Ignition interlock requirements in California

California runs the most precisely specified interlock scheme of the states on this site: a fixed window of offense dates, a published table of terms, and four named exemptions. It is also the one where the common assumption — that a first DUI means a device — is usually wrong.

A program with a start date, an end date and an exemption

California's statewide interlock program is bounded in a way most state schemes are not. It applies to driving-under-the-influence offenses committed on or after 1 January 2019 and through 31 December 2032, for offenses involving alcohol or a combination of alcohol and drugs.

It then carves four groups out. First-time offenders whose violation did not involve drugs only and did not result in injury are outside the mandatory terms. So are repeat offenders whose violation involved drugs only, offenders who were administratively suspended after arrest, and anyone approved for an exemption.

That first carve-out is the one that matters most often, and it is the opposite of what people assume. A first DUI in California, with no injury and no drugs-only element, carries no mandatory interlock restriction term at all.

The term ladder

Where a term does apply, two variables set its length: how many prior convictions within ten years, and whether anyone was injured.

The trade the program actually offers

Read the requirements rather than the penalties and a different picture emerges. Program participants may comply with the mandatory installation immediately, without first serving any suspension or revocation period.

That is the deal on the table: a device in the car, now, instead of a period of not driving at all. Whether it is worth taking depends entirely on whether you need to drive, which is a question about your life rather than about the law.

Before applying for an interlock-restricted license, offenders have to clear all other outstanding suspensions. So it does not work as a route around unrelated license problems, and it does not stand in for the financial-responsibility filing, which is the next section.

The interlock does not replace the filing

These are two separate obligations that arrive from the same case and end at different times.

The interlock restriction is set by the DMV program above, at one to four years depending on priors and injury. The SR-22 filing runs for three years from the date proof was required, under a different section of a different code. Neither one discharges the other, and finishing the interlock term does not release the certificate.

The practical error people make is assuming a single end date. There are two, they are set by two different documents, and the later one is the one that governs when this is over. The California SR-22 page covers the filing side.

The ten-year window, and why it is doing so much work

Every row of the table above counts priors within ten years. That qualifier decides more outcomes than anything else on this page, and it is the part summaries drop first.

Two drivers with identical records on paper can land in different rows because one of the prior convictions falls eleven years back rather than nine. The difference between the no-prior row and the one-prior row is the difference between no mandatory term and a year of it — or, where somebody was injured, between one year and two.

It also means the ladder is not a lifetime accumulation. A conviction that ages out of the window stops counting for this purpose, which is an unusual amount of relief to find in a driving statute and is worth confirming against your own dates rather than assuming.

Restriction, suspension and revocation are three different words

The program's vocabulary is precise and the three terms do different jobs. Reading them as synonyms is how people conclude they cannot drive when they can, or the reverse.

A suspension or revocation removes the driving privilege for a period. An interlock restriction does not remove it — it narrows it. You may drive, and under the program you may drive anywhere and at any time, provided the vehicle is fitted with a device.

That distinction is the whole value of the program to a participant, and it is why the DMV describes the requirements as things to satisfy before applying for an interlock-restricted driver license rather than as an additional penalty. The application is for a license, not for permission to serve a punishment differently.

The offense-date window, and what sits outside it

The program applies to offenses committed on or after 1 January 2019 and through 31 December 2032. Both ends of that window matter.

An offense before the start date is not governed by this scheme, which is a live issue for anyone whose case is old and whose paperwork surfaced late. And the closing date is not a repeal notice — it is the end of the window of offenses the program covers, so a term running at that point runs on under the rules that attached when the offense was committed.

Three further groups sit outside the mandatory terms regardless of date: repeat offenders whose violation involved drugs only, offenders who were administratively suspended following arrest, and anyone approved for an exemption. Whether you are in one of those groups is a question of record rather than of interpretation, and the DMV holds the record.

What this costs, and why no number appears here

An interlock program has several costs — installation, a recurring lease or monitoring charge, periodic calibration, removal, and in some states an administrative fee to the licensing agency. This site has not read a primary source setting any of those amounts for California, so it states none of them.

That is a deliberate gap rather than an oversight. Device pricing is set by certified providers rather than by statute, it varies by region and by device, and a figure copied from a competitor page has no provenance at all. Ask the providers on the state's own certified list; the number you are given is the number, and it will be more current than anything published here could be.

Common questions