Carson City DMV office shifts to appointments only starting Monday

Starting Monday, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, including the one in Carson City, will end most walk-in services and switch to an appointment-only business model.

Sustained staff shortages and high customer demand hastened the move to eliminate walk-in services at the DMV’s six largest offices in Carson City, Henderson, Las Vegas and Reno.

DMV Deputy Director Tonya Laney says the Department needs the public’s cooperation and is once again urging customers to go “online, not in line.”

“We have seen an actual decrease in use of our online services at the same time we’re facing an ongoing staffing shortage,” Laney said. “The switch to appointments only is the best way to encourage Nevadans to go online while efficiently serving the customers who must come in.”

Beginning Monday, only customers with an appointment will be served at the six metro locations Monday through Friday. Walk-ins will be accepted only for vehicle movement permits, license plate drop-offs, driver’s license reinstatements, past-due debts, kiosk transactions and vehicle inspections.

Walk-in services on Saturdays will remain the same. Offices open on Saturdays will continue to issue return tickets for all transactions until they reach capacity. The DMV’s commercial and rural offices are not affected by this change.

Agency statistics show a 2.4 percent decrease in the usage of online and alternate services between July 2021 and June 2022, compared to the same period a year earlier.

Overall, the Department estimates there are more than 200,000 transactions per year which customers could complete online but choose to visit a DMV office instead.

In-person vehicle registrations and registration renewals made up the bulk of last year’s unnecessary DMV visits. Most vehicles purchased from a Nevada dealer can be registered online, but only 47 percent of those eligible are using this service.

Customers do not have to wait for a renewal notice to make an appointment. Registrations can be reupped 35 days prior to their expiration date, and driver’s licenses can be renewed a full six months before they expire.

The DMV is also reminding customers that if they are unable to keep an appointment, they should take a moment to cancel it. Canceled appointments are available for other customers immediately.

Currently, there are 108 vacant positions in the DMV Field Services Division and 196 in the Department as a whole.

The DMV is running two Field Services training academies for about 35 new employees, but hiring and training new staffers will take time. Anyone interested in a DMV position can submit a resume at dmv.nv.gov/jobs.

While fully staffing the offices will help in the short term, the future of the DMV is online.

The agency is still in the early stages of a four-year, $114 million Department Transformation Effort that will gradually expand online services and fundamentally change the way the agency does business with customers.

Announced earlier this year with a revamp of the DMV website, the Transformation Effort is building the future DMV on the Salesforce platform, a proven technology used by thousands of companies worldwide. The Department is planning to unveil new services gradually over the next few years.

Other important DMV Transformation Effort partners include staff, auto dealers and, especially, the public.