Do I Need a CDL To Drive a Skoolie?

This article continues our series of article about #buslife, skoolies, #vanlife, and buses in general. Check out the whole series!

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Some States Require A Special License to Drive RVs & Skoolies. Do You?

Converting a surplus school bus into a traveling home is nothing new; these were some of the first ‘motorhomes’ as we know them today, and people have been doing these to varying degrees of complexity for decades now. In fact, in a related aside, my eccentric uncle did this very thing and lived in a 1960s Ford school bus for a number of years out in the western states back in the 1980s. 

That is just to say that the concept of a skoolie is anything but new. Look, cities retire buses every single year, as do school districts and private school bus agencies. A lot of these hit the auction lots with well under 100k miles on them, and since they are fleet maintained you usually have some assurance that they were moderately well cared for, or at least repaired if they were abused. 

"Skoolie School Bus Conversion" by Lauren Gardenbelle Fritts is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

But that begs the question: what do you need to have to drive a skoolie legally? Let’s dig into this topic and find out what a skoolie is, what is legally required to drive one generally speaking, and how to register one once you have one.

What Exactly Is a ‘Skoolie?’

Okay, so as the name suggests, a Skoolie is usually a school bus that has been converted into either an RV, or a tiny home on wheels. The conversions are usually done by owners, but some are converted professionally; for the sake of owning and driving a skoolie, it doesn’t really matter which way the work is done. Hell, it doesn’t matter how thoroughly it’s completed, either. 

If you want to gut a bus, throw a futon, a bean bag chair, and a mini-fridge in there and call it a day, who are we to judge? In fact, that would weigh a whole lot less than most conversions. Just sayin’. 

Skoolies are not limited to one specific size of format. Some skoolies are built off of municipal buses, which are a great platform to work with. Also, “Mini-Skoolies” are popular, built on small Type A school buses. People movers are also very popular for this type of conversion, because they are also fairly cheap, they are large, and they are built on extremely tried and true vehicles like the Ford F-350/450/550 and E-350/450/550 trucks and vans. People who don’t necessarily feel confident working on a full-size bus have probably worked on a contemporary of these trucks and are familiar with their systems. Oh, and parts for these are sold at every auto parts store in America, everywhere. 

Common parts and systems are really underrated; you want to drive something that you can buy parts and tires for anywhere. 

"Skoolie Livin School Bus Conversion" by Rupshare is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

With that said, shuttle vans in the 1-ton to 1 ½ ton size range are not in any risk of requiring a CDL or special non-commercial license in most states. For instance, this shuttle bus has a 29-passenger capacity but its GVWR is 14,500—far under the common threshold of 26,000lbs.    

Do The Same Rules Apply to Skoolies as School Buses?

Okay, so here’s the question: do all of the rules of school buses apply to skoolies?

The short answer is no. 

The long answer is still no, but here’s why: school buses are used in a commercial or semi-commercial capacity. If it is being used by the school district, it is not really commercial but there is no other kind of license that really applies. You still have to have a CDL to drive a commercial-sized truck if you are a government employee. 

So, school bus drivers must have a CDL to operate in the capacity (it does make sense though since the driver themself is earning money from the act, but we don’t have to go all the way down the rabbit hole). 

Skoolies, on the other hand, are not a commercial vehicle. Once you title and register the skoolie, it is actually an RV. No, it does not matter what it looks like. The DMV doesn’t care what it looks like (although there are some rules to follow about school bus conversions from state to state, so check them out). 

Are All States Laws the Same About Skoolies?

Are all state laws the same about skoolies? No way. All state laws aren’t even that close for RVs. Over half of the states have no special licensing requirements at all about RVs, which your skoolie will technically be once you title it as one. 

It is up to you to research what your states’ rules are on the matter (although we did write an article about special RV licensing rules). 

With that said, here are two things that you must know about your skoolie:

"the schoolie from north carolina" by nicolas.boullosa is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

• The actual weight

• The actual length

These are the only two metrics that will matter. If you live in one of the majority states that have no special rules, then it won’t matter and you can go about your life. 

But if you fall under special rules, you need to know these two things. 

As for the matter of weight, it isn’t dry weight that matters here. It is the loaded weight of your bus once you have it built out to your specs. See, if you get pulled over and sent to the weigh station, they don’t care about your dry weight. They care about the number on the scale at that exact moment.

Now, this only applies to your home state; reciprocity matters. If I am from Oklahoma and have no special requirements, I do not need to conform to California’s RV licensing rules suddenly because I crossed the state line.   

What States Have Special Requirements?

We wrote an entire article on this, so make sure to check it out. 

Less than half of all states have any special requirements for RVs, although two of the most-populated states do have special requirements for RV licensing (California and New York).  

Does the Registering State Matter?

No, it does not matter what state the skoolie is registered in; when you register your skoolie through a Montana LLC, you are a resident of Montana. Well, you have residency in Montana. However, if your domicile is somewhere else, you will have the driver’s license from whatever your home state is. So, if your home state requires a CDL for the size of vehicle you are titling and registering through us, then you should do that. The state where your license is issued takes precedence, so bear this in mind. 

"skoolie" by shalommama is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The Dirt Legal Advantage

Dirt Legal has been in business for a long time and we have helped over 20,000 people get titles and tags on their vehicles. Humvees? Yep, plenty. UTVs? Hoards of them. RVs? Scads. And we have done everything else in between. Skoolies are a major trend right now, but getting one titled away from a commercial vehicle to a clean RV title can be a real nightmare in some states, but not in Montana. Take a look at our Montana RV registration package and get that skooli out of your yard and on the road.