Nebraska CDL practice tests

Nebraska licenses commercial drivers through the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles, a single state agency that handles both driver licensing and vehicle titling. That is more centralised than it used to be: within the last decade, Nebraska brought functions that were once split across county offices into one state department. If you have dealt with a county treasurer for a car title in the past, the commercial licensing side now runs through the state agency instead.

What Nebraska 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 Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles for the current cost.

Nebraska 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 Nebraska does differently

Nebraska is a large, mostly rural state. Outside Omaha and Lincoln, testing locations sit a long way apart, so it is worth checking which office actually offers the skills test for the class of vehicle you are training in before you plan a route around it. The knowledge tests themselves are the same federal content you would sit in any other state, because 49 CFR Part 383 sets what is covered, not the Nebraska DMV.

Which tests you actually need

Everyone starts with general knowledge. You need 80 percent to pass, which is the federal pass mark rather than anything Nebraska adds on top, so missing more than one in five questions fails you. From there, what else you need depends on the vehicle. Drive anything with air brakes and you sit the air brakes test; fail it, or skip it, and your license carries a restriction that stops you driving air-braked equipment at all. Pull a trailer over 10,001 pounds and you need combination vehicles as well.

Endorsements cover tank vehicles, doubles and triples, passenger transport and school buses. Hazardous materials is worth planning around separately from the rest: on top of the written test, it requires a background check run through the Transportation Security Administration, and that process runs on its own timeline that studying cannot speed up.

Before you book

You must hold a commercial learner permit before Nebraska will let you sit the skills test, and federal rule sets a minimum 14-day wait between getting the permit and taking that test. Use that time to get the knowledge exams out of the way rather than leaving them until the last few days of the window, so a poor result still leaves you room to retest.

Age matters too. You can drive commercially within Nebraska from 18, but federal rule holds you to 21 before you can cross state lines in a commercial vehicle, which matters if the job you are training for is not purely local.

Fees are not listed here. They change, and a number that was right last year is exactly the kind of thing that sends someone to a Nebraska DMV office with the wrong amount. Check directly with the department before you go. What this site covers instead is the material itself: practice questions for every Nebraska knowledge test, each one tied to the federal rule or handbook page 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