Time's up for Texans who need to renew driver’s licenses, registrations
AUSTIN, Texas - A heads up for procrastinating drivers -- if you’ve been putting off renewing your license or registration during the pandemic, your time is up.
Wednesday is the last day to get everything up to date before the grace period ends. If you’re overdue, you have until 11:59 PM Wednesday to make things right, or risk getting a ticket.
At the start of the pandemic, Gov. Abbott issued a temporary expiration waiver for certain services through the Texas Department of Public Safety and Department of Motor Vehicles. That meant drivers could put off things like new or expired registrations, license renewal, vehicle titling, or disabled parking placards.
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For overdue registrations: if yours expired in July 2020 or after, you can go online and renew it. If your registration expired before July of last year, you have to do it in person at your county tax assessor’s office. In order to get your vehicle registered you have to have a passing inspection, so remember to do that first if that’s out of date as well.
"If you have waited and you still need to take care of something, I would just recommend doing it as early as possible and be patient and just take care of what you need to do," said DMV Public Information Officer Adam Shaivitz. "Starting April 15th after the waiver has ended, then law enforcement may begin issuing citations for not having a valid registration so that certainly would be a risk if you don’t come into compliance by the time the deadline is reached. If you are cited for an invalid registration, you could be facing a fine of up to 200 dollars."
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If you have an expired license, that goes through DPS and you need an appointment. If you’re unable to schedule one for Wednesday, DPS has a new procedure. Go ahead and schedule an appointment for after today, then you can go online and request a temporary permit that you can use in the meantime.
If you are overdue on any of these items, DPS will begin issuing citations at 12:01 AM Thursday.
For more information, visit https://www.txdmv.gov/covid-19. Driver’s license information is at https://www.dps.texas.gov/section/driver-license.