Sand works at any age, no exceptions
Sand does not dissolve into the surface or change how water moves through it. It just sits on top and gives your foot or your tire something to grip. That makes it the one product on the shelf that is safe on brand new concrete and on a driveway that has been down for twenty years, without a different answer for either one.
The tradeoff is that sand does not melt ice, it only makes it safer to walk and drive on. If you genuinely need ice gone, sand alone will not do that job. Some households keep a bag of each on hand for exactly that reason, sand for the everyday frost and something stronger for the mornings ice has actually built up.
Why a chemical de-icer is not risk free, even labeled that way
Any product that melts ice on contact does it by pulling water into and out of the concrete surface faster than a normal freeze thaw cycle already does on its own. Over enough winters that faster cycle is what shows up on the surface as scaling, a thin flaking layer that peels off instead of a single crack.
A label like concrete safe generally means the product is gentler about that process, not that the mechanism has stopped. Read it as less aggressive, not as harmless. A driveway built with air entrainment in the mix already has some built-in resistance to this, but no mix makes a chemical de-icer risk free.
The first winter is the one that actually matters most
New concrete is at its most porous in the first few weeks and months, before curing has finished, so it has less margin to absorb that extra water movement. That is exactly why every de-icer, concrete safe label or not, stays out of the bag through a slab's first winter.
After that first season, a fully cured slab has more strength in reserve to handle occasional use without it showing.
What occasional use looks like after that first winter
Once a driveway is past its first winter, the honest answer is not never, it is sparingly. Save a chemical de-icer for genuine ice, not everyday frost, and go back to sand for routine traction. Daily heavy use over years is a different math than reaching for it once or twice a season.
The same logic applies to any concrete near the house, not just the driveway. A front walk or a set of steps sees the same chemistry, just on a smaller surface, so the sparing approach holds there too.