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DUI community service costs: hours, buy-outs & the $10 rate
Community service is the one DUI component priced in hours instead of dollars — except where a statute converts it. This page prices the published hour requirements and the one explicit dollar conversion in the verified statutes: Florida's $10-per-hour buy-out under § 316.193(6)(a), alongside New Mexico's mandatory service hours and Texas's 240-to-800-hour manslaughter range.
Hours are a sentence component, not a fee
Florida's first-conviction rule shows the structure clearly. Under § 316.193(6)(a) the court must place a first offender on probation for up to one year and, as a condition of that probation, order participation in a public service or community work project for a minimum of 50 hours. The same paragraph then gives the court a conversion option: instead of the hours, the court may order the defendant to pay an additional fine of $10 for each hour of service otherwise required, where — after considering the defendant's residence or location, or in the hardship wording of the current text, employment obligations — payment serves the interests of the state or avoids undue hardship. Fifty hours at the statutory rate is therefore a $500 conversion at the maximum the paragraph authorises for a minimum-hours order, and that arithmetic is the statute's own rate applied to the statute's own hours — the only kind of multiplication this site performs. It is not a prediction: the buy-out is discretionary, many courts require the hours to be worked, and unpaid hours have no dollar price at all.
New Mexico prices its service purely in hours, and escalates them by tier: at least 24 hours on a first conviction under § 66-8-102(E), 48 hours on a second, and 96 hours on a third, each alongside non-suspendable custody components. Texas, at the homicide tier, requires a court granting community supervision for intoxication manslaughter to impose between 240 and 800 hours of community service in the published summaries of §§ 49.08 and 42A — a range so wide that any single dollar conversion would be meaningless even if Texas published a rate, which it does not. Illinois adds a targeted service component at its child-passenger tiers: 25 days of community service in a programme benefiting children, in the § 11-501 summaries. Four states, four structures — a convertible minimum, an escalating ladder, a wide supervision range, and a themed service order — and only one published exchange rate among them.
The published hours and the single published rate
What service costs beyond the statute is deliberately unpriced in the table. Work programmes may charge enrolment or monitoring fees in some jurisdictions, but no source named on this page publishes a statewide schedule for them, so none is quoted. The opportunity cost of the hours — shifts missed, weekends given up — is real and entirely case-specific. And failure to complete ordered service is not a discount: it is a probation violation, priced in our probation violation guide, where unfinished hours convert back into custody in the New Mexico tiers.
| DUI component | Published amount |
|---|---|
| Florida — first conviction service minimum (§ 316.193(6)(a)) | Minimum 50 hours of public service or community work as a condition of probation of up to 1 year |
| Florida — statutory buy-out rate (§ 316.193(6)(a)) | Court may order instead an additional fine of $10 for each hour otherwise required, on the residence, location or hardship findings the paragraph states — $500 if all 50 minimum hours are converted |
| Florida — service in lieu of an unpaid fine (§ 316.193, published statute text) | On a finding that the defendant cannot pay all or part of a fine, the court may order additional public service in lieu of the unpaid portion — the reverse conversion, at no published rate |
| New Mexico — service ladder (§ 66-8-102(E)–(F)) | Not less than 24 hours (first), 48 hours (second) and 96 hours (third); no dollar conversion published |
| Texas — intoxication manslaughter supervision (§§ 49.08, 42A summaries) | 240 to 800 hours of community service where community supervision is granted; no dollar conversion published |
| Illinois — child-passenger service (§ 11-501 summaries) | 25 days of community service in a programme benefiting children at the child-passenger and third-violation tiers; no dollar conversion published |
Sources: Florida Statutes § 316.193(6)(a) (Online Sunshine and Justia statute text); NMSA § 66-8-102(E)–(F); Texas Penal Code § 49.08 and Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 42A published summaries; 625 ILCS 5/11-501 published summaries. Last verified: October 2026.
The fine is one line in a longer stack — court costs, program fees, interlock, supervision and reinstatement all bill separately. Price the layers that apply to your case in the calculator.
Open the DUI cost calculatorWhat no authority publishes for community service
Only Florida publishes an exchange rate, and it runs in both directions — hours into a fine at $10 per hour at the court's discretion, and an unpaid fine into additional hours on a finding of inability to pay. No other state priced here publishes a rate, a programme fee schedule, or a valuation of the hours, and this page does not supply one by analogy: New Mexico's 96 third-tier hours are not $960, because New Mexico has not said they are. There is likewise no published figure connecting community service to car insurance prices, and none is estimated.
The honest way to budget this component is in time. A Florida first offender should expect at least 50 hours — roughly six eight-hour days — unless the court grants the buy-out, in which case the statute caps the conversion at $10 per converted hour. A New Mexico repeat offender should expect the hours to rise with the tier and to be enforced by custody for non-completion. Those published hours and that single published rate are the whole of what the sources support, and they are what this page reports. See also our probation guide and our Florida breakdown.
Common questions
- How many community service hours follow a first Florida DUI?
- A minimum of 50 hours, ordered as a condition of probation under § 316.193(6)(a).
- Can you pay instead of doing the hours in Florida?
- The court may allow it at $10 for each hour otherwise required, on the findings the statute states — so converting all 50 minimum hours costs $500. It is the court's choice, not the defendant's right.
- Do other states publish a buy-out rate?
- Not among the states priced here. New Mexico, Texas and Illinois publish hours or days of service with no dollar conversion, so none is calculated for them.
Related cost guides: DUI probation and supervision fees, DUI probation violation costs, Florida DUI penalties breakdown, New Mexico DUI penalties breakdown.
Sources: Florida Statutes § 316.193(6)(a); NMSA § 66-8-102(E)–(F); Texas Penal Code § 49.08; 625 ILCS 5/11-501. Last verified: October 2026. This page is educational information about costs only — not legal advice. Laws and fees change; confirm current figures with your court and your state's driver-licensing agency.