Santa Cruz County DMVs Reopen, With New Limits

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CA — California Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Santa Cruz County and across California will reopen to the public this week after more than two months of coronavirus-related closures.

All 169 field offices will reopen Thursday, allowing customers to come in to apply for ID cards, pay for vehicle registrations and apply for REAL IDs. This includes the Capitola office at 4200 Capitola Road and Watsonville office at 90 Alta Vista Ave.

Driving tests, however, will remain unavailable due to social distancing concerns. Tests will resume at some point in the coming weeks, the department said.

All DMV offices statewide closed to the public indefinitely starting March 27 as COVID-19 spread in California. Last month, many shuttered locations began to reopen, but the DMV remained closed in Santa Cruz County and other parts of the state.

The reopened offices will feature "numerous changes" to guard against the spread of COVID-19. Customers will be required to wear face coverings and stay 6 feet apart in line, while employees will also wear face masks and maintain physical distancing. The department also expanded credit card and digital wallet payment options to all offices.

Customers can be notified by text message when they are ready to be served, allowing them to wait outside the building until then.

The department is still encouraging people to use online services to complete transactions whenever possible.

The full list of services that will be offered at reopened DMVs:

• Paying registration for a vehicle impounded because of registration-related issues
• Reinstating a suspended or revoked driver license
• Applying for a reduced-fee or no-fee identification card
• Processing commercial driver license transaction
• Applying for a disabled person parking placards (this can also be done by mail using the REG 195 form)
• Adding an ambulance certificate or firefighter endorsement to a driver license
• Verifying a transit training document to drive a transit bus
• Processing DMV Express customers for REAL ID transactions, if time and space allow
• Vehicle verifications

The DMV began rescheduling appointments that had been canceled during the closure, and will schedule new appointments once it has accommodated those customers.

The department also noted that the deadline to begin using REAL ID has been extended by the federal government to October 1, 2021, allowing more time to apply.