The FR-44 is not a stricter SR-22. It is a separate certificate that exists in exactly two states, Florida and Virginia, and the two states do not build it the same way. Florida writes fixed dollar amounts into its statute. Virginia writes no amounts at all — it writes a multiplier, and lets the numbers move whenever the ordinary minimum moves.
That difference is not cosmetic, and it is why nearly every page comparing the two forms is out of date the moment Virginia amends an unrelated section. Virginia's FR-44 limits rose on 1 January 2022 and again on 1 January 2025 without a single word of the FR-44 provision changing. Virginia's own reinstatement guide, revised on 1 July 2026, still prints the limits that were superseded four and a half years earlier.
This page gives you both statutes, the operative subsections by number, and what each agency prints beside them. If you have not read what an SR-22 actually is, start there: both forms are filings your insurer makes with the state, not kinds of policy.
Only two states, and the reason it is only two
The FR-44 is not a national form with two adopters. It is two separate state inventions that ended up with the same name.
In Florida the source is Fla. Stat. § 324.023, headed "Financial responsibility for bodily injury or death", which applies to anyone who, "regardless of adjudication of guilt, has been found guilty of or entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere to a charge of driving under the influence under s. 316.193 after October 1, 2007". The trigger is a single offence, and the cut-off date is written into the law.
In Virginia the source is subsection C of Va. Code § 46.2-316 — not § 46.2-472, which is where most write-ups point. Section 46.2-472 supplies the baseline an ordinary policy has to meet; it says nothing about doubling anything. The doubling is imposed by § 46.2-316(C), which bars the Department from issuing or reinstating a licence for three years "unless he furnishes proof of financial responsibility in the future as provided in § 46.2-439 under a motor vehicle liability insurance policy that satisfies the requirements of § 46.2-472 except that the limits of coverage exclusive of interest and costs, with respect to each motor vehicle insured under the policy, shall be not less than double the minimum limits set forth in § 46.2-472".
Virginia's DMV lists the qualifying convictions in its reinstatement guide: driving under the influence under Va. Code § 18.2-266, DUI resulting in the maiming of a person under § 18.2-51.4, and driving while suspended or revoked for a DUI-related offence under § 18.2-272. If your conviction was in any other state, the certificate you need is an ordinary SR-22 — no matter how serious the offence was — and how long you need an SR-22 sets out the state-by-state periods.
Where each number actually lives
Every figure below was read in the statute or the agency document named in its own row, on 2 September 2026. Nothing here is a price.
| What |
Florida |
Virginia |
Read at |
| Statute that imposes the higher limits |
Fla. Stat. § 324.023 |
Va. Code § 46.2-316(C) |
§ 324.023; § 46.2-316 |
| How the limits are expressed |
Fixed dollar amounts in the section itself |
"not less than double the minimum limits set forth in § 46.2-472" |
same two sections |
| Bodily injury, one person |
$100,000 |
$100,000 (double the $50,000 baseline) |
§ 324.023; § 46.2-472(B) |
| Bodily injury, two or more persons |
$300,000 |
$200,000 (double the $100,000 baseline) |
same |
| Property damage |
$50,000 |
$50,000 (double the $25,000 baseline) |
same |
| Ordinary (non-FR-44) minimum in the same state |
$10,000 / $20,000 / $10,000 under § 324.021(7) |
$50,000 / $100,000 / $25,000 for policies effective on or after 1 Jan 2025, § 46.2-472(B) |
§ 324.021; § 46.2-472 |
| Multiple of the ordinary minimum |
10x per person, 15x per accident, 5x property |
2x on all three |
computed from the two sections above |
| Deposit alternative |
Certificate of deposit "must be at least $350,000" |
Not offered in § 46.2-316(C) |
§ 324.023 |
| Duration in the statute |
"Such higher limits must be carried for a minimum period of 3 years." |
Three years "after he otherwise becomes entitled to a license or permit" |
§ 324.023; § 46.2-316 |
| Duration as the agency states it |
"three years from the date of reinstatement of their driving privilege" |
"For three years from the: Suspension/revocation end date / Judgment satisfaction date" |
FLHSMV DUI FAQ; DMV 292 (07/01/2026) |
| Limits the agency's own guide prints |
100K/300K/50K, matching the statute |
$50,000 / $100,000 / $40,000 — double a baseline repealed in 2021 |
FLHSMV verification manual; DMV 292 |
Built for this page by reading both states' statutes and both agencies' documents separately on 2 September 2026.
Two things fall out of that table that neither state says about itself.
The same form name hides a 10x requirement and a 2x requirement. Florida's FR-44 per-person limit is ten times the state's ordinary proof of financial responsibility; on the per-accident figure it is fifteen times. Virginia's is exactly double, by construction. So "the FR-44 requires higher limits" is true in both states and means something very different in each: a Florida driver moves from a $10,000 per-person floor to a $100,000 one, while a Virginia driver moves from $50,000 to $100,000. The absolute per-person figure lands in the same place. The distance travelled does not.
The two states have converged on two of the three figures without either legislating toward the other. Since 1 January 2025, both FR-44 regimes require $100,000 per person and $50,000 property damage. Florida has printed those two numbers since 1 October 2007. Virginia arrived at them by amending an entirely different section — § 46.2-472, the ordinary-minimum section — and letting its multiplier carry the change. Only the per-accident figure still separates them, $300,000 in Florida against $200,000 in Virginia. Nobody planned that convergence, and no source states it, because it requires reading four sections across two states to see.
Florida hard-codes the amount; Virginia writes a multiplier
This is the structural point, and it decides how much you can trust any page on this subject, including this one in five years' time.
Florida's § 324.023 names its numbers. It requires the ability to respond in damages "in the amount of $100,000 because of bodily injury to, or death of, one person in any one crash and, subject to such limits for one person, in the amount of $300,000 because of bodily injury to, or death of, two or more persons in any one crash and in the amount of $50,000 because of property damage in any one crash". Those figures change only when the Florida Legislature amends that section. They have stood since the 2007 effective date written into the same sentence.
Virginia's § 46.2-316(C) names none. It points at § 46.2-472 and says double it. And § 46.2-472 is now a two-tier section: subsection A governs "all policies effective on or after January 1, 2022, but prior to January 1, 2025" at $30,000 / $60,000 / $20,000, and subsection B governs "all policies effective on or after January 1, 2025" at "$50,000 because of bodily injury to or death of one person in any one accident and, subject to the limit for one person, to a limit of $100,000 because of bodily injury to or death of two or more persons in any one accident, and to a limit of $25,000 because of injury to or destruction of property of others in any one accident". Both tiers arrived in the same act, recorded in the section's history as 2021, Sp. Sess. I, c. 273.
So Virginia's FR-44 requirement has changed twice since 2021 while the FR-44 provision itself sat untouched. There is no FR-44 number to look up in Virginia. There is only a section to double, and you have to check which tier your policy's effective date falls in before you double anything.
Virginia's own reinstatement guide prints limits repealed in 2021
Virginia DMV's consumer-facing reinstatement guide is publication DMV 292, "A Guide to Reinstating Your Virginia Driving Privilege". The revision stamp printed on it is DMV 292 (07/01/2026) — 1 July 2026, two months before this page was written.
Under the heading "Financial responsibility certificate coverage limits are:", it prints for SR-22s, citing § 46.2-472: bodily injury or death of one person $25,000; two or more persons $50,000; property damage $20,000. And for FR-44s, citing § 46.2-316(C) and described as "double the minimum coverage limits": $50,000; $100,000; property damage $40,000.
Compare those against the section the guide is citing. Section 46.2-472 has no $25,000 tier. Its earliest surviving tier is subsection A, at $30,000 / $60,000 / $20,000, and that one expired for policies effective on or after 1 January 2025. The $25,000 / $50,000 / $20,000 figures DMV 292 prints are the pre-2022 minimums, superseded by the 2021 special-session act. The FR-44 line inherits the error by doubling them: it prints $50,000 / $100,000 / $40,000 where the section as it now stands yields $100,000 / $200,000 / $50,000.
Both numbers are published by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and this page does not average them or pick one. What it will say is which document is the law: § 46.2-472 is the statute, DMV 292 is a guide summarising it, and where a guide and the section it cites disagree, the section is what the Department has to apply. If you are buying a policy against a printed figure, buy against the statute and keep a copy of the section. The same document is worth reading in full for its list of reinstatement requirements; the state-specific detail is in SR-22 in Virginia.
DMV 292 is also the clearest official statement of a point that gets muddled everywhere else — the two forms are alternatives, not a ladder: "The two types of proof of financial responsibility issued in Virginia are SR-22- AAMVA Uniform Financial Responsibility Insurance Form, and FR-44- Uniform Financial Responsibility Certificate (required for DUI related convictions)." One driver files one or the other, chosen by the conviction, not by severity within a single scale.
What Florida's operations manual shows that no consumer page does
Florida publishes something Virginia does not: the manual its financial responsibility unit works from. The FLHSMV document Verification criteria for financial responsibility sanctions lists nine sanction codes and the coverage each one demands, and reading it reframes the whole SR-22-versus-FR-44 question.
Eight of the nine sanctions require the ordinary floor. FR1, FR4 non-DUI, FR5 and FR6 all read "BIL/PIP/PDL (10/20/10)"; FR2, FR7, FR8 and FR9 read "PIP/PDL (10/10)". Exactly one row carries the high limits: "FR4/FR400: DUI BIL/PIP/PDL (100/300/50)". The manual states the requirement plainly: "All persons convicted of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) pursuant to Section 324.023, Florida Statutes, are required to maintain a FR44 (proof of 100K/300K/50K BIL/PIP/PDL) insurance for a period of 3 years."
So in Florida the FR-44 is not a tier above the SR-22 in a graduated scheme. It is one sanction code out of nine, and the other eight — including the non-DUI version of the same FR4 code — sit at 10/20/10. Points suspensions, habitual traffic offender sanctions and no-insurance sanctions all take the ordinary floor. The jump is attached to one offence, not to seriousness in general. That is the same structural point Virginia makes by listing three DUI-related code sections, and it is worth carrying into any conversation about SR-22 after a DUI.
Two operational facts from the same manual are worth more than most of what is written about these forms. First, the department verifies rather than trusts: "Insurance companies have 30 days to reply. If the Department receives no response, the customer is sent a suspension notice." Second, and this is the one that costs people their licence twice: "Any reporting transaction by the insurance company such as initiation, reinstatement, adding a vehicle, etc. does not automatically close the customer's suspension." Your insurer filing the certificate is not the same event as your suspension being cleared. You have to respond to the notice. The mirror-image filing on the way out is the cancellation notice, covered in what an SR-26 is.
The manual also grades coverage by internal level code, and the FR-44 sanction has its own threshold: "For FR4 DUI Sanction, the Level of Coverage required is 03 or higher", against "02 or higher" for the ordinary liability sanctions and "01 or higher" for the PIP-only ones. If a filing is rejected and nobody can tell you why, that level code is the thing to ask about by name.
What I could not verify
The $350,000 figure, and what instrument it belongs to. Section 324.023 attaches it to one specific route: "If the owner or operator chooses to establish and maintain such ability by furnishing a certificate of deposit pursuant to s. 324.031(2), such certificate of deposit must be at least $350,000." But § 324.031(2) is the self-insurance and cash-deposit route, while FLHSMV's DUI FAQ presents the same figure as an insurance alternative — form FR-44 providing the stated limits "or combined single limits of $350,000 per section 324.023 Florida Statute". Whether an insurer's combined single limit of $350,000 satisfies § 324.023 in place of the 100/300/50 split is not settled by either document, and it is not settled here. Ask FLHSMV before buying a combined-single-limit policy on the strength of the FAQ. (The FAQ also prints the per-person figure as "$100,00" — a missing digit in the state's own text, which the statute resolves as $100,000.)
Whether the FR-44 is genuinely non-cancellable. An earlier version of this page flagged that claim as unsourced, and it stays unsourced. Nothing in § 324.023, § 46.2-316, DMV 292 or the FLHSMV verification manual describes either certificate as non-cancellable. What those documents do describe is a reporting duty on the insurer and an immediate suspension when the filing stops — DMV 292: "If your insurance policy is canceled during the required three-year insured period, the insurance company will notify DMV by sending a Notice of Cancellation or Termination." That is a different mechanism from a policy the insurer cannot cancel, and the difference matters if you are relying on it.
Virginia's DMV FR-44 detail page. The DMV's financial responsibility requirements page was read for this article and states the SR-22 duty — "Furnishes and maintains proof of financial responsibility (form SR-22) for three years" — but carried no FR-44 limits, so the Virginia figures here come from the statute and from DMV 292 rather than from that page.
Any premium comparison between the two forms. None appears on this page and none will. A higher statutory limit is a larger promise for an insurer to underwrite, which is a real reason a quote would differ, but no insurer publishes a rate for an individual record and an average built from other drivers is not a price for yours. What is publishable is what the states themselves publish: the limits above, and the reinstatement requirements in SR-22 in Florida.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between FR-44 and SR-22?
The SR-22 is used across most states to prove you carry that state's ordinary minimum liability coverage. The FR-44 exists in only two states, Florida and Virginia, and requires more than the ordinary minimum. In Florida the FR-44 limits are written into Fla. Stat. § 324.023 as $100,000 per person, $300,000 per crash and $50,000 property damage. In Virginia no FR-44 figures exist in the statute at all: Va. Code § 46.2-316(C) requires limits "not less than double the minimum limits set forth in § 46.2-472", which since 1 January 2025 works out to $100,000 / $200,000 / $50,000. Both states treat the two forms as alternatives selected by the conviction, not as steps on one ladder.
Do I need an FR-44 if my conviction was in another state?
No. The FR-44 exists only in Florida and Virginia, and both attach it to specific offences in their own codes — driving under the influence under Fla. Stat. § 316.193 in Florida, and § 18.2-266, § 18.2-51.4 or § 18.2-272 in Virginia. A conviction anywhere else, however serious, produces an ordinary SR-22 obligation or the local equivalent instead. Florida's own sanction manual makes the narrowness explicit: eight of its nine financial responsibility sanction codes sit at 10/20/10 or 10/10, and only the DUI version of the FR4 code carries the 100/300/50 requirement.
How long do you have to carry an FR-44?
Three years in both states, with different wording behind the same number. Florida's § 324.023 says "Such higher limits must be carried for a minimum period of 3 years" without naming a start date in that sentence, though its exemption clause and FLHSMV's DUI FAQ both anchor to reinstatement — the FAQ says "The customer must maintain the FR-44 form for three years from the date of reinstatement of their driving privilege." Virginia's § 46.2-316(C) counts three years "after he otherwise becomes entitled to a license or permit", while DMV 292 states it as three years from the suspension or revocation end date, or from the judgment satisfaction date. Get the start date from the agency in writing rather than counting from your conviction.
Are Virginia's FR-44 limits really $50,000 / $100,000 / $40,000, as the DMV guide says?
Those are the figures printed in DMV 292 revised 1 July 2026, and they are double a baseline that no longer appears in the section the guide cites. Section 46.2-472 has no $25,000 tier: its subsection A covers policies effective on or after 1 January 2022 but before 1 January 2025 at $30,000 / $60,000 / $20,000, and subsection B covers policies effective on or after 1 January 2025 at $50,000 / $100,000 / $25,000. Doubling the current tier gives $100,000 / $200,000 / $50,000. Both documents are official and this page shows both rather than averaging them, but the statute is the instrument the Department has to apply, so buy against § 46.2-472(B) and keep the section with your paperwork.
Does an FR-44 cost more than an SR-22?
This page publishes no premium figures for either form, and no comparison built from other drivers' records would tell you anything about yours. What can be said from the statutes is where the difference actually comes from: it is the limits, not the form. In Florida the FR-44 raises the per-person floor from $10,000 under § 324.021(7) to $100,000 under § 324.023 — a tenfold increase in the promise the insurer is making. In Virginia the same form doubles the § 46.2-472 minimum. A larger promise is a different underwriting proposition, which is a real reason a quote would differ; the form itself is a filing, and any charge for making that filing is a separate line item you should ask to see quoted separately from the premium.
