Oregon DMV, police offer grace period on expired licenses, vehicle registration

As long as they expired recently, you get a grace period

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- As most Oregon DMV offices remain closed, a question arises: What are you supposed to do if your license or vehicle’s registration expires? Well, you won’t have to do anything, yet -- and you shouldn’t worry.

It’s called the law enforcement grace period, and is allowing Oregonians to continue driving with expired licenses and vehicle registration, as long as the expiration date was recent.

"If you're expiring in March, April or May, you just tell the law enforcement officer that you couldn't come in (to the DMV), David House, a public information officer for the Oregon DMV.

If you get pulled over and are driving with a recently expired driver’s license or a past due vehicle registration, you will not receive a ticket.

At the moment, there is only one service the six open Oregon DMV offices offer, and that’s a new commercial license. There are some online options that Oregonians can take advantage of, like transferring ownership of a vehicle.  

Other states' DMV operations remain minimal as well, although Georgia's DMV issued about 20,000 drivers licenses to teenagers without them having to take a road test, according to CNN -- something House says will likely not happen in Oregon.

"We can never do a driver’s license issuance online. That would just be open to fraud and misuse," House said.

There is no timeline as of yet for when Oregon DMV offices will offer full services in person.