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DUI law in California
The criminal charge and your driving privileges are separate questions. Check both.
DUI law in California concerns both the criminal charge and the right to drive. The applicable licence process depends on the alleged conduct, test result or refusal, and the notice or court order. A criminal court date is not a substitute for checking a separate licence deadline. The cited rules below identify what has been verified for this jurisdiction.
The two legal questions
The criminal charge and driving privileges can involve different proceedings. The notice, order and cited rule identify the applicable process.
Driving privileges
The licence case
- Forum
- The agency or court identified by the applicable licence proceeding
- Clock
- Check the applicable notice or order for the deadline and its starting event
- Deadline to request a hearing
- Request the DMV hearing within 10 days after receiving the suspension or revocation notice to seek a hearing before the order takes effect.
- This is the initial notice-based hearing right—not a renewed-hearing exception measured in years. The notice identifies the applicable order.
- Suspension under the cited rule
- Ordinary APS test-failure suspension: four months without a qualifying prior event in 10 years; one year with a qualifying prior. Separate under-21 rules and restricted-license conditions apply.
- The order generally takes effect 30 days after service. That start date is not the suspension's length.
- Qualifying conviction-and-interlock restricted-license conditions can terminate the four-month or one-year APS period. The under-21 zero-tolerance/refusal provision requires at least one year.
- Hearing procedure under the cited rule
- Request an administrative hearing from DMV using the suspension or revocation notice. For the pre-effective-date hearing, the request must be postmarked or received within 10 days after receipt of the notice.
- A request alone does not stay the suspension. Section 13558(e) addresses a stay when DMV cannot timely conduct and decide the hearing; the specific refusal rules in subsection (c)(1) must also be considered.
Criminal charge
The criminal case
- Forum
- A criminal court
- Clock
- Check court notices and orders; no case duration is predicted here
- Alcohol-concentration threshold
- 0.08%
- First-offense penalty rule
- Not published yet. We show a figure only once it has been confirmed against the official source and dated.The cited rule may describe a range or a minimum with conditions, not a predicted sentence.
- Lookback period
- 10 years for the repeat-offense rule in § 23540, measured between qualifying violations that result in convictions.
- This states the specific § 23540 rule, not a guarantee that every older conviction is irrelevant to every DUI sentencing provision.
Alcohol-concentration thresholds in California
The cited provision controls the threshold’s scope. Underage and commercial rules can concern licensing as well as criminal liability; they are not all the same offense.
- Standard drivers
- 0.08%
- Operating a commercial motor vehicle
- 0.04%
- Under-21 rule
- 0.01%
California in detail
8 further California topics — interlock, hardship licences, drug DUI, felony DUI, underage, commercial drivers, checkpoints and record relief — are part of the approved taxonomy and are not built yet.