I have to give a shoutout to my mom for asking me if my driver's license needed renewal this year (it does!) because the appointments to do so are hard to come by.
They are, in fact, hard to come by. I just booked one yesterday for the Downtown Satellite City Hall and the earliest I could get was a July 7th appointment. In time, but barely.
I also thought, "What? Again? This is still a problem?"
Back in 2018, I got an entire column out of that year's DMV disaster (pardon the paywall).
"Lines for the Department of Motor Vehicles are so ridiculously long that it’s been making the news — and I’ve been right there, trying to renew my driver’s license," I wrote at the time. "I’ve had a Hawai‘i driver’s license since about 1984. In my experience, renewing is a 20-minute job. Not any more."
What I found that year was people camped on the floors of satellite city halls, or in lines out into the parking lot of the main DMV in Kapalama. Part of the issue for everyone, the city included, was the need for all of us to present documents, which city clerks then had to review, to get the new "gold star" Real ID compliant driver's licenses. This was compounded when a city vendor lost tens of thousands of such documents. Those people had to go back again to resubmit their paperwork.
I ended up buying a camp stool to sit in line at the Kapalama service center before 6 a.m. There were 30 people ahead of me, and another 150 behind me when the doors opened at 8 a.m. But I did get a same-day appointment and a renewed drivers license
Well, somehow eight years has gone by and the record number of driver's licenses that needed to be renewed in 2018 all need to be renewed in 2026. Nearly 111,000, according to KHON, out of 967,018 licenses in force statewide, as of 2024.
And the long waits for appointments are back. I'm a bit mystified by this. These should already be Real ID licenses, so there shouldn't be the same paperwork burden clogging up the works. The City & County of Honolulu, to its credit, started offering extended hours and Saturday appointments at selected satellite city halls and driver licensing centers back in January.
Some more permanent fixes seem in order, since this logjam seems like it's going to recur every eight years, like a cicada outbreak.
Why not give half these licenses a nine-year lifespan, so they come due in 2035 instead of 2034?
Or better yet, join the 36 states that let people simply renew online.
Supposedly, we did that back in 2023, when Gov. Josh Green signed into law Act 243, allowing online driver's license renewal. At the time, this change was said to take effect in 2025. But when you visit the City & County of Honolulu's driver's license FAQ and look up, "How do I renew my Hawai‘i driver's license?" the answer is:
"Make an online appointment to visit the Driver Licensing Center or select Satellite City Hall (Downtown, Hawaii Kai, Windward City, and Pearlridge) of your choice. Complete the driver’s license application, bring it and your current driver’s license and provide original documents that provide proof of identity, legal presence, social security number and two (2) proofs of principal address. Names must be the same on all documents. If you have a name change and the names on your documents are not the same, you must also submit the original document that verifies your name change (e.g. Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, Court Documents). For assistance with identifying acceptable supporting documents required to obtain a driver’s license, please consult our interactive Documents Guide or download this document."
(Confusingly, that makes it sound like you have to bring all those documents no matter what, but that contradicts the Aloha Q online booking process, which walked me to steps to determine that I already had a Real ID license and so didn't need to bring all those other documents with me.)
In any case, Act 243 isn't exactly a model of convenience. It requires drivers to submit a doctor's note no more than six months old that they've been examined and are physically cleared for driving, as well as a notarized statement that they don't have a license from another state or country. So, two in-person appointments you never needed before to avoid one in-person appointment with the DMV.
Humbug!
I checked in with the City & County of Honolulu on when the fully online option will be implemented on O‘ahu.
"Mid-2026 is the target date for O‘ahu residents to have the option to renew their Hawai‘i driver’s license online," said Acting Public Communications Administrator Harold Nedd, by email. "That timeframe coincides with the anticipated completion date of a comprehensive technology upgrade to the aging statewide system for processing driver’s licenses and state identification cards. The well-timed new system will make in-person visits to the DMV unnecessary to renew a driver’s license. It simply made better sense to complete the upgrade to the system for issuing driver’s licenses before making the online option for the service available to residents. We also took comfort in language in the state law that allowed the DMV leeway with its timetable for offering the online service to renew a driver’s license. All told, the ability to renew a driver’s license online is part of a comprehensive statewide effort that requires careful coordination of the city’s information technology resources."
In the meantime, if you're holding a rapidly expiring license, take my mom's advice. Visit the city's Aloha Q site to book an appointment. Like, now.
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
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A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
