In Pennsylvania, all drivers, regardless of age, must obtain a learner’s permit before taking the driving (road) test for a driver’s license. The learner’s permit allows you to practice driving under supervision. (If you’re under 18, a parent, guardian, or adult spouse must submit a form giving their signed consent.) You must complete an application for a learner’s permit. Pennsylvania requires you to undergo a medical examination to be sure you’re healthy enough to drive safely. The healthcare provider who examines you must fill out the medical section of the application.
Next, you must pass a vision test and a knowledge (permit) test on driving theory. You must take the permit test at a Pennsylvania Driver License Center, not online. A driver’s education course is not required of drivers of any age.
All questions on the knowledge test are based on the official Pennsylvania DOT driver’s 2025 handbook (Pennsylvania DOT Handbook (PA Driver's Manual) 2025). The DOT currently publishes versions of this manual in 24 languages, of which we currently offer two for your convenience: English and Spanish. These versions of the manual can be easily downloaded from this webpage in PDF format.
Unfortunately, even after studying the manual, passing the knowledge test is not assured. In 2020 – 2023, 23.2% of test takers failed the exam on their first attempt. Please follow our entire test preparation program, including our graduated series of practice tests accompanied by our AI assistant. It can give you hints and explanations and answer your questions to help you learn driving theory. We guarantee our program works!
We have also created an audiobook of the English version of the official driver’s manual. It’s formatted as a series of six MP3 files, one for each chapter of the handbook: non-commercial learner’s permits; signals, signs and pavement markings; learning to drive; and so on. You can download each one from this webpage and listen to it individually. The total running time of this audiobook is approximately 3 hours, 7 minutes, and 56 seconds, so you should be able to listen to the entire audiobook in a few days.
Finally, it’s important to avoid any slip-ups as the big test day approaches. You want to have everything you need and be at your best for the test. To help you get ready for the big day, we offer our permit test study guide (available elsewhere on this website). It covers how to put yourself in the right frame of mind for the test, what documents to take to the DOT, fees you may have to pay, and frequently missed test questions.