You no longer need to stay up late to make an appointment with the NC DMV
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NC DMV now makes appointments seven days in advance at driver’s license offices.
- New appointments release at 8 p.m. the night before most weekdays.
- Agency heard complaints about the late release of appointments online.
Midnight is no longer the magic hour when it comes to making an appointment with the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.
The DMV now makes appointments at driver’s license offices seven days in advance. Until this month, the agency made new slots available at midnight, forcing savvy drivers to stay up late to give themselves the best chance at snagging a spot.
But on Feb. 1, the DMV began releasing new appointments at 8 p.m. the night before most weekdays. That means someone could go on the agency’s website at 8 p.m. on a Sunday, for example, to look for a new batch of appointments for the following Monday, seven days away.
The only exception is when the seventh day falls on a holiday.
It’s not clear why the DMV used to make new appointments available at midnight. It may just have been the default time in the computer, which wouldn’t allow an appointment beyond a certain day, said spokesman Marty Homan.
But with appointments hard to come by, word got around that you had a better chance if you could jump online at 12 a.m. to try to get one before they ran out. The timing became yet another reason to be annoyed with the DMV.
“Why does the time to make an appointment need to be midnight? Nothing magic happens then,” a customer asked DMV commissioner Paul Tine during a Reddit conversation last week. “Surely there’s a way so that it doesn’t occur when the vast majority of people would otherwise be sleeping.”
Tine replied that the DMV had heard the complaints and adjusted the time. He also said the agency has increased the number of appointments it makes statewide. Now, when someone cancels an appointment, the slot is made available for another appointment, rather than a walk-in customer.
“The goal is to get to a point where you can check anytime of day and hopefully see availability,” Tine wrote.
The new release time is one of several changes the DMV has made in recent months to try to improve customer service. One big change came earlier this winter when the agency gradually shortened the window for available appointments to seven days from 90.
The DMV says the shorter window gives it more flexibility to direct customers to offices that might have more capacity in a given week. Tine says it has also cut down on no-shows, people who make an appointment and then fail to show up.
Appointments are only available at driver’s license offices. The DMV and its contractors see customers only on a walk-in basis at the license plate agency offices.
This story was originally published February 18, 2026 at 1:56 PM with the headline "You no longer need to stay up late to make an appointment with the NC DMV."
