District of Columbia Crash Reporting Requirements
Crash reporting in District of Columbia: No crash report to a District agency at all. Submit to: Metropolitan Police Department (911) — never DC DMV.
- Damage threshold
- No dollar threshold
The District repealed its driver accident-report statutes in 1982 and never replaced them. There is no damage figure and no written report to file: DC DMV's own guidance is "Do not report any crash to DC DMV." What the law requires is action at the scene. If anyone is injured you must call 911 or have someone call, stay until law enforcement arrives, and give your identifying information to police and to the injured person. If property or a domestic animal is damaged you give your information to the owner or operator, and if they are not there you report your information and the location to police or 911. If wreckage or an animal is left posing a risk to others, you call 911 with your information, the location and a description of the hazard.
- Submit to
- Metropolitan Police Department (911) — never DC DMV
When an officer responds to a crash they write a PD-10 Traffic Crash Report; you get a six-digit CCN at the scene and can request a copy free of charge as an involved party. In a non-injury crash DC DMV tells drivers to exchange and photograph the details on its Non-Injury Checklist and notify their own insurer, and to call 911 only if medical or police help is needed or a vehicle cannot be driven. If you need the other driver's insurer, DC DMV sells an insurance record lookup by tag number for $7.
How District of Columbia compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
District of Columbia does not use a dollar figure at all, which trips up drivers who have moved from a state that does. There is no repair estimate to compare against. What matters is the kind of crash — injury, death, a vehicle towed away — and the table above is the whole test.
Who receives it matters as much as when. In District of Columbia the report goes to Metropolitan Police Department (911) — never DC DMV. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.
Every statute cited for District of Columbia
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Crash You Are Required to Report Is Smaller Than You ThinkCrash-report triggers start at $500 in Georgia and New Jersey and reach $3,000 for a Virginia police report; Florida's is $500 before 1 October 2026 and $2,000 from that date, and Pennsylvania and Maryland use no dollar figure at all.
More on District of Columbia
Checked against the primary sources above on September 30, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.