Nevada does not issue a California driver’s license and cannot take one away. After a Nevada DUI arrest in Stateline or elsewhere in Douglas County, what Nevada can take is your privilege to drive in Nevada, and it tells California when it does. What happens to the California license is then decided by California law, and California’s heaviest consequences turn on one question: whether the Nevada case ends in a conviction.
The two states’ rules are kept apart on this page. Each section says which state’s law it describes, because a rule from one state does not carry over to the other.
I’m Theodore FitzGerald, a criminal defense lawyer in Stateline. I work from one rule: the government has to follow the law at every step. For a California driver, that means two states’ rules, kept straight and kept apart, and I’m licensed in both.
Nevada law: what Nevada does to your privilege to drive here
A nonresident with a valid home-state license may drive in Nevada, and that privilege can be suspended or revoked the same way, and for the same reasons, as a Nevada license. A DUI arrest can cost you that privilege twice.
The administrative revocation. A chemical test result of 0.08 or more leads to a 185-day revocation; a refusal leads to one year, or three years with a prior refusal revocation in the preceding seven years. This happens whether or not you are ever convicted. The officer’s temporary license lasts seven days, and a written request for a DMV hearing brings an additional temporary license for the length of the review. The hearing and its timing are on Nevada DMV License Revocation After a DUI Arrest.
The conviction revocation. A conviction brings a revocation of its own: 185 days for a first offense within seven years, one year for a second, three years for a third.
Your California license does not get you around either one. A nonresident whose Nevada privilege has been revoked may not drive in Nevada on another state’s license until Nevada permits it. Driving in Nevada during a DUI revocation is a separate crime with mandatory terms: 30 days to six months in jail or 60 days to six months of residential confinement, a $500 to $1,000 fine, no probation, and another year added to the revocation.
Getting the Nevada privilege back. The revocation does not simply expire. The Nevada DMV will not restore a revoked privilege without proof of financial responsibility, kept in place for three years after reinstatement. Until it is restored, the bar on driving in Nevada continues.
Nevada law: what Nevada reports to California
When Nevada revokes a nonresident’s privilege, Nevada law requires the DMV to send a record of that action to the licensing agency in the driver’s home state. Nevada may also send the record of a conviction.
A Nevada conviction then brings the California consequences described in the next section.
California law: will a Nevada DUI conviction suspend my California license?
Yes. Under California law, a conviction in another state of an offense that would be a DUI in California counts as a California DUI conviction for license purposes, and the California DMV “shall suspend or revoke the privilege to operate a motor vehicle” on receiving notice of it. The California Supreme Court has said California’s suspension statute “makes no distinction between convictions arising in California and equivalent convictions arising out of state.”
On a first offense, California’s statute suspends the privilege for six months. It is not reinstated until you give proof of financial responsibility (an SR-22, which is an insurer’s certificate filed with the DMV covering all vehicles registered to you) and proof that you completed a California-licensed DUI program. Enrollment and completion must come after the date of the violation; work done before it does not count. During the suspension, California allows a first offender to apply for a restricted license by enrolling in that program, filing proof of insurance, paying the fees, and installing and maintaining a certified ignition interlock. Repeat offenses are governed by other parts of the same statute.
The limits. The California DMV may not act on another state’s report of a conviction unless it is satisfied that the other state’s law is substantially the same as California’s, that the description of the violation is sufficient, and that the law is interpreted and enforced substantially the same way. A California appellate court has described the two requirements as “a substantially similar sister state DUI statute and sufficient proof that the driver was convicted for violating that statute.”
Nevada’s rules for getting the Nevada privilege back are separate, and a California driver may have to satisfy both states.
California law: Nevada DUI as a California prior
A Nevada DUI conviction can count against you in a later California case. Under California law, an out-of-state conviction for conduct that would be a California DUI (or DUI causing injury) is treated as a conviction under California’s statute. A California DUI committed within ten years of a separate DUI that resulted in a conviction is punished as a second offense, with 90 days to one year in county jail.
The criminal test is stricter than the DMV’s. In a California criminal case, the out-of-state offense must involve conduct that meets every element of the California offense; substantial similarity is not enough. If the other state’s statute is broader and the record does not show what the person actually did, the court presumes the conviction was for the least conduct the other state’s law punishes. A California appellate court applied that rule to hold that a Colorado “driving while ability impaired” conviction could not, on that record, be used as a California prior. Whether a particular Nevada conviction qualifies depends on the statute and on what the Nevada record shows.
The place to fight a Nevada conviction is Nevada, before it becomes final.
Defending a Nevada DUI for a California driver
The California consequences above follow a Nevada conviction, so the work starts in Nevada: the stop, the tests, the blood or breath result, and the DMV hearing, defended as on any Stateline DUI. The criminal side is on DUI Defense in Stateline and Douglas County; the DMV hearing is included in every DUI I take.
If the case ends in a conviction, the Nevada record is built with California in mind, because what the Nevada judgment and record show can matter later under California’s tests. Sentencing is planned the same way. On a first offense, Nevada law requires the court to order a nonresident to complete either a course approved by the home state or a Nevada-approved correspondence course. California law separately requires a California-licensed DUI program completed after the violation date. Where the Nevada order allows it, one enrollment may serve both; that depends on the Nevada order and on the California DMV accepting the completion, so it is worked out case by case.
The California questions get answered in the same conversation as the Nevada ones. How a Nevada case is handled while you live in California is on Handling a Nevada Criminal Case Without Living in Nevada and Arrested in Nevada, Living Somewhere Else. Repeat-offense and felony cases are on Second and Third DUI in Nevada and Felony DUI in Nevada.
If you are calling about a son or daughter, the person charged is the client, and the decisions in the case are theirs. How hiring works explains how a parent or other family member can pay for the defense.
The California consequences follow the Nevada case, so the work starts in Nevada. Hire me now, and I’ll get to work. Call FitzGerald Law.