What Counts as Night Driving in Nevada?

Yes, you can drive at night with a Nevada permit — and you have to, for at least 10 hours. Nevada requires 10 of your 50 supervised hours to happen after dark. There’s no permit curfew, so the timing is up to you and your supervisor.

What “Night” Means in Nevada

Nevada defines night as sunset to sunrise. Not 8 PM. Not “after dark.” The exact moment the sun sets. That’s your start time, and it changes every single day.

Las Vegas sunset ranges from about 4:55 PM in early December to 8:00 PM in late June. That’s a 3-hour spread. A 5:30 PM drive in December is a legit night hour. The same drive in June doesn’t qualify until three months later in the year.

If you’re logging manually, you’d need to look up sunset for your location before each session. Las Vegas and Reno are in the same state but sunset times differ. Most families skip the lookup and just guess, which leads to misclassified hours.

Nevada’s Permit Curfew (There Isn’t One)

The Nevada learner’s permit has no curfew. You can drive at any hour with a licensed adult supervisor age 21 or older in the passenger seat. The restrictions come at the next stage (the restricted license), not during the learner phase.

That means you’re free to schedule night drives whenever your family has time. Late evening works. So does 5:30 in December. Work with what you’ve got.

Getting Your 10 Night Hours Done

Here’s something most Nevada families don’t think about: summer night driving in Las Vegas is actively safer than afternoon driving.

July and August highs in the Las Vegas valley hit 110°F or higher on a regular basis. A 3 PM drive in August means the asphalt has been baking for hours, the glare is brutal, and the AC is fighting hard. A 9 PM drive in the same week is 95°F and clear. Less physical stress on the driver, less heat shimmer, and it counts as a night hour since the sun’s already down by 8:00 PM.

That’s a case where the “harder” option is actually the better one. Use it.

For the other 9 months of the year, the winter strategy applies: December and January sunsets before 5:00 PM means after-school drives count automatically. Stack those early.

One thing Nevada does require that other states don’t: you need to log hours on the DMV 21 form. Not a generic spreadsheet, not an app printout. The official form. Pick one up from a Nevada DMV office or download it from the Nevada DMV site. Your log needs to go on that specific document.

Nevada Permit Requirements

Requirement	Details
Total supervised hours	50
Night hours	10
Day hours	40
Night definition	Sunset to sunrise
Minimum permit age	15½
Permit hold period	6 months
Supervisor minimum age	21
Driver’s ed required	Yes (under 18)
Official log form	DMV 21
Permit curfew	None

Practical Tips for Night Driving in Nevada

Use summer evenings intentionally. After 8:00 PM in June and July, the temperature drops enough to make driving tolerable. The roads are still busy near the Strip and in suburban Henderson, so your teen gets real traffic experience without the 110-degree heat.

Start on surface streets. The first night drive shouldn’t be Interstate 15. Pick a well-lit 35 mph road your teen already knows from daytime practice. Add speed and complexity after the first few sessions.

Watch for wildlife in rural Nevada. If you’re outside Reno or Las Vegas, deer and wild horses become a real hazard after dark, especially in the dusk window right after sunset. This isn’t a risk most urban teens think about until it’s right in the headlights.

Get the DMV 21 form early. Don’t wait until you’re done with hours to track down the official form. Start logging on it from session one so you’re not transferring records at the end.

Moda tracks sunset and sunrise based on your phone’s GPS coordinates, so every session gets tagged as day or night automatically. When you’re ready to submit your log, the data is already organized. You just need to transfer it to the DMV 21 form.

For full Nevada permit requirements, see our Nevada permit hours guide.

Download: Moda on the App Store

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