In the aftermath of the U.S. Department of Transportation's September attempt to ban almost all CDL issuance to non-citizens, and its whack-a-mole state-by-state efforts targeting states with large non-domiciled driver populations, one state has actually managed to get non-domiciled CDL issuance back on track.
In November, after courts paused the federal Interim Final Rulemaking (IFR) that aimed to remove CDL eligibility from 194,000 non-citizen drivers, Overdrive surveyed more than a dozen states to see if any had resumed non-domiciled CDL issuance.
Since November, the blanket pause on non-domiciled CDL issuance lost its legal force, but DOT has gone on to individually block North Carolina, California, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota from issuing non-domiciled CDLs.
In January, Overdrive asked many of those same states, plus a few more, for status updates, finding that New Jersey has relaunched non-domiciled CDL issuance.
New Jersey
“The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission continues to issue non-domiciled CDLs in full compliance with Federal and State laws and regulations," a spokesperson from the agency wrote.
New Jersey may in fact be the only state in the country where a non-citizen with temporary work authorization can now get a CDL, as correspondences with other states show.
A July 2025 Overdrive review of all 50 states' non-domiciled CDL counts didn't turn up results from New Jersey, as the state requested $328 to fulfill the records request.
Arizona
Arizona DOT's Motor Vehicle Division "continues to issue in compliance with the new IFR rules," a spokesperson told Overdrive. Basically, even though DOT's IFR got blocked by a court, Arizona still follows the rule that steeply limits CDL eligibility to a few classes of visa holders. "We will continue to monitor the entire situation as it progresses."
Oregon
Oregon filed a comment on DOT's IFR against the rule, arguing that DOT couldn't prove non-domiciled drivers were less safe and that DOT might not have the legal authority to compel states to do some measure of immigration enforcement.
Nonetheless, the state fell completely in line with DOT's de facto ban on non-domiciled CDLs and has no plans to get back in the game just yet.
"Oregon DMV has not resumed issuing non-domiciled CDLs," a spokesperson told Overdrive. "We put a temporary rule in place Sept. 29 suspending the program to comply with the interim federal rule. This temporary rule does not allow for any issuance of limited-term CDLs and CLPs."
Pressed on if the state might seek to get back into issuing non-domiciled CDLs as neighboring California was eager to do, the spokesperson said no.
"We do not have any immediate plans to resume issuance and are seeking input through the rulemaking process -- including a Rules Advisory Committee of interested parties -- to consider options for the program while the federal rule remains uncertain," they said.
Oregon added that it's "one of 18 jurisdictions that have submitted formal comments challenging FMCSA’s rule, which is currently under judicial review."
Washington
King County, Washington, sued DOT looking to have the rule paused, citing the county's many non-citizen bus drivers as essential to its functioning. However, the state remains under federal orders that keep the non-domiciled CDL program frozen.
"We have not" resumed non-domiciled CDL issuance, a spokesperson for Washington's Department of Licensing told Overdrive. "When FMCSA approves our compliance plan, based on their new regulations, we will resume issuing the credentials."
DOT in October called out Washington for failures in its non-domiciled CDL issuance process, including, famously, that the state issued a full term CDL to Harjinder Singh, a non-citizen driver whose fatal crash on the Florida turnpike in August caused a national news firestorm.
DOT gave Washington 30 days to come into compliance in October, but since then 30 days has passed three times. DOT does not seem to be in a hurry to approve state plans to get non-domiciled CDL issuance back on track.
"In October we received a preliminary determination letter from FMCSA that we were not in compliance with the new regulations," the spokesperson told Overdrive. "We sent FMCSA our compliance plan in November and have paused our non-domicile CDL program until the Administration approves it."
Washington, despite seemingly having gone through the steps to get back online, has "no timeline for when that may happen," according to the spokesperson.
Pennsylvania
The Keystone state, under special orders from DOT to come into compliance with federal non-domiciled CDL issuance rules since November, has also not gotten back on the horse.
"Issuance of non-domiciled CDLs and CLPs remains paused per the direction of DOT and its FMCSA," a spokesperson for PennDOT told Overdrive.
Initially, PennDOT said the state's Governor Josh Shapiro, who has sparred with federal authorities over Pennsylvania issuing a CDL to a "wanted terrorist" non-citizen, would carry out an "economic impact" study of the IFR.
However, PennDOT said that with the IFR paused such a study would pause, too.
PennDOT said it looked forward to resuming its collaboration with FMCSA on ensuring safe drivers on the road, but the state has not heard back definitively on if its corrective actions did the trick.
DOT gave Pennsylvania 30 days to get back into compliance back on November 20, which was 54 days ago.
Colorado
On December 23 DOT gave Colorado 30 days to fix a "systemic breakdown" of its non-domiciled CDL issuance, and the state has yet to resume.
"The non-domiciled program remains on pause," a Colorado DMV spokesperson told Overdrive. "The Colorado DMV is committed to full federal compliance and is evaluating any needed updates to its systems, policies and procedures to fully align with federal regulations before any future resumption of non-domiciled CDL issuance."
Besides New Jersey, Overdrive has yet to find a single state issuing non-domiciled CDLs in 2026.
Two owner-operators with non-domiciled CDLs in the country on an E-2 visa, one that requires a non-citizen to make a large capital investment in starting a business in the U.S. (in their case, it was a truck purchase) said they haven't been able to get their CDLs renewed in Florida or elsewhere.
DOT's IFR would have hypothetically allowed E-2 visa holders to get non-domiciled CDLs, but the State Department has paused issuance of visas for truck driving roles.
Elsewhere, other states appear to be holding to DOT's IFR, even if it's not legally in force. Nevada, for example, discontinued its non-domiciled issuance completely. In Georgia, a message on the Department of Driver Services website says non-domiciled CDLs aren't in play anymore.
[Related: DOT's non-domiciled CDL crackdown went down in flames on the Federal Register, but owner-ops love it]
