds
A Class C license covers a vehicle designed to seat more than 16 persons including the driver, or one required to be placarded for hazardous materials.
Class C is not about weight. It is about what is on board, whether that is people or something dangerous.
designed to seat more than 16 or more persons, including the driver, or is required to be placarded for hazardous materials.
A motorcycle license lets the holder operate motorcycles, 3-wheeled motorcycles, motor driven cycles and mopeds.
The motorcycle license is the broadest of the two-wheeled ones, so a rider who holds it does not need a moped license as well.
Motorcycle: Allows the driver to operate motorcycles, 3-wheeled motorcycles, motor driven cycles and mopeds.
A motor-driven cycle license covers a bicycle with a motor attached which has no more than 5 brake horsepower.
Above five brake horsepower the machine stops being a bicycle with a motor and becomes something a rider is tested on separately.
operate a bicycle with a motor attached which has no more than 5 brake horsepower.
A driver does not need a moped license if they already hold a Class A, B, C, D or motorcycle license.
Any of the ordinary licenses already covers a moped, so nobody has to buy a second card to ride one.
Drivers do not need a moped license if they already possess a Class A, B, C, D or motorcycle license.
On the test
What is the gross vehicle weight ceiling of a Class D license?
26,000 pounds or less. Class D is the ordinary license almost everybody holds. Knowing its weight ceiling is how you tell it from the ones a truck needs. New Hampshire Driver's Manual, p.4: “Class D: Allows a driver to drive a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 26,000 pounds or less if not towing a trailer of over 10,000 pounds, transport hazardous materials, or is designed to seat more than 16 or more persons, including the driver.”
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
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All New Hampshire permit topics
Where these come from
Every rule here is checked against New Hampshire Driver's Manual, published by the New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-09-16.
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/NH.pdf (New Hampshire Driver's Manual, Rev. 11/25, New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, retrieved 2026-09-14)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/NH.pages.txt (plain pdftotext over that PDF; sha256 pinned in SOURCES.json)
- src/assets/drivers-manuals/SOURCES.json (sha256, folio offset 6, folioMarker, nonLawPages, signGalleryPages and the extraction flag, each with its basis)