US Driver
California graduated licensing and restrictions
California's step-by-step licensing applies to applicants under 18 only. Under 18 the steps are: a provisional instruction permit, then a driver's licence, which carries the word provisional while you are under 18. At 18 or over you go from an instruction permit to the licence, with no provisional stage, no required driver education and no minimum time stated for holding the permit.
Before the drive test, an applicant under 18 must be at least 16 and must have held the permit for at least 6 months (a permit from California or from another state counts). You also complete 50 hours of supervised practice, 10 of them at night. There is one drive test.
Who may supervise you: a parent or guardian, a California-licensed driver aged 25 or over, or a certified driving instructor. For an adult permit holder the supervisor must be a California-licensed driver aged 18 or over who can take control of the car.
Limits during the first 12 months of the provisional licence: no passengers under 20 unless a parent or guardian or a California-licensed driver aged 25 or over is in the car (the current handbook lists only these two; a certified instructor appears only in the DMV Fast Facts 19 sheet of 2019); and no driving from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Both have exceptions that need a signed note (for example medical, school, work or immediate family reasons). A permit never lets you drive alone.
Alcohol is set by age, not by licence stage: it is illegal to drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.01% or more if you are under 21 (0.08% at 21 and over).
The DMV pages we read did not say whether foreign driving experience counts toward these steps.