Common questions

• How accurate are published wait estimates?

  We do not publish an accuracy figure, because we cannot yet measure one honestly. A published estimate is a projection from time-of-day and day-of-week patterns, not a measurement of the queue at that office. Verifying it would require a body of on-site reports to check the projection against, and that record is still being built. Reader reports shown on an office page are the only observed figures we publish.

• How often is the index updated?

  Projections are refreshed hourly. Office pages are rebuilt on the same cycle, so a figure you see may be up to an hour old. Opening hours and addresses change on the order of months and are refreshed when their source data changes.

• Which times of day report shorter waits?

  Mid-morning to early afternoon on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are modelled as the quietest periods; Monday mornings, Friday afternoons, and the first and last business days of the month as the busiest. This is a general pattern applied across offices, not a finding about any particular one.

• Are estimates differentiated by service type?

  No. We hold no per-service data for individual offices, so we do not break estimates down by licence renewal, REAL ID, vehicle registration, or road test. An office page's estimate covers the office as a whole. Check the state DMV site for which services a given office handles.

• Which field offices are indexed?

  Motor vehicle field offices across all 50 states, Washington D.C., and the US territories — 54 jurisdictions in total. Offices are added as their source data becomes available. Where a state publishes an official open-data set of its offices, that is the record we use.

• Where does the office data come from?

  Addresses, locations, and opening hours are taken from official state open-data publications where a state provides one, and otherwise from public listings. Wait figures are modelled, and reader reports are contributed by visitors. An office page shows hours only when we hold them; it says so plainly when we do not, rather than guessing.

• How are nearby offices located?

  Readers may grant geolocation to filter the index to offices within a configurable radius of their device position. Geolocation is optional; the full index is accessible without it.

• An office near me is not listed.

  Write to the editorial desk, or submit a wait report from the office on your next visit. Coverage is extended as official records and reader contributions arrive.

• How do wait alerts work?

  Set a threshold for a chosen office — for example, under thirty minutes. When the published estimate for that office falls below your threshold, we send you a notification. Because the estimate is a modelled projection rather than a live queue reading, treat an alert as a prompt to check, not as confirmation that the queue is short right now.

• Is an account required to receive alerts?

  Yes. Alerts are tied to your account, so you need to be signed in to create one. This answer previously said no account was required and that alerts were local to your device; both were wrong, and the correction is noted here rather than quietly edited out.

• What is stored when I set an alert?

  Your chosen office, your threshold, the email address on your account, and — if you allow browser notifications — the push subscription your browser issues, which includes an endpoint URL and the keys needed to encrypt a message to it. These are stored on our servers, not only on your device, because the server is what checks thresholds and sends the notification. You can delete an alert, and deleting your account removes them.

• How many alerts can I set?

  There is no fixed limit; you can set alerts for as many offices and thresholds as you need.

• Is access to the index free?

  Yes. The index is free to access and free of charge to use. The publication does not place targeted advertising and does not sell user data.

• Is a mobile application required?

  No. The site is a single web index that works in any modern browser on phone, tablet, or desktop. It can be added to a phone home screen for one-tap access if preferred.

• How can I contribute?

  Submit a wait observation from any field office on your next visit. Each report extends the record for that office and is what will eventually make the estimates specific to it rather than general.

• What information is collected?

  On-site wait reports are anonymous; no contact information, identity, or DMV-specific personal data is collected. Approximate device location is read only when geolocation is granted, and is used to filter the index.

• Is data shared with the DMV or third parties?

  No. Aggregated, anonymized observation data may be used internally to refine estimates. The publication does not share, sell, or transfer reader data to any government agency or commercial third party.

• Can the index be used without sharing location?

  Yes. Geolocation is optional and only ever read with explicit browser permission. The index can be browsed and searched without sharing device coordinates.

Still stuck?

Missing office, wrong hours, or a figure that does not look right — send it over. Corrections are the most useful mail this site gets.