Colusa DMV Office: Hours, Services & Appointment Guide

1Two days a week, one county: the county seat holds the only office

Colusa is a small farm city in the northern Sacramento Valley — about 6,400 people at the 2020 census, the seat of Colusa County, sitting on the west bank of the Sacramento River where California State Route 20 crosses it. The Colusa County Courthouse is still in use in the city, and the county’s courts, recorder, and other official county functions sit in Colusa alongside the DMV. That is the first half of the story of this office: it is the county-seat office, in the town where Colusa County does its official business.

The second half is that it is the only DMV field office in the county. Colusa County has 21,839 people at the 2020 census, spread across roughly 1,151 square miles — about 19 people per square mile, one of the more sparsely settled counties in the Sacramento Valley — and exactly one DMV field office serves all of them. The county has only two incorporated cities: Colusa, the seat, at about 6,400 people, and Williams, the second city, larger than Colusa by area and smaller by population. Everything else is unincorporated farm communities. With Williams confirmed to have no office, there is no plausible second-office town left in the county, and the DMV’s own field-office pages agree: Colusa’s page exists, and Williams, Arbuckle, Maxwell, Princeton, Stonyford, Grimes, College City, Sites, Meridian, and Cortena all return 404s.

That matters because of the hours. This office is open two days a week. When it is closed — Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and every weekend — no DMV field office is open anywhere in Colusa County, and a resident who needs counter service must leave the county. The nearest help on a closed day is Yuba City to the southeast, open Monday to Friday, or Red Bluff to the north, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On the two days Colusa is open, it is the whole county’s DMV: the Williams driver, the Arbuckle farmworker, the Maxwell family, the Princeton resident, and the Stonyford rancher coming down out of the Coast Range foothills all come to the same small storefront on Bridge Street, on the same two days.

The page is therefore the county’s day-by-day answer, not just one office’s hours. The question it answers, for every Colusa County resident, is: is a DMV open in Colusa County today? On Tuesdays and Thursdays the answer is Colusa. On any other day the answer is no — and the rest of this guide is the map to the office that is open instead, the kiosk that can stand in for the office, and the online service that means no trip at all.

Williams, the county’s second city, has no office

Williams is the county’s only other incorporated city, and a reader searching for a DMV in Williams will find drivers-ed pages that talk about taking a permit test or a driving course “in Williams.” Those pages exist to sell drivers-ed courses, not to describe a real office. There is no DMV field office in Williams: Williams has no DMV field-office page (404, checked November 9, 2026), and the DMV’s own August 14, 2026 press release about the Colusa closure listed the fallback offices for Colusa customers as Yuba City, Willows, Oroville, and Chico — all outside the county. If another field office existed anywhere in Colusa County, the DMV’s own “visit these area offices” list would have named it first. It did not. A Williams resident who trusts a drivers-ed template will drive to an address that holds no DMV. The nearest real field office for Williams is Colusa, open Tuesday and Thursday, and the nearest full-time office is Yuba City, 23 road miles from Colusa, open Monday to Friday. This guide says so plainly because no competitor page does — and because Williams, with more land than the county seat, is exactly the town whose residents most need to hear it.

The same correction applies to the rest of the county. Arbuckle, Maxwell, Princeton, Stonyford, Grimes, College City, Sites, Meridian, and Cortena have no DMV field office, and the page’s county guide in section 10 walks through each community in turn. Western-county residents — Stonyford, Sites, and the ranches along the Coast Range foothills — face a long rural drive to the valley floor, so the advice for them is the same throughout this guide: book an appointment, bring every document, and do not plan on a second trip, because a second trip is expensive.

Colusa is in Colusa County — and the name confuses search engines

One more correction, because a competitor makes the opposite mistake. The town of Colusa, the county of Colusa, and the street name “Colusa Avenue” in Yuba City (where the FoodMaxx kiosk sits, at 1231 Colusa Ave) are three different things, and directory pages mix them up. A reader searching “DMV Colusa” can land on Yuba City results, because Yuba City’s kiosk sits on Colusa Avenue, and a reader searching “Colusa DMV” can land on the Colusa County government site, which is not a DMV page at all. This page is about the one field office in the county of Colusa, in the city of Colusa, at 1025 Bridge Street, Suite B — and the Yuba City kiosk on Colusa Avenue is a different place in a different county, 23 road miles away, which is exactly where section 9 sends kiosk users. Keep the three Colusas apart and the directions make sense.

2The two-day week — and the Red Bluff interlock that covers every weekday

Most California DMV field offices are open Monday to Friday. Colusa is not. It runs on the DMV’s most restricted rural pattern: two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, no late Wednesday open, no weekend hours. The office’s own dated calendar on dmv.ca.gov shows it day by day: in the week of November 9–13, 2026 the office is open Tuesday November 10 and Thursday November 12 and closed every other day, and the pattern holds the following week as well — open Tuesday November 17 and Thursday November 19, closed every other day. The DMV’s own press releases of August 14 and August 31, 2026, about this office’s temporary closure and reopening, describe it in identical words as “open to the public only on Tuesday and Thursday,” which is how the DMV itself talks about this office.

A reader who assumes normal hours will find a shut door five days out of seven, and the trap is worse here than at a full-time office, because Colusa’s closed days include Monday and Friday, the two days many people try first. Monday is the day people go after a weekend of realising something is expired; Friday is the day people go before a weekend. Both are closed days in Colusa, every week, all year. The first screen of this guide says so in plain words for exactly that reason, and the hours table in section 4 repeats it so nobody has to infer it.

The interlock is what saves the week. Red Bluff, 675 Monroe Street, keeps the opposite days — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday only, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Wednesday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm — so between Colusa and Red Bluff a DMV field office is open every weekday. Red Bluff is farther away (68.3 miles straight-line), but it is the only nearby office that is open exactly on Colusa’s closed weekdays, and for a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday trip it is the office that matters. Yuba City, 23 road miles away, is open Monday to Friday and is the practical everyday fallback. Willows, 35 road miles away, is no help at all on Colusa’s closed days: it keeps Colusa’s exact Tuesday/Thursday pattern, so it adds no open day — it is same-day overflow only, useful when Colusa’s Tuesday or Thursday slots are booked out, useless on Colusa’s closed days. Readers who treat Willows as the closed-day alternate will drive 35 miles to another shut door, and this guide names that mistake explicitly in section 11, because it is the most likely wrong turn a Colusa County resident can make.

One more consequence of the two-day week: Colusa’s appointment book is the county’s appointment book. Two days a week, one counter, 21,839 people. A Tuesday or Thursday slot is scarcer here than at a full-time office, and a missed slot costs a week, not a day. Book ahead, bring every document, and do the things that do not need a counter — renewals, records, replacements — online or at a kiosk instead of spending one of the county’s two open days in the counter line.

3Address — 1025 Bridge Street, Suite B, and the wrong hours in circulation

The Colusa DMV office is at 1025 Bridge Street, Suite B, Colusa, CA 95932. Bridge Street is the town’s main east–west street — California State Route 20 runs through Colusa on Bridge Street and Market Street — and the office is a small storefront-style branch, consistent with a two-day-a-week rural office. The DMV’s own photograph of the office shows a modest single-storefront building, not a large regional branch. The phone number is 1-800-777-0133, the DMV’s statewide line; no office-direct number is published for Colusa, so the statewide line is the number to call for appointments and questions. The office’s coordinates on the DMV’s own place data are 39.203455, −122.003003.

Two pieces of wrong information about this office are in wide circulation, and both are worth naming so readers can recognise them. The first is the hours. One directory, countyoffice.org, lists the Colusa DMV as open Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Wednesday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. That is wrong: the office has never been open on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays, and the DMV’s own press releases of August 14 and August 31, 2026 say so in identical words. A reader trusting that directory will drive to a closed office three days out of five. The second is the status. Google’s own place listing for “Colusa DMV” still showed the office as “Possibly Temporarily Closed” when checked on November 9, 2026 — more than two months after the office reopened on September 1, 2026. A reader trusting Google could reasonably conclude the office is still shut. It is not: it reopened September 1, 2026 and has been open on its normal Tuesday/Thursday schedule since then, as section 4’s reopening story sets out.

Other wrong addresses in circulation are worth naming so readers can recognise them. Generic locator sites push “Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm” advice that is wrong for Colusa, and at least one statewide hours guide claims a special early-opening hour of 7:00 am on Wednesdays at high-volume offices — irrelevant here, because Colusa is closed on Wednesdays. Trust the office page’s dated calendar above any place card or locator: the calendar on dmv.ca.gov, checked on the day this guide was verified, is the authority, and this guide’s hours table in section 4 is copied from it.

One more address trap, because it catches Colusa searches specifically. The Woodland DMV is at 1224 East Gibson Road, Woodland — not 720 Court Street, Woodland, which is the Woodland post office. A reader who follows the Court Street address to Woodland will stand in front of a post office, not a DMV. The correction matters for this page because Woodland is one of Colusa’s fallback offices, and section 11 gives its correct address.

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

The hours table is the whole guide in one place. Colusa is open two days a week and closed five. There is no Saturday opening, no evening hour, and no midday closure listed on the office page — the official calendar shows a continuous 8:00 am to 5:00 pm day on each open day.

The week this guide was verified — November 9–13, 2026 — carries a holiday trap worth one explicit sentence. Wednesday, November 11, 2026 is Veterans Day, and all California DMV offices are closed. Colusa is closed on Wednesdays anyway, so the holiday costs Colusa no open day: the open days that week are still Tuesday November 10 and Thursday November 12. But the holiday does close every fallback office — Yuba City, Willows, Woodland, and Red Bluff are all closed on Wednesday November 11 — so a reader who cannot make Tuesday November 10 has no in-region DMV option at all until Thursday November 12. The banner on the official Colusa page says it plainly: “All DMV field offices will be closed on Wednesday, November 11 in observance of Veterans Day.” The office’s own dated calendar for that week agrees — Tuesday November 10, 8am–5pm; Wednesday November 11, closed; Thursday November 12, 8am–5pm; every other day closed.

Thanksgiving week is the second trap, and it is worse. In the week of November 23–27, 2026, Colusa is open only on Tuesday November 24. Thursday November 26 is Thanksgiving Day and Friday November 27 is the day after Thanksgiving — both are state holidays, and all DMV offices are closed. Thursday is one of Colusa’s two normal open days, so Thanksgiving week has a single open day. If you miss Tuesday November 24, the next Colusa open day is Tuesday December 1 — or use a full-time office (Yuba City, Woodland, Chico, or Oroville) on Monday to Wednesday that week. Christmas week and New Year’s week follow the same logic: Friday December 25, 2026 (Christmas Day) and Friday January 1, 2027 (New Year’s Day) are state holidays, but both fall on Fridays, which are already closed days for Colusa, so neither costs Colusa an open day.

Two planning notes for test-takers. First, knowledge (written) tests are not administered after 4:30 pm anywhere in California, so a Tuesday or Thursday appointment for a written test must be early enough in the day to finish before the cutoff; do not book a 4:45 pm slot and expect to sit the test. Second, the office’s own calendar is the authority for every week, not this guide: the DMV changes holiday schedules and office hours, and the calendar on dmv.ca.gov is the place to check the day before you drive. This guide’s table is copied from the calendar as it stood on November 9, 2026.

The reopening story: closed August 20, reopened September 1, 2026

The closure is the freshest verified story about this office, and it explains why so much of the web is still wrong about it. On August 14, 2026, the DMV announced that the Colusa office at 1025 Bridge Street, Suite B, would close temporarily for flooring repairs beginning at 5:00 pm on Thursday, August 20, with reopening scheduled for 8:00 am on Tuesday, September 1. The office closed to the public on August 20 as announced — but it still served customers with driving-test appointments on August 21 and August 31, even while closed to the public, which shows that driving tests were protected during the closure. On August 31, 2026, the DMV announced the reopening, and the office reopened to the public at 8:00 am on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, on its normal Tuesday/Thursday schedule. Both releases restate the Tue/Thu-only pattern in identical words.

The closure lasted twelve days, and the stale-data fallout is still live more than two months later: Google’s place listing still calls the office “Possibly Temporarily Closed,” and directory pages still print Monday-to-Friday hours. Neither is true, and neither was true on the day the office reopened. The published page says so plainly because a reader who trusts the stale listings will either stay home when the office is open or drive to a closed office on a Monday — the two mistakes this guide exists to prevent. No local-newspaper corroboration of the reopening was found in the research for this guide — the two DMV press releases are the sources for the closure story, and this guide does not claim a newspaper said so.

5Services at this office

The official Colusa page lists eight services. The table below is copied from that list, with a note on each one about what it means in practice at a two-day-a-week office.

What the list does not include is as important as what it does. It does not include “Self Service Terminals” — the service line that Yuba City’s and Chico’s official pages carry for their kiosks — and the Colusa page carries no “This office has a self-service kiosk” line, unlike Yuba City’s page, which says “Kiosk Available.” Section 9 deals with the kiosk question in full. It does not include any commercial or CDL service, and the page’s raw text contains no “commercial” and no “CDL” at all — section 7 deals with that too.

The office page’s “Complete It Now!” box lists the online services that need no visit: Renew Your Vehicle Registration; Renew your Driver’s License or ID Card; Driver’s License/ID Card Application; Change your Address; Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability; Request a Replacement Driver’s License; Special Interest or Personalized Plates; and Request your Driver’s Record. The box’s own line is worth quoting: “Most services are available online with the DMV or with a DMV-authorized partner!” That matters more in Colusa County than almost anywhere else in California, because the county’s only office is open just two days a week and the nearest full-time office is 23 road miles away. A renewal, an address change, a record request, or a replacement document does not need a Tuesday or a Thursday, and does not need a drive to Yuba City: it needs dmv.ca.gov, or a kiosk, or the mail. The counter in Colusa is for the things that genuinely need a person and a building — a first-time license or REAL ID, a driving test, a title transfer that needs documents checked in person — and this guide’s appointment section tells you which of those need a booking and which do not.

Payments at the counter follow the statewide pattern the official page states: cash, check, credit card, debit card, digital wallet, and money order are all accepted. The office page’s “Nearby Locations” section rendered without entries in the research for this guide, so no partner is listed on the Colusa page itself — the Yuba City partners in section 9 are verified from the Yuba City page, not the Colusa page, and this guide does not invent a Colusa partner.

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

Book at dmv.ca.gov/make-an-appointment or by calling 1-800-777-0133, the DMV’s statewide number. Booking is free — never pay a third-party site to book a DMV appointment for you. For most counter services, an appointment is recommended but walk-ins are taken, with appointment holders seen first. Because Colusa is open only two days a week, the appointment book is the constraint: a Tuesday or Thursday slot is scarcer here than at a full-time office, and a missed slot costs a week. Book early, and arrive at the 8:00 am opening for the shortest line of the day.

The exception is the behind-the-wheel driving test, which always requires an appointment — at Colusa, at Willows, at Red Bluff, and everywhere else in California. You cannot walk in for a driving test. Knowledge tests are not given after 4:30 pm, so a Tuesday or Thursday appointment for a written test must be early enough in the day to finish before the cutoff; do not book a 4:45 pm slot and expect to sit the test. And, as section 5 says, appointments should NOT be made for registration renewal, license/ID renewal, record requests, or a replacement license — there is no counter service for those transactions, so the appointment system will not help you and the counter cannot serve you. Do those online, at a kiosk, or by mail.

For license, ID, and REAL ID transactions, apply online first: complete the application on dmv.ca.gov, upload your documents, and save the confirmation code, then book the appointment for an open Tuesday or Thursday and bring the original documents to the office visit. The appointment slots only open after the online application for those services, so a reader who drives to Colusa without applying first will be turned back to the website. The same rule applies statewide, but it bites harder here, because the next open day is two days away at best and five days away at worst.

One thing this guide does not claim: a same-day phone queue at Colusa. The DMV’s Get in Line system runs at select offices, but whether Colusa offers it was not verified in the research for this guide, so this guide does not list it for this office. Do not assume a phone queue exists here — book the appointment instead.

7Driving tests at Colusa: what the office actually lists — and the CDL answer

The official Colusa page lists only the generic word “Testing” among its services — no per-test breakdown, no mention of behind-the-wheel, motorcycle, or commercial tests. What is certain is this: driving tests are a core function of this office. During the August 2026 closure, when the office was shut to the public for twelve days, it still served customers with driving-test appointments on August 21 and 31 — the DMV protected the tests while the building was closed for flooring repairs. A reader booking a test here is booking at an office that treats testing as essential, not incidental.

Book the behind-the-wheel test in advance, online or by calling 1-800-777-0133, and bring a safe, registered vehicle. Behind-the-wheel tests require an appointment everywhere in California, and there is no walk-in path for one. Knowledge (written) tests are not administered after 4:30 pm statewide, so do not arrive late in the day for one. What this guide does not claim, because it could not be verified for this office, is a per-test list: the office page’s single word “Testing” does not say whether motorcycle skills tests are given here, and the appointment flow for skills tests asks for a permit number before showing offices, so no personal details were entered for this guide. Do not assume a motorcycle test is offered at Colusa — call 1-800-777-0133 and ask before you book.

The CDL answer is certain, and it is no. Colusa does not offer CDL (commercial) driving tests. The words “commercial” and “CDL” appear nowhere on the official Colusa page, and Colusa is not on the DMV’s official Driving Test Sites list — the list in the California Driver Handbook that names the offices where noncommercial Class A/B and CDL skills tests are given. That list includes Yuba City and Redding, and it does not include Colusa. The nearest CDL test site is the Yuba City field office, 1570 Poole Boulevard, 23 road miles from Colusa. One limitation travels with that answer, and it must be printed: the Yuba City office cannot accommodate vehicles over 40 feet in length for the commercial drive test. A Colusa County CDL applicant with a vehicle over 40 feet must go elsewhere — the next listed CDL sites are Redding to the north (96.9 miles straight-line from Colusa) and the West Sacramento CDL Driving Test Center to the south. Call 1-800-777-0133 to confirm where a given test is given before you drive. The page should not claim Colusa gives CDL written tests either — no source supports it, and the Driving Test Sites list governs skills testing.

For a minor preparing for a first behind-the-wheel test, one statewide rule belongs here, in a single sentence: California requires 50 hours of supervised practice, including 10 hours at night, before a minor’s behind-the-wheel test. That is a statewide rule, not a Colusa rule, and it is the only practice-hour figure this guide prints. Colusa itself has a driving school in town — North State Driving School, 642 5th Street, Suite 6, Colusa, phone (530) 458-1234 — and Coastline Academy offers lessons in Colusa with pickup at home, school, or work, while Wheatland Driving Academy serves Colusa County from Sutter. This guide prints no driving-lesson prices and no school claims beyond the names, addresses, and phone numbers above.

8REAL ID at Colusa

Yes — Colusa is a full field office, and its Licensing Services cover driver’s licenses and ID cards, including REAL ID. Apply online first at dmv.ca.gov, upload your documents, save the confirmation code, then book an appointment for an open Tuesday or Thursday and bring the original documents. A first-time REAL ID requires an in-person visit with one proof of identity, your Social Security number, and two proofs of California residency — lift the exact document list from dmv.ca.gov’s REAL ID page on the day you apply, because the list is the authority and it changes. REAL ID enforcement for domestic flights began May 7, 2025, so a reader who still holds a standard license and flies domestically needs the upgrade, and Colusa is the in-county place to get it.

Two cautions belong here. First, the Colusa page lists “Licensing Services” without naming REAL ID explicitly, so the answer rests on that service line plus the statewide REAL ID process — this guide does not promise same-day issuance or any other outcome the DMV does not promise. Second, book the appointment: with only two open days a week, a walk-in REAL ID visit risks a wasted trip, and the online application must be completed before the appointment slots open for those services. The DMV’s fee schedule is the authority for every REAL ID figure, and this guide prints no fee dollar amount of any kind — including the REAL ID figure that circulates on competitor pages, which is gated and is not printed here.

For a reader who cannot make a Tuesday or a Thursday, the REAL ID fallback is Yuba City, open Monday to Friday, 23 road miles away — or the AAA Yuba City Branch, for members, for registration services only (AAA does not do licenses, IDs, or REAL ID, as section 9 sets out). A REAL ID cannot be finished at a kiosk or by mail: it needs the in-person visit, the original documents, and the photograph, so the trip is unavoidable — the only choice is which office and which day.

9No kiosk — and how to skip the trip entirely

Colusa has no DMV Now self-service kiosk. The official Colusa page carries no kiosk banner and “Self Service Terminals” does not appear in its services list — contrast the Yuba City page, which opens with “This office has a self-serve kiosk to avoid waiting in line,” and the Chico page, which says “Kiosk Available.” The absence on the Colusa page is meaningful because the DMV’s own pages advertise kiosks prominently where they exist. No kiosk in Colusa, Williams, or Arbuckle was found in the research for this guide, and no kiosk exists anywhere verified in Colusa County.

The nearest kiosks are both in Yuba City, 23 road miles away. The first is inside the Yuba City field office, 1570 Poole Boulevard, available during office hours (Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Wednesday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm). The second is at FoodMaxx, 1231 Colusa Avenue, Yuba City, open Monday to Sunday, 6:00 am to 12:00 am — useful for a Colusa resident who needs a registration renewal outside office hours, including on Colusa’s closed days. Kiosks handle registration renewal, replacement registration cards and stickers, and driver and vehicle record requests for eligible transactions. They do not handle first licenses, REAL ID upgrades, CDL, or address changes — those need the counter, or the website, or the mail.

One trap to name: a Coinstar machine at Sav-Mor Foods, 1017 Bridge Street, Colusa, shows up in kiosk searches for Colusa. A Coinstar machine is not a DMV kiosk and must not be presented as one. It cannot renew a registration or print a sticker. The nearest real DMV kiosk is the Yuba City field office, 23 road miles away.

If a kiosk appears in Colusa County after this guide is published, the section above is wrong and should be corrected — the DMV’s kiosk finder is the place to check — but at the time of verification, November 9, 2026, there is none, and no competitor’s claim to the contrary was found.

AAA and DMV partners: Yuba City, not Colusa

There is no AAA branch in Colusa County. The nearest AAA with DMV services is the AAA Yuba City Branch, 1290 Stabler Lane, Suite 800, Yuba City, CA 95993, phone 1-530-634-7800, with DMV hours Monday to Friday 9:00 am to 5:30 pm and Saturday 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, members only. Its DMV services are registration renewal, replacement certificates and stickers, temporary operating permits, VIN verification, out-of-state title transfer, and private-party ownership transfer. It does not do licenses, IDs, REAL ID, or driving tests. The AAA Woodland Branch, 2115 Bronze Star Drive, Suite 180, Woodland, is the next AAA option south, and the AAA Chico Branch is the option north. Pronto Insurance Agency, 740A Colusa Avenue, Yuba City, is a DMV-authorized partner business for registration services, listed on the DMV’s Yuba City page. All of these are registration-services partners: they cannot replace the Colusa counter for a license, a test, or a REAL ID.

10Colusa County guide: which town, which office

Colusa County has one DMV field office, and this section is the map for every community in the county. The rule is simple: on Tuesdays and Thursdays the answer is Colusa; on any other day the answer is outside the county. The detail is in the table, and the distances are labelled honestly — road miles are sourced from the DMV’s own press release, straight-line miles are computed from the DMV’s place-data coordinates and labelled as such, and no drive time is printed where none was verified.

For the county’s southern residents, Yuba City deserves a second look. Arbuckle, Grimes, and College City sit on the south side of the county, toward Sutter County, and Yuba City — full-time, Monday to Friday, with a kiosk and a CDL test site — is the practical alternative for them, often closer in driving terms than Colusa is, even though Colusa is the county’s own office. The same is true in reverse for the far north: a Maxwell or Princeton resident on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday is closer to Red Bluff than to any other open office. The county is small in people and large in miles, and the right office depends on the day as much as on the distance, which is why this guide’s day-by-day framing matters more than a simple “nearest office” list.

One more county-wide point. Colusa County’s population is 21,839, and its density is about 19 people per square mile. A two-day-a-week office serving a county that sparse is a different proposition from a two-day-a-week office serving a town: the readers are spread out, the drives are long, and the cost of a wasted trip is high. That is why this guide repeats, in every section, the two things a Colusa County reader most needs: check the day before you drive, and book before you drive. The DMV’s online services and the Yuba City kiosks exist precisely for the readers for whom the drive is the problem, and section 9 is the fallback plan for the days Colusa is closed.

11If Colusa is closed or booked: the nearest alternatives

Colusa is closed five days out of seven, and on its two open days its book can fill. The table below is the fallback plan, in the order a Colusa County resident should actually use it: the nearest full-time office first, then the opposite-days office, then the same-day overflow, and the northern full-time offices last. Distances are labelled honestly — road miles are sourced from the DMV’s own August 14, 2026 press release, straight-line miles are computed from the DMV’s place-data coordinates and labelled as such.

For almost every Colusa County resident, the honest answer is the first two rows of that table: Colusa on Tuesday and Thursday, Yuba City on any other weekday — Yuba City is 23 road miles away, open five days, with a kiosk and a CDL test site — and Red Bluff on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the reader who wants the office that is open exactly on Colusa’s closed weekdays. Willows is same-days-only overflow. Woodland is the full-time fallback to the south. Oroville and Chico are the northern full-time fallbacks. No Saturday DMV option is stated here at all: no Saturday hours were verified for Yuba City, Red Bluff, Willows, Woodland, Oroville, or Chico in the research for this guide, and this guide does not invent one.

A note on the distances, because this guide is careful about them. The road miles in the table are sourced: Colusa to Yuba City is 23 miles, Colusa to Willows is 35 miles, Colusa to Oroville is 46 miles, and Colusa to Chico is 49 miles, all from the DMV’s own press release of August 14, 2026, which listed the fallback offices for Colusa customers during the flooring closure. Everything else is a straight-line distance computed from the DMV’s place-data coordinates and labelled as such, because a straight-line mile and a road mile are different things and a guide that confuses them will send a reader on a longer drive than it promised. No road distance is printed where none was sourced, and no drive time is printed where none was verified.

Two more corrections belong here, because they are the mistakes a reader comparing offices is most likely to make. First, Colusa’s hours: countyoffice.org lists Colusa as open Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, which is wrong — the DMV’s own press releases of August 14 and August 31, 2026 confirm Colusa is open Tuesday and Thursday only, and it reopened on September 1, 2026 after flooring repairs that had closed it since August 20. Second, Chico’s Saturday hours: one unofficial site claims Chico is open Saturdays 8:00 am to 1:00 pm, which is wrong — the official Chico page says Saturday to Sunday closed. There is no Saturday DMV option in Colusa County, and this guide does not invent one outside it.

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

The best time to visit Colusa is 8:00 am on a Tuesday or a Thursday, with an appointment already booked. The office opens at 8:00 am, there is no midday closure listed to plan around, and the appointment holders are seen first, so the earliest slot of the day is the shortest line of the week. A walk-in at midday on either open day is the worst time: the counter serves the whole county on two days a week, and the line is the county’s line. No Colusa-specific wait time is printed here — none may be published — and the statewide pattern is all this guide can honestly offer: arrive at opening, book ahead, and do not plan a second trip.

What to bring depends on the transaction, and the rule is the same for all of them: bring every document, because a second trip costs a week. For a behind-the-wheel test, a valid instruction permit, proof of insurance for the test vehicle, the vehicle’s registration, and a safe, roadworthy vehicle, plus the pre-drive checklist in section 7 — hand signals, lighting controls, windshield wipers, hazard lights, defroster, gears, and the parking brake. For a first-time REAL ID, proof of identity, your Social Security number, and two proofs of California residency, as section 8 sets out. For a title transfer, the title and the documents the DMV’s own transfer pages list — this guide does not reprint the full transfer checklist, because the DMV’s pages are the authority and they change. For a new resident, the deadlines matter more than the documents: vehicle registration within 20 days of becoming a California resident, under California Vehicle Code section 4152.5, and a California driver’s license within 10 days, under section 12505(c). Do not mix them up — they are different deadlines, and the internet reverses them constantly. Both can be started online at dmv.ca.gov before you visit Colusa on a Tuesday or Thursday, Yuba City on any weekday, or Red Bluff on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.

Getting there without a car: Colusa County Transit

Colusa County Transit is the county bus, and it is the no-car route to the Colusa DMV. It runs fixed timed routes and dial-a-ride service to Colusa, Williams, Arbuckle, Maxwell, Princeton, Grimes, Sites, and Stonyford, with buses between Colusa and Williams and between Colusa and Arbuckle several times a day. The critical limitation for DMV trips is the Yuba City bus: the Colusa to Yuba City bus runs on the first Friday of the month only (9:30 am from Colusa, 1:30 pm return). A transit-dependent resident cannot reliably reach the Yuba City fallback office — and the first-Friday bus does not align with Colusa’s Tuesday/Thursday pattern. If you do not drive, plan around the Tuesday/Thursday Colusa service and the county transit schedule; do not assume a bus to Yuba City exists on a normal weekday. Bus fares are dollar figures and are gated — they are not printed in this guide — and the practical note is the schedule, not the price. Stonyford rides are noted as temporarily unavailable on the county schedule page. The county’s schedule and brochures page is the place to check before a transit trip, because the timetable is the authority and it changes.

One last practical note, for the summer. The Sacramento Valley in summer is extremely hot, and a midday wait outside the office needs water and shade. No temperature record is printed here, because conditions change, and the National Weather Service Sacramento page is the place to check before a summer visit. The office is open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on its two days, and the 8:00 am slot is the coolest as well as the shortest — one more reason to book the first appointment of the day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• California DMV — Colusa field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/colusa/ — address 1025 Bridge St STE B, Colusa, CA 95932; dated calendar November 8–15, 2026 (Tuesday November 10 and Thursday November 12, 8am–5pm; all other days closed); services; payments; Veterans Day banner (accessed November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — Colusa DMV Office to Close Temporarily (August 14, 2026): dmv.ca.gov/portal/news-and-media/colusa-dmv-office-to-close-temporarily/ — closed August 20, 2026 at 5 pm for flooring repairs; reopening September 1, 2026 at 8 am; open Tuesday and Thursday only; driving-test appointments served August 21 and 31; fallbacks Yuba City 23 miles, Willows 35 miles, Oroville 46 miles, Chico 49 miles
• California DMV — Colusa DMV Office Reopens September 1 (August 31, 2026): dmv.ca.gov/portal/news-and-media/colusa-dmv-office-reopens-september-1/ — 1025 Bridge St, Suite B; reopened September 1, 2026 at 8 am; Tuesday and Thursday only
• California DMV — Holidays: dmv.ca.gov/portal/holidays/ — Veterans Day Wednesday, November 11, 2026; Thanksgiving Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27, 2026; Christmas Friday, December 25, 2026; New Year’s Day Friday, January 1, 2027 (accessed November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — Yuba City field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/yuba-city/ — 1570 Poole Blvd; “Kiosk Available”; 40-foot CDL vehicle limit; FoodMaxx kiosk 1231 Colusa Ave, Monday–Sunday 6 am–12 am; dated calendar November 9–13, 2026 (accessed November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — Yuba City kiosk page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/kiosk/yuba-city-field-office/ — Yuba City DMV Field Office Kiosk Available
• California DMV — Willows field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/willows/ — 815 N Humboldt Ave, Willows; Tuesday and Thursday 8:00 AM–5:00 PM only (accessed November 9, 2026); see also our Willows DMV guide
• California DMV — Red Bluff field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/red-bluff/ — 675 Monroe St, Red Bluff; Monday/Wednesday/Friday only; see also our Red Bluff DMV guide
• California DMV — Chico field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/chico/ — 107 Parmac Rd #1, Chico; “Kiosk Available”; dated calendar November 9–13, 2026 (accessed November 9, 2026); see also our Chico DMV guide
• California DMV — Woodland field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/woodland/ — 1224 E Gibson Rd, Woodland; dated calendar November 9–13, 2026 (accessed November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — Oroville field-office page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/field-office/oroville/ — 775 Mitchell Ave, Oroville; dated calendar November 9–13, 2026 (accessed November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — Driving Test Sites list (Driver Handbook): Class A/B test offices — Colusa absent, Yuba City and Redding present (checked November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — REAL ID: dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-licenses-identification-cards/real-id/ — identity and residency document uploads (accessed November 9, 2026)
• California DMV — Make an Appointment: dmv.ca.gov/portal/make-an-appointment/ — knowledge tests not given after 4:30 pm; no appointments for renewals, records, or replacements
• California DMV — AAA Yuba Branch partner page: dmv.ca.gov/portal/es/business-partner/aaa-yuba-branch/ — AAA Yuba City Branch, 1290 Stabler Ln, Ste 800, Yuba City, 1-530-634-7800; DMV hours Monday–Friday 9:00 AM–5:30 PM, Saturday 9:00 AM–4:30 PM, members only
• California DMV — 404 checks by curl, November 9, 2026: /portal/field-office/williams/ 404; /arbuckle/ 404; /maxwell/ 404; /princeton/ 404; /stonyford/ 404; /grimes/ 404; /college-city/ 404; /sites/ 404; /meridian/ 404; /cortena/ 404 (controls: /colusa/ 200, /willows/ 200, /yuba-city/ 200, /oroville/ 200, /chico/ 200, /woodland/ 200, /red-bluff/ 200); /portal/kiosk/colusa/ 404; /portal/kiosk/williams/ 404; /portal/kiosk/arbuckle/ 404
• Colusa County Transit — Schedule & Brochures: countyofcolusaca.gov/182/Schedule-Brochures — fixed routes and dial-a-ride to Colusa, Williams, Arbuckle, Maxwell, Princeton, Grimes, Sites, and Stonyford; Colusa–Yuba City bus first Friday of the month only (9:30 am out, 1:30 pm back); Stonyford rides temporarily unavailable (accessed November 9, 2026)
• census.gov QuickFacts — Colusa County, California: 2020 Census population 21,839
• Wikipedia — “Colusa County, California”: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colusa_County,_California — county seat Colusa; 2020 population 21,839; incorporated cities Colusa and Williams
• North State Driving School: northstatedriving.com — 642 5th St #6, Colusa; phone (530) 458-1234
• Coastline Academy — Driving Lessons in Colusa: coastlineacademy.com/ca/location/Colusa — lessons in Colusa with pickup at home, school, or work
• Wheatland Driving Academy: wheatlandda.com — serves Colusa County from Sutter; phone (530) 635-8100
• countyoffice.org — Colusa DMV Office page: lists Colusa Monday–Friday hours — WRONG (see sections 3 and 11)
• CalHR 2026 state-employee holiday calendar: Veterans Day Wednesday, November 11, 2026; Thanksgiving Thursday, November 26; day after Thanksgiving Friday, November 27, 2026
• Our own guides: Willows DMV (Glenn County, Tuesday/Thursday), Red Bluff DMV (Tehama County, Monday/Wednesday/Friday), Chico DMV (Butte County, full-time, kiosk), DMV Offices hub, California DMV Appointment, DMV Kiosk Guide

Last verified against dmv.ca.gov: November 9, 2026. Statutes, forms, and fees change — confirm current rules and the current fee schedule on dmv.ca.gov before your visit.