NORTH CAROLINA - If you’re planning to visit the North Carolina DMV, you’ll need to plan ahead.
The DMV added Saturday hours and expanded weekday hours at busier offices, but many online appointments are currently booked out 45 days.
“In most offices, if you want to make an appointment, it's going to be mid-late July… every office is booked for the rest of this month,” said North Carolina Department of Transit Assistant Communications Director Steve Abbott.
North Carolina transit officials are anticipating an unusually high level of activity at DMV offices in the coming weeks as they head into the already busy summer season.
“It's sort of a perfect storm of people coming out as things are healthier, kids coming out after school — they obviously all want to get their license,” said Abbott.
The North Carolina DMV says there are several reasons wait times could increase, including a backlog of thousands of teen driversneeding to take road tests, summer being the busiest season, people waiting to be vaccinated before scheduling appointments and a high percentage of unfilled DMV jobs.
The good news is that many common services like license renewals, vehicle registration and personalized plates can be done quickly online.
As for the Virginia DMV, they say they’re able to serve more customers at offices now that COVID-19 restrictions have eased.
Meanwhile, North Carolina says job vacancies are at more than 16% percent.
“We're just encouraging people if they can, wait 'til the fall. If they can't, see if they can do it online,” said Abbott.
North Carolina has a handful of walk-in offices, but most are appointment only.
The DMV encourages people to check the online system often to see if cancellations have freed up days on the calendar.
