Maine CDL practice tests

Maine's Bureau of Motor Vehicles sits inside the Secretary of State's office rather than a transportation or public-safety department, which is a third arrangement again — different from a state that runs licensing through its DOT and different from one that runs it through a revenue or public-safety agency.

What Maine 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 Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles for the current cost.

Maine 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.

What Maine does differently

The knowledge exams are federal content wherever you sit them: 49 CFR Part 383 fixes the questions' subject matter, the endorsements available and the mark you need to pass, and Maine adds nothing to that list. What Maine does add is distance. It's the largest state in New England by land area, but most of that land holds very few people, especially heading north into Aroostook County — a trip to a testing site up there can look a lot more like driving across Kansas than like driving across the rest of New England.

Maine also borders two Canadian provinces, New Brunswick and Quebec, and a fair amount of the state's commercial driving — logging trucks, lobster and seafood haulage, general freight — crosses that border or heads south out of state entirely. That's exactly the kind of driving the federal interstate age rule is built for, which is why the three-year gap between the intrastate and interstate minimum ages matters to more Maine drivers than you might expect from a state this size.

Which tests you actually need

Everyone starts with general knowledge. After that it's about the vehicle: air brakes have their own test, and failing it doesn't cost you the license, only a restriction against driving anything fitted with them. Towing over 10,000 pounds brings in the combination vehicles exam, and then there are the endorsements — tank, doubles and triples, hazardous materials, passenger, school bus — sat separately from the rest.

Hazardous materials takes longer than the others because of the Transportation Security Administration background check layered on top of the written exam. That check moves on its own schedule, so start it as early as you reasonably can.

Before you book

You need a commercial learner permit before the skills test is possible, and federal rule holds that permit for a minimum of 14 days before the test can be scheduled. Get the knowledge exams done in the first part of that window, not the last, so a resit doesn't eat into the time you need for the skills test.

Fees aren't listed here. Maine changes them without checking with us first, and an out-of-date figure is worse than none, so confirm with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles before you travel. What this page gives you instead is exactly what the exams ask, and where each answer comes from, so you can walk in knowing the material rather than guessing at it.

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