You could soon be able to renew your driver’s license at a local grocery store. Here’s how

Paul Woolverton, Fayetteville Observer
Updated ·4 min read

A grocery store in Cumberland County in October will be one of the first in North Carolina to get a self-service kiosk where drivers can renew their driver's licenses and license plates and do other DMV-connected paperwork chores, Commissioner Wayne Goodwin of the Division of Motor Vehicles said.

The Cumberland County kiosk will be one of three that the DMV plans to begin testing in October, Goodwin said, as a way to make DMV services more convenient for customers.

This self-serve kiosk was installed in 2021 at a grocery store in Pueblo, Colorado, to allow people to renew their vehicle license plates. The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles plans to put similar kiosks in North Carolina grocery stores and other locations starting in October for people to renew their driver’s licenses and vehicle license plates.

“We want our DMV customers to have as many options as possible,” Goodwin said. “However and whenever they need a DMV service, we want them to have the choice.” Kiosks in stores will be open for far longer hours than the offices and will be available on weekends, he said.

DMV customers will still be able to get services through the DMV's online portal, in-person at License Plate Agencies, and in-person by appointment and with walk-in service at DMV driver's license offices, he said.

By the end of March of next year, Goodwin hopes to have 20 self-serve kiosks operating statewide. These include at least one at Fort Liberty. If these first kiosks prove useful to the general public, more would follow. Here are more details:

Where and when will the kiosks be installed?

In October, the DMV plans to put its first three kiosks in grocery stores in Cumberland, Mecklenburg and Wake counties. It is not yet decided which stores, said DMV Communications Manager Marty R. Homan.

By the end of December, the DMV plans to have seven more kiosks, and to spread them to more counties, Homan said. By the end of the first quarter of 2024, the DMV aims to have 20 installed.

What services will the kiosks offer?

Plans call for the kiosks to offer largely the same services that people can get through the DMV’s online portal, Homan said.

For vehicle services, this includes license plate renewals, property tax payments, address changes and orders for duplicate vehicle registrations. Later on, customers will be able to order personalized and special license plates and renew disability placards.

The kiosks would dispense the new stickers and registration cards, Homan said.

Drivers will be able to renew driver's licenses and state ID cards, order duplicates, change their addresses, upgrade full provisional licenses and pay administrative hearing feeds, he said.

The machines would not dispense the new driver's licenses, just temporary driver's license certificates, as is done at the state’s driver's license offices, Homan said. The customer’s new license comes in the mail a few weeks later.

Will using the kiosks cost extra?

A transaction fee would be levied in addition to the normal fees that the DMV charges for driver's licenses and license plates and other services, Homan said.

This is similar to the $3 transaction fee that customers pay when they renew their licenses and get other services through the DMV’s online portal.

Why hasn’t this been done before?

Many years ago, Goodwin said, North Carolina experimented with self-serve kiosks. They were only offered in DMV offices and they worked poorly, he said. The program was canceled.

Now the technology “has advanced exponentially,” and the general public is more adept at using technology than before, so North Carolina is trying again.

How did Cumberland County get to be one of the first?

Cumberland, Wake and Mecklenburg were picked because those are the only three counties in the state where, by law, the DMV is allowed to operate a license plate services office, Homan said. In the rest of North Carolina, License Plate Agency offices must be operated by private contractors.

Offices for obtaining driver's licenses and state identification cards are separate from the License Plate Agency offices and are operated by the DMV. Goodwin said driver's license services could be offered at kiosks statewide even if license plate services could not.

But the kiosks fall into a gray legal area regarding the law that says license plate services must be handled by private contractors, Goodwin said — the kiosks will be operated by private vendors. Those vendors would collect the transaction fees.

To be certain that the kiosks can offer license plate services statewide, Goodwin said, the DMV has asked the North Carolina General Assembly to clarify the law on that point.

Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@fayobserver.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: NCDMV to launch self-serve kiosks for license plates, driver licenses