Blog /
What Counts as Night Driving for Your Learner's Permit?
Night driving starts at sunset in most states. Not 9 PM. Not 10 PM. Sunset — which means the start of your “night” session shifts every single day of the year depending on where you live and what month it is. That gap can be 4 hours or more between a December evening and a June one in the same city.
This isn’t a technicality. If your state uses sunset-to-sunrise and you log a 7 PM drive in July thinking it counts as night, it probably doesn’t. Sunset in Minneapolis in late June is past 9 PM.
Three Ways States Define “Night”
States use three different approaches, and they’re not interchangeable.
Sunset to sunrise. Most states — 38 or more — use this. Night starts when the sun goes down at your specific location on that specific date, and ends when it rises. A drive at 8 PM might count as night in November and not count at all in July. The accuracy is good. The tracking burden is on you.
Fixed clock time. A handful of states skip the astronomical calculation entirely and just pick a number. Kentucky says midnight to 6 AM. North Carolina says 9 PM to 5 AM. Oklahoma and Tennessee say 10 PM to 6 AM. South Dakota says 10 PM to 6 AM. South Carolina is the most specific: 6 PM to 6 AM during standard time, 8 PM to 6 AM during daylight saving.
A hybrid of both. New York uses sunset or 9 PM, whichever comes first, through 5 AM. So if the sun sets at 8:15 PM, night starts at 8:15. If it sets at 8:52 PM, night still starts at 9 PM. You have to check both.
The Full State Table
| State | Night Definition | Required Night Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Alaska | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Arizona | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Arkansas | Sunset to sunrise | 0 (none required) |
| California | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Colorado | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Connecticut | Sunset to sunrise | 5 |
| Delaware | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| DC | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Florida | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Georgia | Sunset to sunrise | 6 |
| Hawaii | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Idaho | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Illinois | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Indiana | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Iowa | Sunset to sunrise | 2 |
| Kansas | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Kentucky | Midnight to 6 AM (fixed) | 10 |
| Louisiana | Sunset to sunrise | 15 |
| Maine | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Maryland | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Massachusetts | Sunset to sunrise | 0 (none required) |
| Michigan | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Minnesota | Sunset to sunrise | 15 |
| Mississippi | Sunset to sunrise | 0 (none required) |
| Missouri | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Montana | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Nebraska | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Nevada | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| New Hampshire | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| New Jersey | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| New Mexico | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| New York | Sunset or 9 PM (whichever first) to 5 AM | 15 |
| North Carolina | 9 PM to 5 AM (fixed) | 10 |
| North Dakota | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Ohio | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Oklahoma | 10 PM to 5 AM (fixed) | 10 |
| Oregon | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Pennsylvania | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Rhode Island | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| South Carolina | 6 PM–6 AM (standard time) / 8 PM–6 AM (daylight saving) | 10 |
| South Dakota | 10 PM to 6 AM (fixed) | 10 |
| Tennessee | 10 PM to 6 AM (fixed) | 10 |
| Texas | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Utah | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Vermont | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Virginia | Sunset to sunrise | 15 |
| Washington | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| West Virginia | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Wisconsin | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
| Wyoming | Sunset to sunrise | 10 |
Fixed-Time States Are Actually Easier to Track
There’s an underappreciated benefit to states like Tennessee and Oklahoma using fixed clock times: you never have to look anything up. 10 PM is 10 PM, year-round. Pull up any clock. Done.
Sunset-to-sunrise states are technically more accurate to what “night driving” actually means — driving in the dark. But they put the tracking burden on the parent. Sunset in Atlanta on June 15 is 8:38 PM. On December 15, it’s 5:27 PM. That’s a 3-hour gap. If you don’t look it up, you’ll miscount.
Three States With Zero Required Night Hours
Arkansas, Massachusetts, and Mississippi don’t require a single night hour. You can log all your hours in broad daylight and still be eligible for your license. Massachusetts technically encourages night practice for safety, but it’s not mandated.
If you’re in one of these states, most driving instructors will still tell you to get at least some night experience before your first solo drive. The DMV not requiring it doesn’t mean the roads care.
Why Apps Handle This Better Than Spreadsheets
Manually tracking whether a session counts as night requires knowing today’s exact sunset time at your location. That’s a separate lookup before every drive, assuming you even remember to do it.
Moda uses GPS plus astronomical calculation to detect sunset and sunrise automatically at your exact coordinates. Every session gets tagged correctly — night or day — without you having to check anything. If you’re in New York with the hybrid rule, it handles that too. If South Carolina just switched from standard to daylight saving time and the definition shifted, the calculation stays accurate.
It’s the kind of thing that sounds trivial until you realize you’ve been logging evening summer drives as night for three months and they didn’t count.
Download Moda on the App Store