Every page on this subject frames the question the same way: states differ, so look up your state. That framing hides the harder problem. When you actually open both documents for a single state — the licensing agency's own instructions and the section of the code the agency is administering — they frequently do not describe the same period.
Not different lengths. The same length, counted from a different day.
Arizona's transportation department says the three years run from the day you become eligible for reinstatement. Arizona's statute says they run from the day proof was required. Those are two different dates, often separated by months of suspension, and both are published by the State of Arizona. Washington publishes three answers. California's DMV cites a code section that does not contain the number it is citing.
This page sets the two wordings side by side for eight states and shows what falls out. If you have not read what an SR-22 actually is, start there — the SR-22 is a filing your insurer makes with the state, not a type of policy, and the distinction matters to everything below. No premium figures appear on this page. Every dollar amount is a statutory limit or a deposit the agency itself publishes.
Washington publishes three different answers to the same question
Washington is the cleanest demonstration because all three documents are official and all three are current.
The Department of Licensing's dedicated financial responsibility (SR-22) page answers the duration question with an anchor:
"In most cases, 3 years from the date you're eligible to reinstate your license."
The same department's reckless driving suspension page, which is where a driver convicted of reckless driving actually lands, states the requirement with no anchor at all:
"Must file a proof of financial responsibility (SR-22), for 3 years."
And RCW 46.29.600(1)(a), the statute the department administers, uses a third anchor entirely:
"At any time after three years from the date such proof was required when, during the three-year period preceding the request, the department has not received record of a conviction, forfeiture of bail, or finding that a traffic infraction has been committed which would require or permit the suspension or revocation of the license of the person by or for whom such proof was furnished"
Read the statute closely and it is not even primarily a duration rule. It is a release rule: it tells the department when it may consent to cancellation, and it conditions that release on a clean three-year stretch immediately preceding your request. A qualifying conviction inside the window does not extend a deadline — it resets the stretch you have to complete. A driver reading only the reckless-driving page has no way to know either of those things.
These three documents are not averaged anywhere on this page, and you should not average them either. Ask the Department of Licensing which date is in your file.
Agency against statute: eight states side by side
Below is the comparison this page exists for. The left column is what the licensing agency tells drivers. The right column is what the statute says. Where they differ, both are shown.
| State |
What the agency's own page says |
What the statute says |
Sources, read 2026-09-02 |
| Alabama |
ALEA writes an end date by hand on form DI-46a, in the blank after "Must File SR22 Insurance Showing Coverage for Alabama Until" |
Ala. Code § 32-7-31(a)(1): three years "from the date such proof was required", with a clean-window condition; subsection (c) refuses a later application unless proof is re-established "for the remainder of such three-year period" |
ALEA form DI-46a; Ala. Code § 32-7-31 (Alabama publishes its code through a search application with no stable per-section address) |
| Arizona |
ADOT: "you are required to maintain proof for three years from the date you become eligible for reinstatement" |
A.R.S. § 28-4088(A)(3)(a): "At any time after three years from the date the proof was required." |
ADOT Future Financial Responsibility; A.R.S. § 28-4088 |
| California |
DMV: "proof of insurance must be filed and maintained with DMV for three years, per CVC §16430" |
§ 16430 contains no three-year period; the three years are in § 16480(a)(2): "At any time after three years from the date the proof was required." |
DMV financial responsibility; Veh. Code § 16430; Veh. Code § 16480 |
| Iowa |
Iowa DOT: proof "is required from the first day of your suspension or revocation and is required for two years" |
Iowa Code § 321A.29(1)(a): two years "from the date such proof was required", with a clean two-year look-back |
Iowa DOT SR-22 page; Iowa Code § 321A.29 |
| Kansas |
Not stated as a duration on the division material read for this page |
K.S.A. 40-3118(d)(1): evidence on file "for a period of one year" |
K.S.A. 40-3118 |
| Maine |
Not stated as a duration on a BMV page read for this page |
29-A M.R.S. § 1603(3): three years counted after reinstatement of licence and registration |
29-A M.R.S. § 1603 |
| Texas |
DPS SR-22 page could not be opened from this server (connection refused) |
Tex. Transp. Code § 601.231(a): "until the second anniversary of the date of the subsequent conviction"; § 601.233 orders citations printed with "two years from the date of conviction"; § 601.162(a)(2) uses "the second anniversary of the date of the accident" |
Tex. Transp. Code ch. 601, Internet Archive capture |
| Washington |
DOL: "3 years from the date you're eligible to reinstate your license" on one page; "for 3 years" with no anchor on another |
RCW 46.29.600(1)(a): three years "from the date such proof was required" |
DOL SR-22; RCW 46.29.600 |
Built for this page by reading each agency document and each statute separately on 2 September 2026. Where a cell says a document could not be opened, that is what happened, not an omission.
Two things this table shows that no single source says
The disagreement is not between states. It is between the agency and the statute of the same state. Arizona against Arizona. California against California. Washington against Washington, twice over. Every guide on this subject is organised as a state-by-state list, which is exactly the layout that hides the pattern: you never see two documents from the same state next to each other, so the conflict never appears. Put them in one row and it is the first thing you notice. Three of the eight states above contradict themselves; a fourth, Texas, offers three different anchors inside one chapter of its own code.
Almost every statute is written as a release rule, and almost every agency page is written as a duration. Look at the right-hand column: Alabama, Arizona, California, Iowa and Washington all open with a variant of "at any time after N years from the date the proof was required" — that is the department being told when it may let you go, conditioned in most cases on a clean look-back window. The agency pages translate that into a flat period with a start date. The translation loses the condition. If a qualifying conviction lands inside your window, the statute restarts the clean stretch; the agency's flat "3 years" gives you no way to see that coming. That gap is the single most consequential thing on this page, and it is covered in more depth in where each state starts counting.
The two citation errors worth knowing by section number
California's DMV cites the wrong section. Its financial responsibility page tells drivers: "At the end of the suspension, proof of insurance must be filed and maintained with DMV for three years, per CVC §16430." Open § 16430 and there is no three-year period in it. The section is the definition of proof of financial responsibility — it sets the minimum limits, of at least "thirty thousand dollars ($30,000)" for injury to or death of any one person, and provides that they rise again on 1 January 2035. The three years live fifty sections later, in § 16480(a)(2): "At any time after three years from the date the proof was required." If you quote § 16430 to a California DMV hearing officer expecting to find your deadline in it, you will be quoting the limits statute. Quote § 16480(a)(2) instead.
Kansas is one year, not three, and the section is not the one usually cited. Discussions of Kansas financial responsibility gravitate to K.S.A. 40-3118 generally, or to the suspension provisions around it. The duration is in subsection (d)(1) of K.S.A. 40-3118, which provides that "the director shall require a person to acquire insurance and for such person's insurance company to maintain on file with the division evidence of such insurance for a period of one year". One year. A driver who assumes the near-universal three-year figure applies in Kansas may keep paying for a filing the state stopped requiring two years earlier — the same failure mode described in what happens after the SR-22 period ends.
Oklahoma's "Duration of proof" section no longer contains a duration
This one is not a discrepancy. It is an absence, and it is the strangest thing found while building the table.
Oklahoma's counterpart to all the sections above is Okla. Stat. tit. 47, § 7-335, titled "Duration of proof - When proof may be canceled or returned". Read it in the Title 47 compilation published by the Oklahoma State Senate and the familiar opening is there — the Department of Public Safety "shall upon request consent to the immediate cancellation of any certificate of insurance" — but the list of events that follows has only two entries: the death or permanent incapacity of the person, and the surrender of the driver licence to the Department. The time-based release that Alabama, Arizona, California, Iowa and Washington all put first is simply not in the section. Its amendment note records what happened: "Added by Laws 1961, p. 365, § 7-335. Amended by Laws 1994, c. 181, § 13, eff. Sept. 1, 1994; Laws 2009, c. 62, § 23, eff. Nov. 1, 2009."
The same 2009 act, chapter 62, repealed the block of the chapter that governed certificates of insurance: §§ 7-321 through 7-323, 7-325, 7-326, 7-332 and 7-334 all carry the note "Repealed by Laws 2009 c. 62, § 41, eff. Nov. 1, 2009" in the same compilation. So the section that is supposed to tell an Oklahoma driver how long proof lasts has been left with a title promising a duration and no duration in the text. Oklahoma is one of the states where the ordinary SR-22 vocabulary does not map cleanly onto what the state actually operates; states that do not use the SR-22 covers the wider group.
Maine and the arithmetic nobody does
Maine words its rule in a way that changes the answer, and it is worth spelling out because the number people quote is right while the exposure they infer from it is wrong.
29-A M.R.S. § 1603(3) provides:
"After a conviction or adjudication of a person for a violation of a motor vehicle law and reinstatement of that person's license and registration, the person shall maintain proof of financial responsibility for at least 3 years."
The three years begin after reinstatement. Every state in the table that anchors to the date the proof was required is running its clock during the suspension; Maine is not. So a Maine driver's real exposure is the suspension period plus three years, and two drivers with identical convictions and identical three-year figures can be carrying the filing for meaningfully different total spans depending on how long reinstatement took. The word doing the work is "After", and it is the first word of the subsection.
Note also the floor. Maine says "at least 3 years" — a minimum, not a fixed term, which is a different legal object from Kansas's flat "for a period of one year". If your case involves a DUI, the interaction between the suspension length and this three-year tail is the whole timeline; SR-22 after a DUI covers the conviction side of it. And if your conviction was in Florida or Virginia, the certificate is not an SR-22 at all — see SR-22 vs FR-44.
What the agencies publish instead of a premium
Two of the pages read for this table publish real dollar figures, and neither is an insurance price. They are the statutory alternatives to filing a certificate, and they are worth knowing because they show what the state thinks the obligation is worth.
The Arizona Department of Transportation describes the proof as either a certificate of insurance from a licensed insurer "or a certificate from the Arizona Office of Treasurer showing deposit in cash or certificates of deposit of $40,000." The Iowa Department of Transportation lists, among its methods of proving financial responsibility: "File a surety bond, cash or securities equal to $55,000 with a surety company and provide proof to the Iowa DOT."
Both agencies also state the consequence of a break plainly. ADOT: "If you fail to maintain proof, your license and the registration will be suspended until proof is re-established and provided." Iowa DOT: "Failing to show or maintain proof of financial responsibility suspends your license and registrations." Note what neither says — neither states that the period restarts from zero. That restart is asserted almost everywhere on the open web and stated by almost no agency. The statutory clean-window condition is a real mechanism and it is not the same claim. Ask the agency that imposed your requirement, in writing, whether time already served still counts, and read what an SR-26 is so you recognise the notice your insurer files when the coverage ends.
What I could not verify
The Texas DPS SR-22 page. dps.texas.gov refused the connection from this server at the network layer. The Texas statutory wording above comes from the Internet Archive capture of the Texas Legislature's own chapter 601 page, dated 25 December 2022, because the live page at statutes.capitol.texas.gov is now a JavaScript application that returns no statutory text to a plain HTTP client. Sections may have been amended since that capture; confirm the current text before relying on it.
Arizona's DUI-suspension page. ADOT publishes a second Future Financial Responsibility page under its DUI-suspension section, which is reported to word the anchor differently again. azdot.gov sits behind a challenge that blocks this server, and the Internet Archive has no capture of that specific URL, so it is not quoted here and not counted as a third Arizona anchor.
Kansas and Maine agency pages. Neither state's licensing agency page stating a duration in its own words was opened for this page, so those two cells carry only the statute. That asymmetry is marked in the table rather than filled in from a secondary source.
Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. Figures for these three appeared in an earlier version of this page. They were not re-read at source for this revision and so are not restated here; their own state guides carry them with the date each was read, and the full index is at SR-22 by state.
Your own start date. No page can supply it. It is a fact held in your state's file, and in Alabama it is literally a date written by hand on a form — see SR-22 in Alabama. Request it, and when you ask, quote the section number from the table above rather than the agency's summary, because the section is what the agency has to apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I actually need to carry an SR-22?
Between one and three years in the states read for this page, but the number is the easy half of the question. Kansas requires one year under K.S.A. 40-3118(d)(1); Iowa requires two under Iowa Code § 321A.29(1)(a); Alabama, Arizona, California and Washington require three; Texas § 601.231(a) runs to the second anniversary of the subsequent conviction. The hard half is the date the count starts from, and in several states the agency and the statute give different ones — Arizona's transportation department says three years from the date you become eligible for reinstatement while A.R.S. § 28-4088(A)(3)(a) says three years from the date the proof was required. Get your start date from the agency's file in writing, and quote the statute section rather than the agency's summary page when you ask.
If the agency page and the statute disagree, which one governs my case?
The statute is the law and the agency has to apply it, but the agency holds the file that records the dates, so in practice you need both. The productive move is not to argue the point from a web page: put the question in writing, cite the section by number — § 16480(a)(2) in California, RCW 46.29.600(1)(a) in Washington, § 321A.29(1)(a) in Iowa — and ask the agency to state the date proof was first required in your record and the date it calculates the requirement ends. A written answer naming both dates is what you want in your file. Where a state's own documents conflict, this page shows both wordings rather than picking one, because picking one for you would be guessing.
Does a lapse restart my three years from zero?
A lapse suspends your licence immediately — every agency read for this page says so, and neither Arizona's nor Iowa's page says anything about restarting. What the statutes do say is narrower and often misread as the same thing: most of them release you only after a period during which the department has received no record of a qualifying conviction, so a new qualifying conviction inside the window restarts the clean stretch you have to complete. A gap in coverage with no new conviction is a different event from a new conviction, and the statutes treat them differently. Ask your own agency, in writing, whether time already served still counts.
