CDL Requirements in Alaska

Verified against Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, Department of Administration · 2026-07-25

Compiled and verified against primary state DMV/DPS/BMV sources by GetCDLLicense — cite-or-deny, with no invented figures. How we source & verify →

Alaska's Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV), part of the Department of Administration, both issues CDLs directly at its own offices and certifies commercial driving schools as third-party road-skills examiners and a wide network of business partners, village public safety officers, troopers, and schools as knowledge-test proctors — a structure built around the state's many communities that lack road access to a DMV office. Uniquely among states, Alaska holds a standing FMCSA exemption (through December 28, 2029) letting it waive the road test and the entry-level driver training requirement for drivers domiciled in 14 named off-road communities, issuing a geographically restricted CDL in exchange. Standard CDLs run on an 8-year renewal cycle, with the Hazmat endorsement tracked separately on its own TSA-tied expiration of generally up to 5 years.

Alaska's CDL requirements — including a $15 commercial learner permit fee and an intrastate minimum age of 18 — are verified against Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, Department of Administration (see Alaska DMV — Commercial Driver's License (CDL)), current as of 2026-07-25.

Alaska CDL Requirements at a Glance

This is the fee, age, and testing detail for Alaskaspecifically — for the full step-by-step process see how to get a CDL, and for what Class A, B, and C each permit see CDL classes.

CLP, age, fee, renewal, and testing requirements for a commercial driver’s license in Alaska
Commercial learner’s permit (CLP)
CLP fee	$15
Minimum holding period before skills test	14 days
CLP validity	6 months
Age minimums
Intrastate minimum age	18
Interstate minimum age	21 (federal floor)
Fees
Application fee	—
Initial CDL fee	$100
Renewal fee	$100
Renewal period	8 years
Knowledge test fee	—
Skills test fee	$25
Testing rules
Third-party testers allowed	Yes
Retest waiting period	—

Other published fees

CDL, REAL ID compliant (Class A, B, or C): $120
Duplicate CDL, standard (non-REAL ID): $15
Duplicate CDL, REAL ID compliant: $35
Off-Highway CDL (restriction 7 or 8), standard: $100

Instruction Permit fee ($15) has no separate REAL ID-compliant tier. Valid 180 days from issuance; the application may be resubmitted to extend the permit for one additional 180-day period, but only one extension is permitted. Applicants must already hold a valid non-commercial Alaska driver license before applying for a CLP (rural/off-highway applicants follow a separate track — see eldtNotes).

Ages 18–20 may hold an intrastate-only CDL carrying Alaska's 'K' restriction (2 AAC 90.210(h)); Hazmat, School Bus, and interstate operation require age 21, per DMV's own published CDL eligibility requirements.

DMV administers most CDL knowledge and skills tests directly at its own offices, but also licenses commercial driving schools as third-party examiners authorized to conduct CDL road skills tests, and deputizes an extensive network of business partners, village public safety officers, troopers, police departments, and schools as knowledge-test proctors — built around the state's many communities without road access to a DMV office. Knowledge tests may be retaken once per day until passed (2 AAC 90.420); a failed road skills test may be retaken no sooner than about one week later if the department determines a retest is warranted, with further attempts and any additional required training left to the department's discretion. No fixed day-based retest waiting period is published, so no single-number retest wait is asserted here.

Alaska CDL Endorsements

Hazmat, tanker, doubles/triples, passenger, and school bus endorsement availability, fees, and testing in Alaska
Endorsement	Available	Fee	Knowledge test	Skills test
Hazardous materials (H)	Yes	—	Yes	No
Tank vehicle (N)	Yes	—	Yes	No
Doubles/triples (T)	Yes	—	Yes	No
Passenger (P)	Yes	—	Yes	Yes
School bus (S)	Yes	$47	Yes	Yes

Hazardous materials: 30-question multiple-choice knowledge test drawn from the Alaska CDL manual; 80% required to pass. No fee is charged for the test at a DMV office, though a business-partner testing site may charge one. No standalone DMV endorsement fee is published; card-reissue costs follow the standard CDL/duplicate fee schedule. The HME carries its own expiration date (generally up to 5 years) tied to the TSA threat assessment or TWIC expiration, independent of the CDL's own 8-year cycle — a driver renewing a CDL within 1 year of its expiration keeps the existing HME expiration date without a new threat assessment.

Tank vehicle: Knowledge test only (Tank Vehicles, N endorsement); no separate DMV fee published. Can be combined with Hazmat as a single Combination Tank & Hazardous Material (X) endorsement.

Doubles/triples: Knowledge test only (Doubles/Triples, T endorsement), covering multi-trailer combinations — a dolly or load divider counts as one trailer; no separate DMV fee published.

Passenger: Required for vehicles designed to carry 16 or more passengers including the driver; knowledge test plus a road skills test in a representative passenger vehicle. No separate DMV fee published. Required as a prerequisite before the School Bus endorsement can be added.

School bus: Requires the Passenger endorsement, 3 years of driving experience, a $47 fingerprint-based background check (Alaska DPS plus an FBI national check), and an original certificate of completion from a Department of Education-approved school-bus training course. Knowledge, passenger-knowledge, school-bus-knowledge, vision, air-brake, and road (performance) skills tests are all required. Alaska Statute 28.15.046 requires a DOT medical examiner's certificate for School Bus endorsement holders even though federal rule otherwise classifies home-to-school transport as an 'excepted,' no-medical-card operation type; surrendering the endorsement removes that requirement if the driver remains in an excepted category. On renewal: the knowledge test must be retaken if the endorsement lapsed over 1 year; the DOE training certificate must be renewed if it lapsed over 2 years; and if lapsed over 5 years, all requirements apply as for a first-time endorsement.

For what each endorsement permits, the federal knowledge/skills testing baseline behind it, and hazmat’s separate TSA security threat assessment, see CDL endorsements.

Federal requirements that apply in Alaska

These are set by federal regulators and are the same in every US jurisdiction. Full detail here.

Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT). Since February 2022, first-time CDL applicants — and drivers upgrading to Class A or seeking a first-time school bus, passenger, or hazmat endorsement — must complete Entry-Level Driver Training with a provider on the FMCSA Training Provider Registry before testing.
DOT medical certificate. Most CDL holders who operate in interstate commerce must hold a valid DOT medical examiner's certificate, issued by an examiner listed on the FMCSA National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners.
Interstate minimum age. Federal rules set 21 as the minimum age to drive commercially across state lines; states set their own intrastate minimum, commonly 18.
Hazmat security threat assessment. A hazardous materials endorsement additionally requires a TSA security threat assessment, which is a federal process separate from the state endorsement.

Alaska-specific: Alaska operates an Off-Highway CDL program, carrying restriction 7 or 8, for drivers domiciled in communities that are not connected to the road system, lack access to DMV services, and where a skills test is not offered at least once a year. Under DMV's own published guidance, an Off-Highway CDL waives both the road skills test and Entry-Level Driver Training entirely. Restriction 7 requires no road test at all. Restriction 8 is tied to a standing FMCSA exemption (effective December 28, 2022, extended through December 28, 2029) covering 14 named communities — Bethel, Prince of Wales Island, Haines, Ketchikan, King Salmon, Kodiak Island, Kotzebue, Nome, Mitkof Island (Petersburg), Sitka, Skagway, Unalaska Island, Utqiagvik, and Wrangell Island — and requires an amended (abbreviated) road test covering only what local infrastructure supports. A restriction-8 CDL is valid only within those 14 communities; a driver must complete standard ELDT and the full skills test before the restriction can be removed to drive elsewhere in Alaska.

Self-certification in Alaska

Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, Department of Administration administers self-certification for the following FMCSA operating categories:

Non-Excepted Interstate
Non-Excepted Intrastate
Excepted Interstate
Excepted Intrastate

Alaska DMV requires Form 413 (Commercial Driver Medical & Self-Certifying Verification) with every original, renewal, or upgrade CDL/CLP application, covering all four FMCSA self-certification categories; a new Form 413 is required whenever a driver changes self-certification type, and a certification change can require obtaining a duplicate credential to update the restrictions tied to it.

means no primary source publishes that figure — left blank on purpose rather than estimated or copied from an unverified aggregator.

Sources

Data last verified: 2026-07-25 (verified by: agent) | Source: Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, Department of Administration