Logbook hour requirements vary widely by state: 120 hours in NSW, 100 in QLD and the ACT, 80 in Tasmania, 75 in SA, 50 in WA, and none in the NT (competency-based).
Night hours are counted inside your total, not added on top, and every state sets a separate minimum, from 5 night hours in WA to 20 in NSW and Victoria.
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Over-25 learners are exempt from logged hours in NSW, QLD and WA, and reduced in VIC and the ACT, but SA and Tasmania have no age exemption at all.
NSW and Queensland credit structured lessons at 3-for-1 for up to 10 lessons, so 10 qualifying lessons record as 30 logbook hours.
Every state and territory now requires a Hazard Perception Test in the learner-to-provisional step, and no age exemption removes it.
The learner logbook hours calculator gives your exact requirement based on your state and age in seconds.
Ask three parents how many logbook hours their teenager needs and you will often get three different answers. One swears it is 120, another remembers 100, and someone's cousin in Perth only did 50. They are all correct, because the number depends entirely on which state or territory you learn to drive in, and on how old the learner is.
This guide covers how many supervised hours each state and territory requires, how the night-hours rule and the minimum L-plate hold period work, who is exempt (hello, over-25s), the 3-for-1 structured-lesson bonus in NSW and Queensland, the Hazard Perception Test that now sits in every state's L-to-P step, and the easiest way to keep track of it all. If you just want your exact number in a few seconds, the learner logbook hours calculator does the maths for you based on your state and age.
Here is the standard young-learner pathway for every state and territory. "Night hours" are counted inside the total, not added on top.
State/Territory
Total hours (under-25)
Night hours
Minimum L hold
NSW
120
20
12 months
VIC
120*
20
12 months
QLD
100
10
12 months
SA
75
15
12 months
WA
50
5
6 months
TAS
80
15
12 months (L1 + L2)
ACT
100
10
12 months
NT
None logged
n/a
6 months
*Victoria's 120-hour requirement applies to under-21 learners, not under-25. The age thresholds and exemptions differ in every state, so check your own numbers with the learner logbook hours calculator before you plan around a figure a mate quoted you.
Learners under 25 must complete 120 hours of supervised driving, including 20 hours at night, and hold their L plates for at least 12 months before attempting the P1 test. Hours go into the Learner Driver Log Book or the Roads app. NSW also runs a 3-for-1 credit for structured lessons (more on that below), which can knock a solid chunk off your total.
Government fees are modest: a learner permit is roughly $32 and the practical driving test around $72. The bulk of your cost, if you take paid lessons, is instructor time rather than licence fees.
Victoria uses an age-tiered system. Learners under 21 must log 120 hours including 20 at night and hold their Ls for 12 months. Learners aged 21 to 24 need no logged hours but must hold Ls for 6 months, and those 25 and over need no hours and only a 3-month hold. Whatever your age, you must be at least 18 to sit for your Ps.
The learner permit itself is free in Victoria, and the drive test is about $53. Hours can be recorded in the myLearners app or the printed logbook.
Under-25 learners need 100 hours, of which 10 must be at night, and a 12-month L hold. Queensland was an early mover on digital record-keeping, so hours go into the Queensland Learner Logbook app rather than a paper book. Like NSW, Queensland offers the 3-for-1 structured-lesson bonus.
Expect a learner permit fee of around $80 and a practical test fee near $69.
South Australia asks for 75 hours including 15 at night, with a 12-month L hold, and here is the important part: there is no over-25 exemption. Every learner, regardless of age, follows the same pathway. You can choose either the logbook route paired with the Vehicle On Road Test (VORT), or competency-based training and assessment (CBT&A) with an accredited instructor who signs you off progressively.
A learner permit costs roughly $78. Worth knowing: Adelaide has the dearest driving lessons in the country at around $100 to $115 an hour, so the choice between logging free hours with a parent and paying for structured lessons matters more here than almost anywhere else. Our guide on how much driving lessons cost across Australia breaks the state-by-state rates down.
WA is the lightest on the young-learner pathway: 50 hours including 5 at night, with a 6-month L hold. Over-25s are exempt from the logged hours, but the 6-month hold still applies, so being older does not mean walking straight into a test.
The learner permit is inexpensive at about $21, though the practical driving assessment sits higher at around $90.
Tasmania spreads its 80 hours (including 15 at night) across two learner stages. You spend a minimum of 3 months on L1 and a minimum of 9 months on L2, adding up to 12 months on Ls in total. The requirement applies to all ages.
A learner permit is around $41 and the practical test around $109, one of the higher test fees nationally.
The ACT runs a two-track system. Under-25 learners complete 100 hours including 10 at night with a 12-month hold. Learners 25 and over do 50 hours including 5 at night with a 6-month hold. The ACT also has the lowest learner starting age in the country: you can get your Ls at 15 years and 9 months.
Fees are on the higher side, with a learner permit around $66 and the practical test around $134.
The NT is the outlier: there are no logged hours at all. Instead, learners work through the DriveSafe NT program and must demonstrate 23 driving competencies, which an instructor or examiner signs off. You still hold your Ls for a minimum of 6 months.
A learner permit is roughly $29 and the practical test around $61.
This is where most of the kitchen-table confusion comes from. Several states waive the logged-hours requirement for older learners, but the rules are not uniform, and an exemption from hours is not an exemption from everything.
NSW, QLD and WA drop the logbook hours entirely for learners over 25.
Victoria tiers it: full 120 hours under 21, no hours but a 6-month hold at 21 to 24, and no hours with a 3-month hold at 25-plus.
ACT halves the requirement for 25-plus learners to 50 hours and a 6-month hold.
SA and Tasmania have no age exemption. Everyone logs the same hours.
NT is competency-based for everyone regardless of age.
Two things trip people up. First, being exempt from logged hours does not remove the minimum L-hold period in most states (WA over-25s still hold for six months). Second, no exemption removes the Hazard Perception Test or the practical driving test. Older learners skip the paperwork, not the driving. If you are not sure which bracket you fall into, plug your age and state into the learner logbook hours calculator and it will tell you exactly what applies.
The night-hours figure catches a lot of families out at the last minute. In NSW, 20 of your 120 hours must be driven at night. In SA, 15 of your 75. In the ACT, 10 of your 100, and so on. These night hours are part of your total, not added on top, so they do not increase the overall number. What they do is stop you from quietly filling the whole logbook with daylight trips to school and back.
Night driving usually means between sunset and sunrise, which changes across the year, so a July evening in Hobart gives you a lot more logging time than a January one. The practical takeaway: start logging night hours early rather than scrambling for a fortnight of dark drives right before the test. Track them in a separate running tally so you always know how many you still owe.
New South Wales and Queensland both reward structured lessons with a professional instructor by crediting them at a 3-for-1 rate, up to a maximum of 10 lessons. In plain terms, one hour of a qualified instructor's time counts as three hours in your logbook.
Do the arithmetic and it is a genuine shortcut. Ten qualifying lessons record as 30 logbook hours. In NSW that leaves 90 of your 120 hours to log for free with a parent, partner or friend who holds a full licence. In Queensland it leaves 70 of your 100. Only lessons with a licensed or accredited instructor qualify, and only the first 10 count triple.
Whether that is worth paying for depends on the going rate where you live. The national average driving lesson is around $80 an hour, but it ranges from roughly $60 in Hobart to $115 in Adelaide. Because Adelaide is both the most expensive and offers no 3-for-1 credit, the sums look very different there than in Sydney or Brisbane. The driving lesson cost calculator lets you compare paid-lesson spend against free supervised hours for your city before you commit.
Every state and territory now includes a Hazard Perception Test (HPT) somewhere in the step from learner to provisional. It is a computer-based test that measures how quickly and appropriately you respond to developing hazards in real-road video clips: a car edging out of a side street, a pedestrian about to step off a kerb, a cyclist drifting into your lane.
The HPT is separate from the practical driving test and from your logbook hours. You generally sit it once you have met your hours and hold-period requirements, as part of qualifying for your P1 licence. It is not something you can log your way past, so it is worth a little dedicated practice with your state road authority's official practice tool rather than treating it as a formality on test day.
The logbook itself is simple. Keeping it accurate over 12 months of scattered drives is the hard part. A few habits make it painless:
Log immediately, in the car. Fill in the entry before you get out. Trying to reconstruct a fortnight of drives from memory is how hours get lost.
Use the app where your state provides one. Queensland's Learner Logbook app and Victoria's myLearners app record hours digitally and total them for you. Where there is no app, the printed logbook still works, just keep it in the glovebox.
Track night hours on their own tally. Do not wait until the total looks healthy and then discover you are 12 night hours short.
Record conditions and the supervisor's details. Some states want a spread of conditions (wet, highway, city, night), and every entry needs a valid supervising driver.
Check your remaining number regularly. Knowing you have 34 hours and 8 night hours to go keeps the goal concrete. The learner logbook hours calculator is the quickest way to see where you stand against your state's target.
If you are on the other side of the dashboard, running a driving school or working as an independent instructor, the record-keeping problem multiplies across every student you teach. Purpose-built tools such as the OneBookPlus Driving School Suite for instructors handle lesson bookings, prepaid lesson packages and credits, student and parent contact records, pickup and route maps, and invoicing in one place, so progress against each learner's hours does not live in a pile of paper books.
There is no single national number. Learners in Western Australia need 50 hours, learners in NSW and under-21 Victorians need 120, and Territorians log none at all and work through competencies instead. Add the night-hours rule, the minimum L-hold period, the over-25 exemptions and the Hazard Perception Test, and it is easy to see why families end up with three different answers around the table. The fastest way to get your one correct answer is to run your state and age through the learner logbook hours calculator, then use the driving lesson cost calculator to plan what you spend getting there.
If you teach learners for a living, the same clarity should apply to your business, not just your students' logbooks. OneBookPlus is Australian-built, GST and ABN-native, and its Driving School Suite for instructors keeps bookings, lesson credits, student records and invoicing in one flat monthly plan without taking a commission on every lesson you teach. You can start a free OneBookPlus account and set up your first bookings in an afternoon.
