Colorado CDL practice tests

Colorado's Division of Motor Vehicles sits inside the Department of Revenue, the same department that collects state taxes, rather than inside a separate transport or public-safety agency. That pairing shapes nothing about what is tested, but it does mean the office issuing your commercial learner permit is administratively closer to the tax office than to the state troopers who patrol the roads.

What Colorado requires

Every figure below names the document it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Passing score
80% 49 CFR Part 383, Commercial Driver's License Standards, 383.135
Minimum age (in-state driving)
18 years old 49 CFR Part 383, Commercial Driver's License Standards, 383.71
Minimum age (across state lines)
21 years old 49 CFR Part 391, Qualifications of Drivers, 391.11
Permit holding period
14 days 49 CFR Part 383, Commercial Driver's License Standards, 383.25

Fees change without notice, so we do not repeat them here. Check Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles for the current cost.

Colorado practice tests

The knowledge tests are set by federal rule, so the questions are the same wherever you sit them. What changes is the paperwork above.

Mountains change the driving, not the exam

Colorado's terrain does something the knowledge test itself cannot capture: long stretches of interstate through the Rocky Mountains, where the state enforces a chain law on commercial vehicles during winter storms, requiring chains or adequate tread before you are allowed onto the mountain corridor. None of that is on the written exam, which stays federal, but it is worth knowing before you take a Colorado CDL out on the mountain roads in January.

What is actually tested

The knowledge exams come from 49 CFR Part 383, the same federal rule behind every state's CDL program, so general knowledge, air brakes and the endorsement tests cover the same ground in Colorado as anywhere else. Colorado's job is administering the test and, later, enforcing the mountain-driving rules that federal law leaves to the states.

Passing

Each section needs 80 percent, the federal floor under 49 CFR 383.135. Fifty questions on general knowledge gives you ten wrong answers before failing, so even and thorough preparation across topics beats cramming one section.

Age limits

You can drive commercially inside Colorado from 18. Cross into Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma or New Mexico — Colorado borders all six — and federal rule under 49 CFR 391.11 raises that to 21, since interstate hauling is governed more strictly than routes that stay inside one state.

The permit wait

A commercial learner permit must be held at least 14 days before the skills test, fixed by federal rule 49 CFR 383.25. In a state where winter weather can close mountain passes without warning, it is worth booking that skills test for a date with some flexibility built in.

Endorsements

Past general knowledge: air brakes if the vehicle has them, combination vehicles for a heavy trailer, and endorsements for tank, doubles and triples, passenger and school bus. Hazardous materials adds a Transportation Security Administration background check on top of the written exam, on its own federal timetable.

Before you book

We do not publish fees here. Colorado sets and changes them, and a stale number is worse than none, especially when a trip to a testing office might mean driving a mountain pass. Check current costs and locations with the Division of Motor Vehicles before you go. What this site gives you is the practice questions themselves, each cited to the rule it comes from.

Jump to a test

Every question on every one of these is free, and each answer names the handbook page it came from.

Other states

Cited to the page, every time.

Every question names the handbook, section and page it was read from, so you can check the answer instead of taking our word for it.

How we write these