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RALEIGH — The days of walking into your DMV office and walking out with a driver's license are soon to be a thing of the past, administrators said Tuesday.

Changes to state and federal laws will alter how North Carolina drivers get their licenses, said William Gore Jr. , N.C. commissioner of Motor Vehicles.

The first round of changes will phase in beginning July 1, when the state begins to issue driver's licenses from a central location.

Instead of getting their licenses the day they apply, drivers will get a slip of paper allowing them to drive for up to 20 days. In the meantime, the state will ensure their documents are legitimate and mail the new license to their home.

"If you don't give us a good address, you don't get your license," Gore said.

Now, state law requires that the license be sent to a home address by U.S. mail, a problem for 150,000 households throughout the state without home delivery. The DMV will ask the state legislature for a solution, perhaps using FedEx or UPS, when the General Assembly returns in May.

A second round of changes will take place later this year — a date has not been set — when the state begins to comply with the federal REAL ID Act.

Congress has created national standards for driver's licenses if they are to be used for traveling on airplanes or entering federal buildings.

Although some states have declined, North Carolina is on its way to having a license that complies, Gore said.

The biggest change for drivers will be the amount of required documentation.

Everyone younger than 50 will have to submit proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, and proof they live in the state, such as the lease to an apartment or deed to a house. Drivers will also need to provide a Social Security card, Gore said.

Those documents, which officials will scan into a computer database so they can be examined by the central office, will be needed even for drivers who are renewing a license.

Drivers older than 50 will have to begin providing all those documents sometime before 2013.

The biggest downside, Gore said, will be that wait times at some DMV offices will double. For example, it takes about 45 minutes to get a license in the Charlotte area, and that could rise to 90 minutes under the new procedures.

On the upside, Gore said, the new procedures will cut down on the number of people illegally obtaining licenses — either undocumented workers or others who are barred by law from driving.

A third major change due later this year — again, a firm date has not been set — will eliminate the inspection stickers drivers now place on their windshields.

Instead, drivers will be required to get an inspection before registering or renewing their car's license plate. Instead of getting a sticker at that time, a notice will be sent electronically to the state to record the inspection.

After that, once the car's registration is renewed, the new registration sticker will serve as the car's inspection sticker.

There is no date set for another change that would allow the DMV to collect property taxes on a vehicle at the same time it is reregistered.

"That is a real bear," Gore said.

The state plans to have that new system in place by 2010, but Gore wouldn't say if that was a realistic goal.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com