What is an Occupational License in Texas?

Hello everyone. I’m Deandra Grant, and this is the Ask Deandra video series, where I answer the most commonly asked questions about Texas DWI law on the internet. This coincides with my Ask Deandra blog series, so if you want more information about today’s topic, the link to that blog is down in the description. Today’s question is: what is an occupational license in Texas, sometimes called an essential needs license?

When you are stopped, investigated, and arrested for DWI, it could trigger a process called the ALR process. That’s the subject of another video in the series. But the bottom line is you may be facing a driver’s license suspension. That suspension could come from the ALR process itself, or it could come from being convicted of a DWI. Depending on what your sentence is and whether you have any prior DWIs, that could lead to a driver’s license suspension. So if your license gets suspended for some period of time for any of these reasons in Texas, you can apply for what’s called an occupational driver’s license, which would allow you to drive during the suspension under limited circumstances. Let’s talk a little bit about that, and then there’s another kind of license, so we’re going to compare the two.

The default number of hours on an occupational license is four, but the judge can grant up to 12 hours of driving per day. What that would mean is you can only drive for essential household needs. You can drive to work, you can drive to school, you can drive to the doctor, you can drive to the grocery store, you can drive to court, you can drive to see your lawyer, but you just can’t be out running around. And you have to only drive during the times that the judge allows you to drive.

There is a process. Your attorney would file a petition. The petition can be filed in different places depending on your circumstances. If it’s an ALR suspension, it can be filed with the justice of the peace in the place where you live. It can be filed in the county court in which your case is filed. If you are convicted and get a suspension, then the occupational license has to be filed in the court that suspended your license. So there are little technicalities there on where you can file it, but it’s going to be somewhere in the vicinity of where you live or where you are charged.

Then there sometimes is a hearing. Some counties don’t require a hearing. The judge will just make sure all the paperwork’s there, that you’ve obtained your copy of your driving record, that all the paperwork is correct, and that you have what’s called an SR-22, which is a rider policy that is required to get an occupational license, and we cover that in another video. You have to have your SR-22, you pay all your filing fees, and the judge looks and says, “Everything looks good. The number of hours is correct. I’m going to sign off on this.” Other counties require a hearing where you have to come in, go in front of the judge, explain why you need this license and what you’re going to be driving for, and then the judge tells you how many hours she’s going to give you to drive. So it’s just going to vary from place to place.

Now, let’s say that you’ve been convicted of DWI before and you lose your license, or you were charged with DWI and you had an alcohol concentration of 0.15 or greater, and because of those things you’ve been ordered to have an ignition interlock device installed on any car that you drive. Well, there’s another option, and that’s called an ignition interlock license. When you talk about an occupational license with the 12-hour maximum driving, the other thing that license has is geographic restrictions. You have to specifically ask in your petition for which counties you are going to want to drive in. If you have to drive all over the state for work, then you’re going to list all the counties in the state of Texas, but you may have to explain that to the court. If you’re just normally driving in, for example, five or six counties around where you live, then you would list those counties, and those are the only places that you can drive. And you can only drive during those hours that the judge gives you.

But with an ignition interlock license, all that goes away. You do not have the 12-hour restriction. You do not have geographic restrictions. So long as the judge grants the license and you have an ignition interlock on your car, it frees up your ability to drive.

So why would you get one or the other? Well, if you’ve not been ordered to have an interlock as a condition of bond or as a condition of probation, then you may just want to get an occupational license and take the restrictions for the length of time that your license is suspended. But if the judge has ordered you to have an ignition interlock, either as a condition of bond or a condition of probation, then you should get the ignition interlock license, because then that takes away the time restraints and the geographic restraints, allowing you to drive whenever you want. So those are the two different options.

The bottom line is if your license gets suspended because of a DWI, you do have an out. You do have the ability to request a license that’s court granted. Once the court grants it, it gets shipped off to DPS. DPS processes it and then mails you what looks like a Texas driver’s license, but it’s got your restrictions on it. It says occupational license or whatever on it, and you use that during the term of your suspension. Once your suspension is over, they send you your old driver’s license back.

Another thing to remember: if you get an occupational license or ignition interlock license, you’ve got to keep a copy of the order in your car, because if you’re ever pulled over, the police officer pulling you over looks at your restricted license, says, “Okay, let me see your paperwork,” and is going to want to look and see what the judge ordered. If it’s an occupational license, then you might be driving outside your hours, and the officer could look at it and go, “Oh, you’re not supposed to be driving right now,” and that could cause some problems.

So that’s basically the difference between an ignition interlock license and an occupational driver’s license, and you definitely can get one. They do cost money. There are quite a bit of filing fees, and most attorneys charge to file them because it’s a process. It’s not just you file paperwork and you get it. If you want a time frame, I would say in some counties we can get them fairly quickly. Dallas County, for example, we can get them very fast, same day. We file it one day, go down there and get it signed the next day. Some counties are a little slower, and if they require a hearing, definitely slower. It could take a week. We’ve even had cases where it took two weeks to get a judge to sign off on an occupational. So it really just varies by county. The attorney you hire should know the steps and the fastest way to get you an occupational license.

I hope you find this helpful. If you want more details, once again, go to the blog that is in the description. You should find the URL there. Take care, and we will see you in our next video, because this is a continuing series.