Tennessee CDL practice tests

Tennessee handles commercial licensing through the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, a single agency that also covers highway patrol and emergency management, rather than splitting driver licensing off into its own motor vehicle department. That combination is unusual — most states keep licensing separate from public safety and security functions — and it means the office issuing your CDL is part of the same department that runs the state's highway patrol. Tennessee is also formally divided into three Grand Divisions — East, Middle and West — a structure written into the state constitution, and it roughly tracks how far apart testing offices can be if you live near one edge of the state and work near another.

What Tennessee 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 Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security for the current cost.

Tennessee 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.

The exam itself

The knowledge tests are federal in origin. 49 CFR Part 383 sets what is asked and how it is marked, so a Tennessee exam and a neighbouring state's exam draw from the same rulebook. You need 80 percent to pass any section of it. Commercial driving inside Tennessee is open from age 18; crossing a state line with a load means waiting until 21. Once you hold a commercial learner permit, federal rule makes you wait fourteen days before the skills test can be booked against it, so there is no advantage to rushing the knowledge exams — use the time.

Which sections apply to you

Everybody sits general knowledge first. Beyond that, it depends on what you are going to drive. Air brakes get their own test; fail it or skip it and you are not turned away, you get an air brake restriction that keeps you off vehicles fitted with them. Towing over ten thousand pounds brings in the combination vehicles test. Then come the endorsements — tank, doubles and triples, passenger, school bus, and hazardous materials — the same list used in every state, since the endorsement categories themselves come from the federal rule too.

Hazmat carries an extra step none of the others do: a Transportation Security Administration background check, run separately from the written exam and on its own schedule. Start that early if you know you will need the endorsement, because it is the part most likely to hold up your timeline.

Getting ready to book

Tennessee sits across several major interstate freight corridors, so testing demand can vary a lot between a rural county office and one near a bigger city or a distribution hub. If you have a choice of office, it is worth asking about typical wait before you commit to one.

We do not print fees on this site. They are set and changed by the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, not by us, and printing a number here that goes stale would send you to the counter with the wrong amount in your pocket. What we do give you is the actual content of the knowledge exams — the questions asked, and exactly where in the source material each answer 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