Yes. Remember that teen drivers face stricter regulations and more severe penalties in their early years of driving. The State of Washington has set rules in place for young drivers in order to keep the roads safe despite their lack of experience.
Teens can reach the kind of consequences described on our habitual traffic offender page much faster than adult drivers, sometimes after only one or two tickets.
Teenage drivers start out with an intermediate license. When you’re between 16 and 18, if you get two or more moving violations, you’re going to get a six‑month suspension or you will be suspended until age 18, whichever occurs first. This means your teen is unable to drive to work or school. There is no option to get an occupational license for teens.
If you get three, you’re suspended until the age of 18. A lot of these kids are driving themselves to school and have working parents. While it is an inconvenience for the teen, it is even more so for the parent. They are the ones penalized. If you are facing this kind of suspension oftentimes, we can vacate a ticket or two and restore the license.
It is crucial that you fight these tickets even if it is the first ticket they have received.
Many parents don’t know this and pay their teenager’s ticket instead of fighting it. But if they pay the ticket, and their teen gets a second one, their teen now will have their license suspended for the six months.
Teen Driving Restrictions
For the first six months of driving with an intermediate license, you can’t have anybody else in the car that is a minor or non‑family member. You are under restricted driving hours.
Like everyone else, you can’t text while driving or use a cell phone while driving either.
Moving Violation Penalties for Teens
After your first moving violation when you’re between the ages of 16 and 18 you will get a warning letter. After the next moving violation, you will get a six-month suspension.
Remember too that teens are under additional restrictions. And if you go against those restrictions, that will count as a violation. For example, if you have somebody that’s a minor in your car that’s not a family member, that will count as a violation. It isn’t a moving violation but it will trigger a violation on an intermediate license.
Click here to learn more about suspended licenses and other traffic violation penalties.
What Changes When Your Teen Turns 18
The intermediate license rules above end at 18. Two new requirements start after that, and they work differently from anything on an intermediate license.
If your teen is not yet licensed, a first Washington license issued on or after November 1, 2026 requires passing the Department of Licensing's free Work Zone and First Responder course. It runs about an hour online, ends with a test, and costs nothing. It applies only to first-time applicants under 25, not to renewals. Starting January 1, 2027, applicants who are 18 also have to complete driver education, which the Department describes as reaching people born in 2009 or after. That age ceiling rises by one year annually through 2030.
If your teen is already licensed, the requirement that matters most starts January 1, 2027. A driver who is at least 18 and under 22 and who is found to have committed moving violations on two occasions must complete a safe driving course. The Department allows 180 days from its notice. Miss that window and the license is suspended until the course is finished, with no fixed end date to wait out.
Two occasions is not many, and the statute does not specify a period the two have to fall within. That is a lower ceiling than the three-in-twelve-months rule that applies to drivers generally, which is why paying a ticket during these years is a more expensive decision than it looks.
Read the full breakdown of Washington's new driver license rules for drivers under 25.
What is the penalty for texting and driving?
A cell phone ticket is not a minor paperwork matter, and it is not a non-moving violation. Washington classifies using a personal electronic device while driving as a moving violation under WAC 308-104-160, and the offense itself sits in RCW 46.61.672, inside the same chapter of the traffic code that drives intermediate license suspensions under RCW 46.20.267.
For a teen on an intermediate license, that means an E-DUI counts toward the two violations that trigger the six-month suspension, exactly as a speeding ticket would. It is one of the most expensive tickets a young driver can pay rather than fight.
Want to learn more about texting and driving? See whether a cell phone ticket counts as a moving violation in Washington.
If you need help applying this to your specific facts, contact our office.