Virginia CDL practice tests

Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles handles commercial licensing directly, and the state covers a wide range of driving conditions under one system — dense, congested corridors around Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads at one end, and long rural stretches through the Shenandoah Valley and the far southwest at the other. Where you sit your exam can feel like a different state depending on which end of Virginia you are in, even though the test itself does not change. Virginia is also the only state where cities are legally independent of the counties around them, which is part of why DMV coverage can look patchy on a map organized by county — a testing office might sit inside an independent city rather than the county that surrounds it.

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

Virginia 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 content

What is actually asked comes from federal regulation, not from Virginia. 49 CFR Part 383 is the source, and the same standard applies everywhere the exam is given. Eighty percent correct passes each section. You can drive commercially within Virginia at 18, but taking a load across a state line means waiting until 21. Federal rule ties the skills test to a fourteen-day wait after your commercial learner permit is issued — there's no way to shortcut it, so the useful move is to finish your knowledge exams inside that fortnight instead of after it.

Working out which tests you need

General knowledge is required of every applicant. Beyond that, the vehicle decides. Air brakes have a dedicated exam, and skipping or failing it does not stop you getting licensed — it adds a restriction that keeps you off equipment fitted with them. Towing above ten thousand pounds brings in the combination vehicles test. The remaining endorsements cover tank vehicles, doubles and triples, passengers, school bus, and hazardous materials — categories set federally, so they read the same in Virginia as in any other state.

Hazardous materials is different from the other endorsements because of the Transportation Security Administration, not the exam. Its background check sits outside the testing process entirely and can take longer than studying does, so begin it the moment you know you'll need the endorsement.

Planning your visit

Given how much Virginia varies between its urban and rural areas, it is worth checking which DMV office actually serves commercial testing near you before assuming the closest branch does — not every DMV location handles the CDL knowledge exams.

Fees are left off this page on purpose. The DMV sets and changes them, and a figure printed here could easily be wrong by the time you read it, which is worse than no figure at all. Confirm the current cost with the DMV directly. What this site offers instead is the exam content itself: the questions asked, 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