From G1 to G2 to a full G: the timeline, the rules at each stage, and what it costs

Ontario does not hand out a full licence in one step. A new driver goes through two learning levels, G1 and G2, and passes two road tests, and the handbook puts the shortest possible version of that at 20 months. There is also a longest possible version: you have five years from the day you get the G1 to finish, and if you have not got your full G by then you start the whole thing over, tests and fees included.

The table below is the whole timeline. Everything else in this guide is detail about one row of it.

Level One lasts 12 months, and the one way to shorten it is a beginner driver education course from a ministry-approved school: pass one and Level One can end after eight months. The handbook is specific about what such a course has to be. It lasts at least 40 hours, made up of at least 20 hours in class, 10 hours in a vehicle and 10 hours of flexible instruction. Graduating is noted in your licence history, which is what takes four months off Level One, and it may lower your insurance. The ministry publishes the list of approved schools and, separately, the list of schools whose licences it has revoked; check both before paying.

The conditions on a G1 are the strictest of the three stages, and most of them are about the person in the passenger seat. You never drive alone: a driver with a valid class G or higher licence and at least four years of experience sits in the front passenger seat, and nobody else does. Time they spent as a G2 driver counts toward those four years, as long as the G2 was valid at the time; their licence may carry demerit points but must not be suspended; and their blood alcohol level must be under .05 while yours is zero. Everyone in the car has a working seat belt. You stay off 400-series highways posted above 80 km/h and the named expressways in the Toronto, Windsor and Kitchener-Waterloo areas unless your passenger is a driving instructor, and you do not drive between midnight and 5 a.m. at all.

Breaking any of those conditions is not a ticket you pay and forget. A single conviction for violating a graduated-licensing condition suspends the licence for 30 days, and a G1 or G2 driver is also inside the escalating-sanctions scheme described under Level Two below, where a second and a third offence cost 90 days and then the licence itself.

Unlike the knowledge test, a road test is booked, and the fee is paid when you book. You can do it online, by phone at 647-776-0331 or 1-888-570-6110, or at any DriveTest centre, and you will be asked for your licence number, a preferred centre plus a second and third choice, and a preferred date and time. If you cancel or move the appointment with less than 48 hours’ notice, or simply do not turn up, the prepaid fee is gone. On the day, the handbook says to arrive at least 30 minutes early, with a vehicle that is in proper working order, plated and insured, and your glasses if you need them. As a G1 driver you also need your accompanying driver with you, because you cannot drive to the centre alone.

The G1 exit test is about basic skills, and ontario.ca lists them: turning left and right, stopping, parallel parking, one-way streets, lane changes, 3-point turns, driving in residential neighbourhoods, and traffic lights, stop signs and yield signs. Two rules about the car surprise people. Nobody rides along except the examiner, so no instructor, friend, relative or translator; and the car’s own helpers stay off, meaning no automatic parking, lane monitoring, cruise control or backup camera, because the test is of your shoulder checks and mirror checks, not the car’s. The examiner explains the test before it starts and is not allowed to coach you during it, so ask your questions first.

If you fail, the examiner gives you a full report of where you went wrong, and you can book again once you have practised, but no sooner than 10 days after the last attempt. Whether you can simply rebook depends on your G1: if it is still valid you try again, and if it has expired you start the whole process over and pay the fees again. One more way to lose money: if your vehicle does not meet the ministry’s standards, or for some other reason the test cannot go ahead, it is declared out of order and you lose half the fee, with the other half kept as a credit toward the next booking.

Pass the first road test and you hold a G2 for at least 12 months. Most of the G1 rules fall away: you drive without another experienced driver in the car, on all Ontario roads, and at any time of day in most cases. Two rules stay. Your blood alcohol level is still zero, and you carry only as many passengers as there are working seat belts.

The exception to “any time of day” is for G2 drivers aged 19 and under, and it is about passengers rather than driving. Between midnight and 5 a.m., for the first six months of the G2 you may carry only one passenger aged 19 or under; after six months, and until you get the full G or turn 20, up to three. The limit does not apply when a fully licensed driver with four or more years of experience is in the front seat, or when the passengers are immediate family. And whatever licence you hold, the zero-alcohol rule follows you until you are over 21: the law applies it to every driver aged 21 and under.

Through both levels you are a novice driver, and novices have their own penalty scheme on top of the ordinary demerit points. Within any five-year period, a repeat violation of the novice conditions, a Highway Traffic Act conviction worth four or more demerit points, or a court-ordered suspension triggers escalating sanctions: a 30-day suspension the first time, 90 days the second, and the third time the novice licence is cancelled and you re-apply from the start, every test and every fee again, with no credit for the time already served. The ordinary demerit ladder for novices is steeper than for full licences too, and it is covered in the guide on the rules learners mix up.

After 12 months with a G2 you can take the G2 exit test, which covers more advanced driving, highways included. That has a prerequisite the G2 test did not: you must already have experience on roads posted at 80 km/h or more, and you fill in a Declaration of Highway Driving Experience form describing it before the test. The booking, cancellation and out-of-order rules are the same as for the first test.

What the test contains depends on where you take it. At full-time DriveTest centres it currently leaves out what the G2 test already checked, so no parallel parking, roadside stops, 3-point turn or residential driving; it does test driving on major roads and expressways, including merging on and off, keeping the right speed and space and signalling, as well as turns, curves, lane changes, intersections and business areas. The part-time Travel Point locations still run the standard G test with everything in it.

If the five-year clock is about to run out before you get there, there is a way to buy time. A notice goes out before a G1 or G2 expires, and a G2 driver whose licence is about to expire can take the G1 exit test again and get five more years as a G2 to finish. That is called requalification; it means passing a test and paying the five-year licensing fee again, but it is far cheaper than starting from a G1. Let the licence expire without doing either, and you have no licence at all and re-apply for Level One.

The one fee everybody pays is the $90 for an original driver’s licence on the ontario.ca fee list, and it buys more than it looks: the knowledge test, the first road test and a five-year licensing fee are all inside it. From there the costs are the ones you add yourself. The second road test and any retest are charged separately and prepaid when booked. Replacing a lost licence is $35.75. If you want the handbook on paper it is $14.95 plus tax, though the online version is free and identical.

Two costs are optional in theory and common in practice. A driver education course is paid to the school, not the ministry, and the ministry sets no price for it; what it sets is the minimum of 40 hours, so compare schools on that. And the price of breaking the rules is on the fee list too: reinstating a suspended licence is $281, before any fine. The ministry and DriveTest do not charge to book a road test, so anyone who does is not them. Every figure here is from the fee page as it stood when this was written, and that page says fees change; read it, not this, before you pay.

A new resident with a valid licence from another province or country can drive on it for 60 days, and needs an Ontario licence after that. What that licence is depends on where the old one came from. Drivers from a jurisdiction Ontario has an exchange agreement with get a full class G if their old licence is of an equivalent class; with fewer than two years of driving experience they are credited for what they have and enter Level Two, and take the Level Two road test once they reach two years in total.

From anywhere else, you present the foreign licence with proof of identity, pay the fees, pass the vision and knowledge tests and get a G1, and then your experience shortens the G1 stage rather than skipping it. Since July 1, 2026, the most that can be credited is 12 months of driving experience, and only experience from the past three years counts. With 12 months or more you can take the G2 road test straight away, and then wait the usual 12 months before the G test. With 6 months, you hold the G1 another 6 months to make up the 12, or 8 with a driver education course. One paperwork trap: if the foreign licence itself was issued only 6 months before you apply but your total experience there is longer, you need a letter of authentication, from within the previous 6 months, to be credited for the full amount.