Michigan CDL practice tests

Michigan is one of the states where a commercial license is handled by the Secretary of State rather than a dedicated motor vehicle agency. If you are used to thinking of licensing as a "DMV" job, that is worth knowing before you go looking for the wrong office — in Michigan, the branch you book with is a Secretary of State office.

What Michigan 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 Michigan Secretary of State for the current cost.

Michigan 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.

A state split in two

Michigan's geography is unusual: the Upper Peninsula is physically separated from the rest of the state by the Straits of Mackinac, connected only by the Mackinac Bridge. If you live or work in the Upper Peninsula, your nearest testing office may be a genuinely different kind of trip than it would be for someone in the Lower Peninsula's denser southern counties. It is worth checking which office is realistically closest before you commit to a date.

What the knowledge exams cover

The content itself is not a Michigan invention. It comes from 49 CFR Part 383, the federal rule that sets the CDL knowledge requirements for every state, so a driver who studies for general knowledge, air brakes, or combination vehicles is learning material that applies the same way whether the plates end up being issued in Michigan or somewhere else entirely. The pass mark is 80 percent on each section — also federal, not a Michigan-specific bar.

Deciding which tests to take

General knowledge is mandatory for everyone. After that, it follows from what you intend to drive. Air brakes on the vehicle means the air brakes exam; without it, the license carries a restriction that stops you driving anything fitted with them, rather than stopping you getting licensed at all. Towing a trailer over ten thousand pounds brings combination vehicles into the picture. Beyond those two, the endorsements — tank, doubles and triples, passenger, school bus, hazardous materials — are added only if the work calls for them.

Hazardous materials is worth planning around separately from the rest. On top of the written exam it requires a Transportation Security Administration background check, which runs on federal timelines that have nothing to do with how well you know the material, so starting it early is the only way to avoid it holding up an otherwise-ready application.

Timing the permit and the tests

A commercial learner permit has to be held for at least 14 days before the skills test can be booked, under federal rule. That 14-day window is a useful buffer: sit your knowledge exams as early in it as you can, so that if one needs a re-sit, you are not eating into time you needed for the skills test itself. The age rules are also federal and fixed everywhere: 18 to drive commercially inside Michigan, 21 if the job ever takes you across a state line.

One thing we leave out on purpose

We do not publish fees anywhere on this site. They are set and changed by the Secretary of State's office, not by us, and a number that goes stale is worse than no number — it sends someone to pay the wrong amount or show up expecting the wrong process. Check the current fee with the Secretary of State directly. What we do provide reliably is which knowledge areas each test covers and the exact source each answer is drawn 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