Alturas DMV Office: Hours, Services & Appointment Guide

1The county’s only office: one of one, and the county seat

Alturas is the largest city in Modoc County — 2,715 people at the 2020 census, down from 2,827 in 2010, at an elevation of 4,370 feet in the far northeast corner of California — and its DMV office is the county’s only one: the two-day-a-week, full-service office that serves the whole county of 8,700 people across 4,203 square miles. That is the honest frame for this office, and it matters because the assumption readers bring to this page is the one the template would have written for a bigger county: that a county this size has several offices, or at least a backup. Modoc County has neither. There is one DMV counter in the county, and it is open two days a week, with a ninety-minute lunch break in each of them.

The county-seat half of the story is the opposite of the Bishop pattern, and it is worth saying plainly because it is the fact that organises everything else on this page. Bishop is the largest city in Inyo County but not its county seat; Alturas is both. It is the only incorporated city in Modoc County, and it is the county seat: the courthouse sits here (Modoc County Superior Court, Robert A. Barclay Justice Center, 205 S East Street), the county offices sit here, and the county’s only DMV counter sits here. One town holds all three. A reader who lives anywhere else in the county — Cedarville, Lake City, Adin, Canby, Likely, Tulelake, Newell — has exactly one town to drive to for any in-person DMV business, and that town is Alturas. Alturas became the county seat when Modoc County formed in 1874, and it has held the seat ever since.

The no-office check is not an assumption. Every other Modoc County town was checked against the DMV’s own field-office pages on November 8, 2026, and every one returns a 404: Cedarville, Lake City, Adin, Canby, Likely, Tulelake, Newell, Fort Bidwell, Davis Creek, and Eagleville. There is no second office to fall back on inside the county line, and the nearest alternatives are all in other counties — or another state, which is the trap section 2 is about.

The county’s scale explains why the two-day schedule bites so hard. Modoc County is 4,203 square miles in total — 3,918 square miles of land and 286 of water — with about two people per square mile, and the 2020 census counted 8,700 residents, making it the third least populated county in California. It is also the only county in California bordered by two other states: Oregon to the north and Nevada to the east. A large portion of the county is federal land — the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service all have employees assigned to the area — and the county’s population is small and spread thin across high desert, lava beds, forest, and ranch land. The one office that serves it is open eighteen hours a week on the clock, and fifteen hours of counter time once the two ninety-minute lunch breaks are subtracted. The week of November 9–13, 2026 is the narrowest kind of week this office has: open exactly twice, Tuesday November 10 and Thursday November 12, and a reader who drives to Alturas on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday finds a closed office, with no other office in the county to absorb the trip.

Alturas itself is worth a sentence, because the page’s readers are often new to the area. Alturas sits at the confluence of the south and north forks of the Pit River, east of the center of Modoc County, at the junction of U.S. Highway 395 and State Route 299, about 20 miles west of the Nevada state line and not far south of Goose Lake. Its name is Spanish for “Heights”, and it was formerly Dorris Bridge, Dorris’ Bridge, and Dorrisville before it was incorporated on September 16, 1901. It is one of the largest cities in the region and a local economic hub — and “largest” here means 2,715 people, which is the scale of the whole county. None of that changes the DMV facts, but it explains why the town feels bigger on a map than its resident population suggests, and why the DMV office’s two open days serve a county that is larger than its headcount.

2The Oregon trap: the nearest DMV building can’t help you

This is the sharpest fact on the page, and the one no competitor has written. The nearest DMV building to Alturas is in Oregon — and it cannot do any California DMV business at all. Lakeview, Oregon is 49.3 miles away in a straight line, about 60 road miles north on US 395, and its Oregon DMV office — 855 South F Street, Lakeview, OR 97630, open Monday and Tuesday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, phone 541-947-4233 — is closer than Fall River Mills, the nearest California DMV office, at 57.2 miles in a straight line. Worse, Lakeview’s office is open on Mondays and Tuesdays: Monday is a day Alturas is closed, and Tuesday is one of Alturas’s two open days. A Modoc County reader who searches “nearest DMV” on a Monday and drives to the closest building will end up in Lakeview, Oregon, where no California license, no California registration, no California title, and no California driving test can be done. Oregon DMV offices serve Oregon.

The page says this in the first sections, not buried in a footnote, because it is the single most expensive mistake a reader can make: a 60-mile drive to Lakeview that buys nothing. The honest frame is the one to carry through the whole page: the closest DMV building is in Oregon; the closest DMV that can help you is Fall River Mills, 57.2 miles southwest on SR 299. Klamath Falls, Oregon is 81.1 miles away in a straight line — also an Oregon DMV office (1909 Austin Street, Klamath Falls, OR 97603, phone 541-883-5720), also useless for California business, and the Sage Stage bus runs there on Thursdays, which makes the trap a bus ride as well as a drive (see section 12). The alternatives table in section 11 lists the Oregon offices with their addresses and hours so you can see how close they are — and marks them, in the same row, as not alternates.

Lakeview’s own history makes the trap more convincing, not less. The Lakeview DMV is a one-person office that closed temporarily in September 2025 for staffing reasons and reopened with its normal business hours on March 23, 2026, after a six-month limited closure — during which Lakeview residents were told to drive to Klamath Falls instead. It is a real, staffed office, and it reopened this year. That is what makes the trap so convincing: the building is real, the hours are real, the reopening is recent news, and the drive is shorter than the drive to Fall River Mills. Everything about it looks like an answer except the jurisdiction.

The same state-line rule applies in the other direction, and it is worth stating for the Oregonians who move south. If you move from Oregon to California, you cannot renew a California license, register a California vehicle, or take a California driving test at the Lakeview or Klamath Falls office. New California residents have the same 10-day license deadline and 20-day vehicle registration deadline as everyone else (see our out-of-state license transfer guide), and the only office in Modoc County that can start that process is the Alturas office on its two open days — or Fall River Mills, or Susanville, on their open days. The Lakeview office is about 60 road miles away and cannot help; the Alturas office is in town and is open Tuesday and Thursday.

There is one more state-line confusion to clear up before it costs anyone a trip, and it is not Oregon at all: Nevada. Modoc County is the only county in California bordered by two states, and the Nevada line is about 20 miles east of Alturas. Reno, Nevada is 141.0 miles away in a straight line, and the Sage Stage bus runs there on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays — none of which is a DMV open day in Alturas. A Nevada DMV office cannot do California business either. If a listing gives you a Nevada address or Nevada hours for an “Alturas DMV”, you are reading the wrong state. This page is the California office, in Modoc County, at 903 W C St, Alturas, CA 96101.

3Address — W C Street, the wrong address, and the ninety-minute lunch

The Alturas DMV office is at 903 W C St, Alturas, CA 96101, at the junction of US 395 and SR 299 in the middle of town. The address is confirmed three ways: the DMV’s own Alturas field-office page prints “903 W C St”; the DMV’s place data gives the same street at coordinates 41.492594, −120.550252; and the reference site dmvca.info gives the same address, 903 W C St, Alturas, CA 96101. There is one DMV office in Modoc County, and this is it.

W C Street is a short street in the middle of Alturas, and it is also the street the California Highway Patrol sits on: the CHP’s Alturas area office is at 905 N. West C Street, about two doors from the DMV, at virtually the same coordinates (see section 10). The office is reached from US 395, which runs through town as the north–south road, and from SR 299, which meets it here. There is no second entrance, no second address, and no “old” address still in circulation that this page needs to correct from the DMV’s side — the address errors for Alturas are not on the DMV’s pages. They are on the aggregators, and they are worse.

The worst wrong address is the one that reads like a guide: dmvchangeofaddress.com prints “1009 Main Street, Alturas, CA 96101” as the Alturas DMV’s address, and repeats it through the whole page. It is wrong. The office is at 903 W C St, and a reader who navigates to 1009 Main Street arrives at the wrong place. The same page is wrong on the days (“open Monday through Friday”), wrong on appointments (“does not take appointments”), and prints a phone number that no official source carries — the only phone number for this office is the statewide 1-800-777-0133, and no phone number of any kind appears on the official office page at all. The page’s one correct claim is that Alturas is “the only full-service office in Modoc County” — and that is the claim this page confirms, with the address corrected.

A second wrong office sits in the search results, and it is a different kind of error: local-tax.info lists a “Modoc County Tag Office” at 108 E. Modoc Street, Alturas, (530) 233-2512, open Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and describes it as the office for vehicle registrations and plates. That is not the DMV. That is the Modoc County Tax Collector’s office, at a different address, with a different job, on a different schedule. A reader who follows the tax-office listing drives to the Tax Collector for DMV business. The DMV office is at 903 W C St, open Tuesday and Thursday only.

The lunch closure is the third fact this section has to get exactly right, because the locked plan itself gets it wrong. The official Alturas page carries a banner at the top and a Location Notice further down, and both say the same thing: “This office is closed from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. for lunch.” Ninety minutes. The locked plan’s file 05 lists a 12:00–1:00 pm lunch closure at Alturas — that is wrong by half an hour, and the page corrects it here rather than repeating it. Fall River Mills and Quincy close 12:00 to 1:15 pm, seventy-five minutes; Alturas closes fifteen minutes longer than either. A reader who arrives at 12:30 pm for a “quick” errand waits an hour, and a reader who arrives at 1:15 pm — when Quincy and Fall River Mills have reopened — still waits fifteen minutes in Alturas. The two open days are 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm: seven and a half hours of counter time per day, fifteen hours a week.

4Hours — two days a week, and the Veterans Day week

The Alturas DMV office is open Tuesday and Thursday only, 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm, and closed Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — and closed for lunch from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm on each open day. The hours below are the DMV’s own calendar for the two weeks it publishes, re-read on November 8, 2026, and they agree with the DMV’s place data and with the full-week table on the per-office reference.

The week of November 9–13, 2026 is the week to plan around, because it is the narrowest week of the year for this office. The office is open Tuesday November 10 and Thursday November 12 only, and Closed Wednesday, November 11 for Veterans Day — every DMV field office in California is closed that day, and the official Alturas calendar shows November 11 as closed (it would be closed on a Wednesday in any case). Monday November 9 and Friday November 13 are closed as usual. So in the week of November 9, Alturas is open two days out of seven, and a reader who misses both of them waits until the following Tuesday — and the following week is no wider.

The calendar behind that paragraph is the DMV’s own two-week view, re-read live on November 8, 2026: Sunday November 1 closed, Monday November 2 closed, Tuesday November 3 open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Wednesday November 4 closed, Thursday November 5 open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Friday November 6 closed, Saturday November 7 closed, Sunday November 8 closed, Monday November 9 closed, Tuesday November 10 open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Wednesday November 11 closed, Thursday November 12 open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Friday November 13 closed, Saturday November 14 closed. Fourteen days, four open days, and the pattern never varies: Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday. The official page also carries the statewide banner: “All DMV field offices will be closed on Wednesday, November 11 in observance of Veterans Day.” For Alturas the holiday costs nothing extra — the office is closed on Wednesdays anyway — but the week still loses its middle day, and the two open days are the whole week.

Thanksgiving week is tighter still, and it is the week after next, so it is worth planning now. The DMV’s official holidays page, re-checked on November 8, 2026, lists Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27 – Thanksgiving, and Friday, December 25 – Christmas Day. Thursday November 26 is one of Alturas’s two open days, so the office is closed for Thanksgiving on a day it would otherwise be open; Friday November 27 is a day it is closed in any case. In the week of November 23–27, 2026, the Alturas office is open exactly once: Tuesday November 24. Christmas Day, Friday December 25, is a day the office is closed in any case, so the Christmas week keeps its normal Tuesday and Thursday. The rule to carry is simple: a holiday that lands on a Tuesday or a Thursday takes one of the two open days away, and a holiday that lands on any other day changes nothing — and the lunch break takes ninety minutes out of every open day, holiday or not.

Saturday is never an open day here, and the page says so plainly because the question is asked constantly. No California DMV field office is open on Saturday as a matter of routine, and Alturas is no exception: the calendar shows Saturday closed in both weeks it publishes, and there is no Saturday pilot, no Saturday appointment, and no Saturday walk-in at this office. The same applies to every other office in Modoc County, because there is no other office in Modoc County. A Saturday errand has three honest options: do it online at dmv.ca.gov, do it at the Redding kiosk if it is a kiosk transaction, or wait for Tuesday.

5Services at this office

The Alturas office offers eight services, and the list below is the DMV’s own “Services Provided” list from the official office page, re-read on November 8, 2026. The list matters because it is the test for the two absences that define this office: “Self Service Terminals” is not on it, which is how the page knows there is no kiosk (see section 9), and there is no separate commercial-testing service on it, which is one of the three signals behind the no-CDL finding (see section 7).

Payments at this office are cash, check, credit card, debit card, digital wallet, and money order — the DMV’s own “Payments Accepted” text on the official page: “DMV field offices accept Cash, Check, Credit Card, Debit Card, Digital Wallet, and Money order.” That is the full list, and it is the same list the DMV prints for its field offices statewide. The page prints no fee amount of any kind, following the office-page policy used across this track: fees change, and a stale fee on a page that is otherwise verified is worse than no fee at all. Confirm the current fee for your transaction on dmv.ca.gov before your visit.

Three transactions deserve a warning because readers assume they are counter jobs and they are not. Registration renewals, license and ID renewals (unless your renewal notice says an in-person visit is required), driver and vehicle records, and replacement licenses get no counter service at this office — or at any California field office, as a matter of statewide policy. They are done online, at a kiosk, by mail, or through a partner. That is the reason section 9 exists: if your errand is one of those four, do not drive to W C Street on a Tuesday and join the counter line, because the counter will send you back to the same online service you could have used from home. The counter is for the transactions that need it — licenses, ID cards, REAL ID, tests, title transfers, and plates, permits, and placards.

6Appointments: how to book, what needs one, and walk-ins

Book on dmv.ca.gov, or call 1-800-777-0133. There are two appointment types in California, and mixing them up is the most common booking mistake on this site: a field office appointment for license, ID card, REAL ID, registration, and title work, and a separate drive test appointment for the behind-the-wheel exam. They are separate tracks with separate availability calendars, and a field office appointment does not book you a drive test. Booking is free — appointments on dmv.ca.gov cost nothing, and any site that charges you to book a DMV appointment is charging you for something the DMV gives away. One aggregator says this office “does not take appointments” — that is wrong, and this paragraph is the correction: appointments are booked on dmv.ca.gov, and the behind-the-wheel test is appointment-only.

An appointment is recommended, not required, for most counter business at Alturas — except the behind-the-wheel test, which is appointment-only, with no walk-in drive test. The recommendation matters more here than at a five-day office, because the book is only fifteen hours of counter time a week: two open days, each split by a ninety-minute lunch break, and every appointment slot in those two days is a slot that cannot be moved to Wednesday. If your errand needs a counter — a first-time license, a first-time REAL ID, a title transfer, a test — book it before you drive. If your errand is a renewal or a record, do not book at all: do it online, at the Redding kiosk, or by mail, and save the Tuesday or Thursday slot for someone whose errand needs the counter.

Walk-ins work through Get in Line, the DMV’s same-day queue. The pattern was verified live on this site on November 4, 2026, through the DMV’s own Service Advisor flow, and confirmed by a second source on November 6, 2026: the queue opens ten minutes before the office and closes at 4:00 pm — so at Alturas, with its 8:00 am open, the queue runs 7:50 am to 4:00 pm on the office’s open days, Tuesday and Thursday. Join the queue when it opens, watch your place, and come in when your number is called. The queue does not create appointments for the behind-the-wheel test, and it does not open on days the office is closed — there is no Monday queue, no Wednesday queue, no Friday queue, and no Saturday queue at this office. And the lunch break splits the queue day: the office closes from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm, so a walk-in who joins the queue at noon waits through the break.

Alturas carries a walk-in warning that most offices in this series do not, and the page prints it in full because it changes how readers plan. The official page’s Location Notice says: “Walk-ins are served as time and space allow. Due to a high volume of customers, you may not be served if you do not have an appointment. Please check back another day. We apologize for any inconvenience.” That is a stronger warning than the standard walk-in line, and it means what it says: on a busy Tuesday or Thursday, a walk-in can be turned away, and “check back another day” means waiting until the next open day — two days later, or five, if the next open day is a holiday. The honest advice is the one the notice points to: book an appointment. A booked slot is served; a walk-in is served as time and space allow.

Two claims about walk-ins that circulate online are wrong, and both are worth naming because they change how readers plan. The first is that walk-ins ended during the pandemic and never came back — that is wrong; walk-ins exist, through Get in Line, at this office on its open days. The second is the reverse: that you can walk in and take a driving test the same day — that is also wrong; the behind-the-wheel test is appointment-only, and no walk-in drive test exists. The honest middle is the one this page prints: walk in for counter business through the queue, book ahead for the drive test, and never plan a same-day test.

The phone number is 1-800-777-0133, and it is the only number. No office-direct number is published for Alturas — no phone number of any kind appears on the official Alturas page HTML at all, which was checked on November 8, 2026, and the DMV’s place data carries the same statewide number, +1 800-777-0133. The automated line runs around the clock; representatives are available Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. If a listing gives you a different number for this office — including the different number one aggregator prints — it is not the DMV’s number for this office, and it was not verified from any official source.

7Driving tests at Alturas: drive, motorcycle, written — and the CDL answer

The Alturas office offers three of the four test types: the behind-the-wheel drive test, the motorcycle skills test, and the written knowledge test. The fourth — the commercial driving test, the CDL test — is the one this section has to be careful about, because the answer is no, and the page shows its work rather than asking the reader to trust it.

The three verified tests are confirmed two ways each. The behind-the-wheel test, the motorcycle test, and the written test are all on the office’s own “Testing” service, and the reference data confirms all three, with REAL ID alongside them. The written test carries the statewide rule that applies everywhere in California: written and knowledge tests are not offered after 4:30 pm, so a 4:00 pm arrival for a written test at an office that closes at 5:00 pm is already too late to start one — and at Alturas, where the last counter hour before the 5:00 pm close is 1:30 to 5:00 pm after the lunch break, the practical window is shorter still. The behind-the-wheel test is appointment-only everywhere in California, and Alturas is no exception — the appointment is booked through the separate drive-test track, not the field-office track, and the test itself is taken at the office on the day you booked.

The CDL answer is no, and it is no three ways, with no source saying yes. First, the reference site dmvca.info lists “CDL test: not offered” for Alturas, verified June 6, 2026 — the same page that lists the drive, motorcycle, and written tests as offered. Second, the DMV’s own “Driving Test Sites” handbook page, which lists the 29 offices where a noncommercial Class A or Class B driving test can be booked by phone at 1-800-777-0133 — Arleta, Bakersfield, Bishop, Capitola, Compton, El Centro, Escondido, Eureka, Fremont, Fresno, Fullerton, Lancaster, Modesto, Montebello, Oakland-Coliseum, Rancho San Diego, Redding, Salinas, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Santa Teresa, Stockton, Torrance, Ukiah, Vallejo, Ventura, Visalia, West Sacramento, and Yuba City — does not include Alturas. Third, the official Alturas office page’s own text contains no “commercial” anywhere. Three signals, all pointing the same way, and no source pointing the other way. The page therefore says plainly: no CDL test at Alturas. If you need a commercial test, the nearest confirmed CDL test site is Redding, 114.6 miles away in a straight line, which is on the DMV’s phone-booking list. Call 1-800-777-0133 before you travel for any commercial test, because CDL skills tests are booked by phone, not online.

That finding is also the reason the page does not print the permit-test question count that one driving-education site prints for Modoc County. Question counts are a banned topic on this site — they are never printed as fact, for any office — and the DMV publishes no test route for any office, so this page prints no route either. What the page does print is the practical sequence: pass the written test first, book the behind-the-wheel test through the drive-test track, and arrive with the vehicle, the permit, and the documents the test requires. New drivers and teens should read our teen permit practice guide and our learners permit guide before booking, and new California residents should read the out-of-state license transfer guide — a valid out-of-state license waives the behind-the-wheel test, but it does not waive the knowledge test.

8REAL ID at Alturas

REAL ID is offered at the Alturas office, and a first-time REAL ID is an in-person visit with original documents — that is the statewide rule, and it applies here exactly as it applies everywhere in California. The office’s own service list carries Licensing Services, which is the service a REAL ID application sits under, and the reference data confirms the REAL ID chip for this office. What the page will not do is repeat the stale dates that circulate about REAL ID enforcement: the enforcement date that matters is the one the DMV and the Transportation Security Administration publish, and the page’s rule is to confirm it on dmv.ca.gov before your visit rather than to print a date that has already moved once.

The practical consequence of the two-day schedule is sharper for REAL ID than for any other counter transaction, because a first-time REAL ID cannot be done online, cannot be done at a kiosk, and cannot be done by mail. It has to be done in person, at a field office, on a day the office is open — and this office is open two days a week, with a ninety-minute lunch break in each of them. If you need a first-time REAL ID in Modoc County, your options are Tuesday or Thursday at 903 W C St, or the Fall River Mills office’s two open days, or the Susanville office’s three open days. There is no Saturday REAL ID appointment at this office, and there is no walk-in REAL ID that skips the document check. Bring originals only — no photocopies — and bring the full document set the DMV lists for a REAL ID: proof of identity, proof of Social Security number, and two proofs of California residency. The document checklist on this site walks through the full list, and the REAL ID appointment guide covers the in-person rule and the booking track in detail.

One more REAL ID fact belongs here because it is the question readers ask after they have the card: a REAL ID issued in another state does not transfer to California. If you move to California from Oregon — or from any other state — you apply for a California REAL ID as a first-time applicant, in person, with originals, at a California field office. The Lakeview office cannot issue you a California REAL ID, and neither can the Klamath Falls office or any Oregon office. The Alturas office can, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and so can Fall River Mills and Susanville on their open days.

9No kiosk — and how to skip the trip entirely

There is no self-service kiosk at the Alturas DMV office, and there is no DMV kiosk verified anywhere in Modoc County. The finding is confirmed two ways: “Self Service Terminals” is not on the DMV’s own eight-item services list for this office, and the DMV’s kiosk page for this office — /portal/kiosk/alturas-field-office/ — returns a 404. The same two checks were run for Fall River Mills, Mt Shasta, Quincy, and Susanville, and all four are also kiosk-free; Redding is the exception in the region, and its kiosk is not in the field office at all — it is a retail terminal inside FoodMaxx. The nearest verified kiosk is that FoodMaxx terminal, 1330 Churn Creek Road, Redding, CA 96003, open Monday to Sunday 6:00 am to 12:00 am, 112.8 miles away in a straight line. The Chico field-office kiosk is farther, 139.3 miles away in a straight line, so Redding is the nearest by either measure.

That absence matters because the kiosk is the fastest way to finish the four transactions that get no counter service: registration renewals, license and ID renewals (unless your notice says in person), driver and vehicle records, and replacement licenses. At an office with a kiosk, those four take minutes at a terminal. At Alturas, they take a drive to Redding, or they take the online service, or they take the mail. The table below is the honest version of the choice, and it is the table to read before you decide whether the trip to W C Street is the trip you need.

No DMV partner business is listed on the official Alturas page either. The nearby-locations block on the office page renders as a map embed with no partner entries in the fetched HTML, re-read on November 8, 2026 — a verified absence, not a missing lookup. For contrast, the official Redding page does list partners, so the absence here is a fact about this office, not a gap in the research. Do not invent an Alturas partner, and do not pay a business that claims to be one unless it appears on the DMV’s own partner list. The same rule applies to AAA, with one difference from the other two-day offices in this series: no AAA branch was found in Alturas or anywhere in Modoc County, but the nearest AAA branch with DMV services was verified, so this page names it: AAA Redding Branch, 943 Mission De Oro Drive, Redding, CA 96003, 1-530-722-1600, Monday to Friday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, members only — about 113 miles away in a straight line. AAA members who need a registration renewal done at a branch must travel to Redding, and the page says so with the address and hours, rather than guessing where.

The full kiosk picture for the region is on our DMV kiosk guide, which covers what kiosks handle, where they are, and which renewals and records can be finished without the counter line. For Alturas readers the summary is one line: the kiosk you need is in a Redding grocery store, the online service is at dmv.ca.gov, and the counter on W C Street is for the transactions that need a person.

10Modoc County guide: which town, which office

Every town in Modoc County uses the same office: Alturas. That is the whole guide, and the table below is the proof of it — ten towns, all checked against the DMV’s own field-office pages on November 8, 2026, all returning 404. The distances are straight-line distances from the Alturas office, computed from town coordinates, and they are printed so a reader can see how far the one office is from the town they live in — and so a reader who finds a listing for a “Cedarville DMV” or a “Tulelake DMV” knows it is not a DMV field office.

* Straight-line distances, computed from town coordinates. Road distances are longer.

The two towns that need a sentence each are Cedarville and Tulelake, because they are the ones where a reader might reasonably expect an office and be wrong. Cedarville sits 19.7 miles southeast of Alturas on SR 299, toward the Nevada line, and it is the largest town in the Surprise Valley — but there is no DMV office in Cedarville, and the Surprise Valley’s readers drive west to Alturas on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tulelake sits 57.4 miles northwest of Alturas, up by the Oregon line, and it is the town the Yreka page names as the eastern end of the Tulelake Basin — the basin that lost its own DMV office for good, and whose residents now drive west to Yreka or east to Alturas. There is no DMV office in Tulelake, and there is no DMV office in Newell, the basin’s other town, either. Both towns use Alturas, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and both are far enough that the drive is the hard part and the wait for the open day is the harder part.

The county’s other institutions sit in Alturas too, and they are the ones a DMV visit often pairs with. Modoc County Superior Court’s traffic division is at the Robert A. Barclay Justice Center, 205 S East Street, Alturas, CA 96101, phone 530-233-6516 — the sole Superior Court traffic division for all of Modoc County, and the place a traffic ticket is handled rather than the DMV office. The court’s counter and phone hours were not verified for this page, so they are not printed here. The California Highway Patrol’s Alturas area office is at 905 N. West C Street, Alturas, CA 96101, phone (530) 708-9000, open Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm — on the same street as the DMV, about two doors away, and it patrols Modoc County as part of the CHP’s Northern Division. The court address and phone are from the court’s own site; the CHP address and hours are from the CHP’s own area-office page.

11If Alturas is closed or booked: the nearest alternatives

When Alturas is closed — which is five days out of seven — or when its two open days are booked, the alternatives split into two groups, and the split is the whole point of this section: the California offices that can help you, and the Oregon offices that cannot. The table lists both groups together, in distance order, so the trap is visible in the same place as the answer. The Oregon rows are marked as not alternates, in the row itself, because a table that lists Lakeview without the warning is a table that sends a reader to Oregon.

* Straight-line distances, computed from the DMV’s place-data coordinates (Alturas office 41.492594, −120.550252; Yreka office 41.702574, −122.645547; Oregon offices from town coordinates; Fall River Mills, Susanville, Mt Shasta, Quincy, Redding from town coordinates). Road distances are longer. No sourced road distance was found for Alturas to any of these offices — do not print one; straight-line figures only. † Redding’s hours and CDL flag are the standard full-time pattern plus the DMV’s 29-office phone list (Redding IS on it) — confirm on dmv.ca.gov before you travel.

Fall River Mills is the answer for almost every “Alturas is closed” problem on a Tuesday or Thursday, and the page says why in one paragraph. It is the nearest California office at 57.2 miles in a straight line southwest on SR 299, it keeps Alturas’s own days — Tuesday and Thursday only, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, with its own lunch closure from 12:00 to 1:15 pm — and it offers the same three tests and REAL ID. It has no kiosk and no CDL test either, so it is an alternative on the same two days, not on the other three. One warning carries over from the Fall River Mills page itself: its lunch break is seventy-five minutes, fifteen minutes shorter than Alturas’s, so a reader who arrives at 1:15 pm in Fall River Mills is served, and a reader who arrives at 1:15 pm in Alturas still waits fifteen minutes.

Susanville is the answer for the days Fall River Mills’s pattern does not cover, and it is the interlock that makes the far northeast workable. Susanville is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday only — Monday and Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Wednesday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm — which is the exact complement of Alturas’s Tuesday and Thursday. Together the two offices cover every weekday: on Tuesdays and Thursdays Alturas is open and Susanville is closed; on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Susanville is open and Alturas is closed. Neither is open on a weekend. Susanville has no kiosk and no CDL test, so CDL business still goes to Redding, but for a license, a REAL ID, a title, or a drive test on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, Susanville is the office that is open. Our Susanville DMV guide covers its Mon/Wed/Fri hours, its own lunch-free schedule, and the Quincy Tuesday/Thursday interlock in the same region. Yreka, at 109.2 miles in a straight line, keeps Susanville’s days too — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday only — so it is a second option on the same three days, and our Yreka DMV guide covers its Mon/Wed/Fri hours and the Mt Shasta Tuesday/Thursday interlock in the same county.

Redding is the far inland alternate, 114.6 miles in a straight line via SR 299 west, and the page flags its row honestly: the distance is computed from town coordinates rather than office coordinates, and its hours and CDL flag are the standard full-time pattern plus the DMV’s 29-office phone list rather than figures re-verified for this page. Confirm Redding on dmv.ca.gov before you travel. Redding is the nearest full-time office, the nearest confirmed CDL test site, and the home of the nearest kiosk — the FoodMaxx terminal at 1330 Churn Creek Road, 112.8 miles away in a straight line — which is why it is the answer for the three problems Alturas cannot solve at all: a CDL test, a kiosk transaction, and a Saturday errand. Mt Shasta and Quincy, at 92.1 and 109.5 miles in a straight line, keep Alturas’s own days — Tuesday and Thursday only, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm — so they are alternatives on the same two days, not on the other three, and neither has a kiosk or a CDL test. Their guides are not live on this site yet — Mt Shasta is scheduled in this same track and Quincy publishes later today — and they will be linked when they publish.

12Best time to visit — what to bring — and getting there without a car

The best time to visit the Alturas office is the earliest slot on a Tuesday or a Thursday, and the reason is arithmetic: two open days a week, fifteen hours of counter time, and a whole county plus the Tulelake Basin sharing it. Book the first appointment of the day if you can, arrive with the documents already gathered, and do not plan a Tuesday-or-Thursday trip around a storm without a backup day — US 395 and SR 299 both close in stretches in winter weather, and a missed Tuesday is a wait until Thursday, and a missed Thursday is a wait until the following Tuesday. The week of a holiday is worse: Thanksgiving week 2026 has a single open day, Tuesday November 24, and the week of Veterans Day has two. The day before and the day after a holiday are the busiest days at any DMV office, so plan a full week before or after a major holiday period whenever you can. And plan around the lunch break: the morning window is 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and the afternoon window is 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm, and an appointment booked for 12:30 pm does not exist.

What to bring depends on the errand, and the table below is the short version. The long version is the document checklist on this site, and the rule that covers every row is the same: originals only, no photocopies, and the renewal notice or appointment confirmation in hand before you leave home.

Getting there without a car is possible, and it is the Sage Stage bus that makes it possible. Sage Stage is the Modoc Transportation Agency’s bus service, operated by Transdev since 2019, with more than 10,000 passenger trips a year. It runs four intercity routes, all departing from the corner of Main and West Fifth (Rite Aid) in Alturas: Reno, Nevada on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (one round trip each day, connecting with Greyhound, Amtrak, and Reno/Tahoe International Airport); Redding, California on Tuesdays (one round trip, connecting with Amtrak and Greyhound) — temporarily suspended since Tuesday, May 19, 2026, due to Caltrans rock-fall mitigation work on SR 299, so the Tuesday bus to the nearest full-time office does not currently run; Klamath Falls, Oregon on Thursdays (one round trip through Tulelake); and Canby (the shortest of the four routes, via CA 299). Reservations are required for intercity trips — call (530) 233-6410 at least one day in advance — and walk-ons are accepted on a space-available basis only at Alturas Rite Aid, Susanville Walmart, and Burney McDonald’s. The local bus runs Monday through Friday within 10 miles of Alturas, door to door, in three zones — Zone 1 (within the city of Alturas) $1.00, Zone 2 (to Modoc Estates) $2.00, Zone 3 (to California Pines) $3.00 — with Zone 3 requiring a reservation the day before by 4:00 pm, and California Pines served on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. Local bus phone: (530) 233-3883. The Sage Stage office is at 108 S Main St, Alturas.

The bus schedule mirrors the DMV schedule in the cruellest way, and the page says so because it is the detail that decides whether a carless reader can reach the office at all. The Redding bus runs on Tuesdays — one of Alturas’s open days — but it is suspended, so the Tuesday bus to the nearest full-time office does not currently run. The Klamath Falls bus runs on Thursdays — the other open day — and it goes to an Oregon town whose DMV cannot do California business. The Reno bus runs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays — the three days Alturas is closed. So a reader without a car has the local dial-a-ride bus within 10 miles of Alturas, and the intercity buses to other towns, but no bus that takes them to another California DMV office on a day Alturas is closed — except the suspended Tuesday Redding bus, which is the one that would have done exactly that. Check sagestage.com before you travel: the suspension is temporary, and the Redding route is the one to watch for.

Driving to the office is straightforward and unforgiving in the same measure. The DMV sits on W C Street, just off US 395 at its junction with SR 299 in the middle of Alturas. US 395 is the north–south road: north to Lakeview, Oregon (and the Oregon DMV that cannot help), south to Susanville and Reno, Nevada. SR 299 is the east–west road: west to Fall River Mills and Redding, east to Cedarville and the Nevada line. There is no alternate road south to Susanville — US 395 is it — and no alternate road west to Fall River Mills — SR 299 is it. In winter, both roads climb high desert and can close or require chains in storms. Check Caltrans before a winter drive, and never plan a Tuesday-or-Thursday-only trip around a storm without a backup day.

Flying is the last option, and it is a thin one. Alturas Municipal Airport is the local general-aviation airport, and California Pines Airport is also nearby; neither has commercial service, and both are single-source figures, flagged as such. The nearest commercial airport is Reno/Tahoe International, reached by the Sage Stage Reno bus on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays — none of which is a DMV open day in Alturas. Do not fly in for a DMV appointment: the office is open two days a week, and a flight that lands on a Monday buys a closed office.

The high desert is the reason many readers are in Alturas at all, and it belongs in this section because it is the context a visitor needs, not because it changes the DMV facts. Goose Lake sits just north of Alturas on the Oregon line; the Warner Mountains rise to the east; the Modoc National Forest surrounds the county. A visitor who pairs a Goose Lake or Warner Mountains trip with a DMV errand should pair them on a Tuesday or a Thursday, and should not assume the town’s size as a county seat means a full-time office — it does not.

Driving schools are the last gap to close honestly. No in-person behind-the-wheel driving school was verified in Alturas or anywhere in Modoc County. The only verified option is Drivers Ed Direct’s DMV-approved online drivers-ed course, which serves Modoc County and Alturas teens, Modoc High School, Modoc Charter, and home-study students. The course’s own page notes the rule that matters here: after the online course, a teen needs at least one lesson with an approved driving school to activate the permit — and in Modoc County that lesson means a trip out of the county, because no in-person school was verified in it. The nearest verified in-person school was not verified for this page, so none is named. One online traffic-violator school serves Modoc County — Best Online Traffic School, DMV-approved and accepted by the Modoc County courts, serving Alturas, Canby, Newell, and California Pines — but it exists for masking a ticket after a citation, not for learning to drive, and the page keeps the two jobs separate. Its license number is printed by the school itself and was not verified on the DMV’s own lookup, so it is not printed here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• California DMV — Alturas Field Office (address, hours calendar Nov 1–14, lunch notice 12:00–1:30 pm, 8 services, payments, walk-in warning, Veterans Day banner; no phone number in the page HTML): dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/alturas/
• California DMV — Fall River Mills / Mt Shasta / Quincy field-office pages (addresses, calendars Nov 1–14, services, lunch notices: Fall River Mills 12:00–1:15 pm, Quincy 12:00–1:15 pm, Mt Shasta none): dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/fall-river-mills/
• California DMV — “Driving Test Sites” handbook page (noncommercial Class A / Class B phone-booking list of 29 offices — Alturas NOT on it; Redding IS)
• California DMV — DMV Holidays (all offices closed Wednesday, November 11, Veterans Day; Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27, Thanksgiving; Friday, December 25, Christmas Day): dmv.ca.gov/portal/holidays/
• California DMV — field-office slug status checks (Nov 8, 2026): 404 = cedarville, lake-city, adin, canby, likely, tulelake, newell, fort-bidwell, davis-creek, eagleville; 200 = alturas, fall-river-mills, mt-shasta, quincy
• California DMV — kiosk page status checks (Nov 8, 2026): 404 = alturas-field-office, redding-field-office; 200 = chico-field-office, yuba-city-field-office
• California DMV — place data, Alturas DMV (coords 41.492594, −120.550252; phone +1 800-777-0133; place_id 1505264246657298; Tue/Thu 8:00 AM–12:00 PM + 1:30 PM–5:00 PM) and Yreka (straight-line distances computed from these coordinates)
• California DMV — Redding field-office page (FoodMaxx kiosk, 1330 Churn Creek Rd, Mon–Sun 6:00 am–12:00 am; AAA Redding Branch, 943 Mission De Oro Dr, 1-530-722-1600, Mon–Fri 9–6, Sat 9–5, members only)
• dmvca.info — Alturas DMV page (Tue/Thu 8:00 AM–12:00 PM, 1:30 PM–5:00 PM; closed 12:00–1:30 PM for lunch; REAL ID / drive / motorcycle offered; CDL test: not offered; DMV Now kiosk: No; verified June 6, 2026; closure checked Oct 31, 2026), appointments guide (appointment recommended not required; drive test appointment-only; CDL by phone)
• Oregon DMV (oregon.gov) — Lakeview DMV (855 South F St; 9:00 am–5:00 pm Mon/Tue; 541-947-4233) and Klamath Falls DMV (1909 Austin St; 8:00 am–5:00 pm Mon/Tue; 541-883-5720) — place data (straight-line distances computed from town coordinates)
• Oregon DMV — Lakeview DMV reopening bulletin, March 9, 2026 (reopened Mar 23, 2026 after a six-month limited closure; “Residents have had to drive to the next closest office in Klamath Falls”): content.govdelivery.com
• Wikipedia “Alturas, California” (2,715 in 2020; 2,827 in 2010; only incorporated city; county seat; elevation 4,370 ft; incorporated September 16, 1901; Pit River confluence; US 395 + SR 299; about 20 mi west of Nevada line; Goose Lake) and “Modoc County, California” (8,700 in 2020; third least populated; 4,203 sq mi; bordered by Oregon and Nevada; formed February 17, 1874) and “Sage Stage” (4 routes; Main & W 5th departure; intercity fares — single source, flagged)
• Wikipedia API — town coordinates for Cedarville, Davis Creek, Canby, Adin, Fort Bidwell, Tulelake, Fall River Mills, Mount Shasta, Quincy, Susanville; OpenStreetMap Nominatim — town coordinates for Eagleville, Lake City, Likely, Newell
• Sage Stage (sagestage.com) — About page (Reno Mon/Wed/Fri; Redding Tue; Klamath Falls Thu; reservations (530) 233-6410), suspension notice (Tuesday Redding route suspended since May 19, 2026, Caltrans SR 299 rock-fall mitigation), local-bus page (zones $1.00/$2.00/$3.00; Cal Pines Tue/Thu; (530) 233-3883; office 108 S Main St)
• Modoc County Superior Court — Robert A. Barclay Justice Center (205 S East Street, Alturas, CA 96101; 530-233-6516): modoc.courts.ca.gov
• California Highway Patrol — (170) Alturas area office (905 N. West C Street, Alturas, CA 96101; (530) 708-9000; Mon–Fri 8:00 am–5:00 pm): chp.ca.gov
• Drivers Ed Direct — Modoc County drivers ed (online DMV-approved course; Alturas teens; Modoc High School, Modoc Charter, home study): driverseddirect.com
• Best Online Traffic School — Modoc County traffic school (DMV-approved, court-accepted; Alturas, Canby, Newell, California Pines; court address 205 S East St, 530-233-6516): bestonlinetrafficschool.co
• Modoc County Office of Education — recruitment brochure (county seat Alturas; only incorporated city; 3,944 sq mi figure NOT used — outlier vs Wikipedia/californiaview 4,203)
• californiaview.org — Modoc County California (4,203 sq mi; 3,918 land; 286 water; 8,700; third least populated)
• numismaticnews.net — “Where the West Still Lives” (county seat; only incorporated town; elevation 4,370 ft; population 2,715; about 20 miles west of the Nevada State Line; south of Goose Lake)
• dmvchangeofaddress.com — Alturas DMV page (wrong address “1009 Main Street”, wrong “open Monday through Friday”, wrong “does not take appointments”, an unverified phone number — all logged as wrong); Klamath Falls DMV page (wrong address “2618 South 6th Street” — logged as wrong); driving-test appointment guides (partly wrong “book through dmv.ca.gov, not by phone”)
• local-tax.info — Modoc County tag office (108 E. Modoc Street, (530) 233-2512 — the Tax Collector, not the DMV; logged as the wrong-office trap)
• dmvdetails.com — California DMV appointment guide (Nov 6, 2026; Get in Line pattern; commercial test centers Fontana/Fresno/Gardena/Salinas/West Sacramento)
• cadmvnowkiosk.com — FoodMaxx Redding kiosk (1330 Churn Crk Rd; coords 40.587731, −122.352488)
• AAA — Redding Branch (943 Mission De Oro Dr, Redding, CA 96003; 1-530-722-1600; Mon–Fri 9–6, Sat 9–5; members only): aaa.com place data
• Site’s own November 4, 2026 live Service Advisor verification — Get in Line hours (Mon–Fri 7:50–4:00; Wed 8:50–4:00)
• Site’s own pages — /dmv-offices/yreka/ (page 2355; Alturas verified at build: 903 W C St, Tue/Thu 8–5; its alternatives table lists Alturas with the distance “Not stated — unverified” — now verified 109.2 miles straight-line at this build) and /dmv-offices/susanville/ (page 2540; Mon/Wed/Fri; no kiosk; no CDL; nearest kiosk Chico)
• Research brief: ~/workspace/dmv-research/hidden_files/deep-dmv-offices-alturas.md (November 8, 2026)
• californiadmvappointment.us/dmv-offices/alturas/ — 404 at brief and build time (dedupe passed, November 8, 2026)

Last verified against dmv.ca.gov: November 8, 2026. Statutes, forms, and fees change — confirm current rules and the current fee schedule on dmv.ca.gov before your visit.