There is not one drink driving course in QLD. There are two that are compulsory if you are convicted, and a third kind that some people do voluntarily before they are sentenced. They are run by different people, they do different jobs, and mixing them up has real consequences.

The one people most often miss is the short course, and missing it can keep you off the road for five years.

Course one: the short course, which applies to everyone convicted

The Queensland Government states that all drivers who commit and are convicted of a drink driving offence need to complete a short online drink driving course. It is called Plan.Drive.Survive. Foundations.

The practical details, as the Queensland Government sets them out:

It is online, and you need a smart device or a computer and an internet connection. If you do not have those, you can request a printed version from your nearest transport and motoring customer service centre.

Allow at least an hour.

You can complete it any time during your disqualification period.

There is a fee to enrol.

Once you complete it successfully, it stays valid for five years.

The five year trap, which is the reason this post exists

Here is the part that catches people, and it is expensive.

The Queensland Government states that if you do not complete the course, you will not be able to apply for your driver licence for five years, running from either the end of your disqualification or from when you were granted a work licence.

Read that again. Not five years from when you get around to it. Five years from a date that has already passed while you were not doing it.

So someone who serves a three month disqualification, never opens the email about the course, and turns up expecting to get their licence back can find themselves years away from driving. Nothing about the original offence caused that. The paperwork did.

If you have been convicted of drink driving and you cannot remember doing a course, that is worth checking this week rather than at the end of your disqualification.

Course two: the repeat course, if you have two or more

This one is narrower and heavier.

The Queensland Government states that all drink drivers convicted of two or more drink driving offences committed on or after Friday 10 September 2021 must complete the repeat drink driving course.

It is a bigger commitment than the short course. The Queensland Government describes it as six sessions, with at least two hours to allow for each one, attended either in person or by online meeting with an approved training provider. There is no fee to enrol with the approved provider. Like the short course, completion stays valid for five years.

The connection that matters most is this one. The Queensland Government states you must complete the repeat drink driving course before you are eligible to complete the alcohol interlock program.

That puts it directly on the path back to normal driving. The alcohol interlock period does not start until you have a licence with the interlock condition and a device fitted, and you cannot get through the interlock program without the course. Delay at any point in that chain simply adds to the total time before you are driving normally again.

The third kind: a program some people do before sentence

Separately from those two, there are voluntary programs people sometimes complete before they are sentenced, usually described as traffic offenders programs. They are run by private and community organisations rather than by the Queensland Government, and they are not one of the two mandatory courses above.

Whether doing one is worthwhile in your matter is a question for advice, and it depends on your circumstances and your timing. Nobody can tell you what weight a court would place on it. What can be said is that it is a different thing from the compulsory courses, it happens at a different point in the process, and finishing one does not remove your obligation to do the mandatory course afterwards.

If someone has told you to do a course before your court date, it is worth checking which of the three they meant.

So which do I have to do

If you are convicted of a drink driving offence, the short course applies to you.

If you are convicted of a second or later drink driving offence committed on or after 10 September 2021, the repeat course applies as well, and it sits between you and the interlock program.

If you are still waiting to go to court, neither of the mandatory ones has been triggered yet, because both are tied to conviction. That is the window in which the voluntary kind is the only one available.

Timing, which is the whole game

None of these courses is difficult. All of them are easy to leave too late.

The short course can be done during your disqualification, so there is no reason to wait until the end of it. The repeat course involves six sessions and an external provider, so it takes real calendar time to get through and it needs to start early if you do not want it holding up your interlock period.

Put a date in your phone for both. The cost of forgetting is measured in years of not driving, and it falls on people who have otherwise done everything asked of them.

This article is current as at August 2026. Course requirements, fees and providers change, and Queensland drink and drug driving penalties are changing on 1 December 2026, so check the current Queensland Government material before relying on this.

If you have been charged in Cairns and you drive for work

The course requirements sit on the far side of a conviction, but they are worth understanding before you get there, because they change how long you are actually off the road. So does whether a work licence application is open to you, and that has to be prepared before your court date rather than after it.

We act in drink driving matters in Cairns and across Far North Queensland. Understanding the full timeline you are looking at is worth doing before your court date rather than after it.

If you have a drink driving matter in Cairns and you are not sure which course applies to you, speak with us.