International Driving Permit: which countries require one

What an International Driving Permit is

An International Driving Permit, or IDP, is a small gray booklet that repeats the information on your US driver's license in several languages and in a layout that police around the world recognize. It was created by the Convention on Road Traffic signed in Geneva in 1949, to which the United States is a party. Its purpose is narrow: to let an officer, a rental clerk or an insurer who does not read English understand what your license allows you to drive. It is not a license in its own right. It cannot be used alone, it cannot be used by someone without a valid US license, and it does not give any right to drive in a country whose own law refuses foreign licenses.

Several names circulate for the same document. "International driver's license" is common in conversation, and it is also the name used by websites that sell documents with no legal value. The genuine article is called an International Driving Permit, and in the United States it comes from only two places, which the next section describes. A second, rarer document, the Inter-American Driving Permit, comes from a separate treaty among countries of the Americas; the State Department mentions it for Brazil.

Who issues it, and what it costs

USAGov, the federal government's information site, names the two issuers authorized by the State Department: the American Automobile Association (AAA) and the American Automobile Touring Alliance (AATA). Both charge a $20 permit fee. AAA takes applications at its branches, by mail and online; online, it adds an optional $10 photo service and processes orders in about 5 business days before shipping, while mail applications take 4 to 6 weeks. AATA works online, charges $9 for its photo service and lists shipping options from $16 to $165. You must be at least 18 and hold a valid US license.

The permit is valid for one year from the start date you choose on the application, and AAA will not issue one more than six months ahead. It cannot be renewed: when it expires, you apply again. The application guide computes the last safe day to apply for each method, the cost page adds up fees, photos and shipping, and the validity calculator gives the end date, which can come earlier if your US license expires first.

Four kinds of countries

Country rules fall into four groups, and the checker at the top tells you which one applies. The first group requires the permit: a US license on its own is not enough. The State Department says so for Japan, Spain, Greece, South Korea, India, Poland, Czechia and Romania, among others, often with a warning about what happens without it: fines on the spot, an impounded rental car in Spain, an insurance claim denied in Czechia or Greece, arrest for residents in Japan.

The second group asks for the permit or an official translation. The law wants a police officer to be able to read your license, and either document achieves that. Italy writes it into article 135 of its road code, with a fine of €408 to €1,634; France requires a license in French or accompanied by a permit or translation; Germany asks for a translation of a license not written in German, under section 29 of its licensing regulation; Austria and Hungary do the same. For a visitor, the permit is the cheaper and simpler of the two, since a translation must be certified and serves in one country only.

The third group accepts the US license alone, usually for a limited period. Great Britain allows 12 months from your last entry, according to GOV.UK; Portugal six months and Iceland 90 days, according to the State Department; Canada and Mexico accept US licenses for visitors without a stated limit, and USAGov confirms that no permit is needed in either. A permit can still help in these countries, as a translation or because a rental company or insurer asks for it, but the law does not require it.

The fourth group accepts neither the license nor the permit. The State Department says that in mainland China you may not drive on a US license or an international permit, and that in Vietnam both are invalid and foreigners who rent vehicles risk fines, prosecution or prison. Buying a permit for these countries is money wasted.

Some countries do not fit neatly, and the site says so rather than forcing them into a group. Where the State Department's text is silent or ambiguous, the country is shown as "not stated clearly by an official source" in the checker, which still gives the Department's words so that you can judge them. Of the 210 countries and territories on the State Department's list, 131 had a driving passage in the Department's data feed when we read it; the others have none, or none on licenses. The full sorted list is on the countries page.

Why the treaties do not settle it

The permit is recognized because of a treaty, which leads many guides to equate "party to the 1949 convention" with "permit needed". The two are different questions. A country that joined the 1949 Geneva convention, as 101 of the countries tracked here did according to the UN Treaty Collection, agrees to recognize the permit; it does not have to require it. The United Kingdom and Portugal are parties and accept the US license alone. Spain and Greece are parties and require the permit. Mexico is in neither the 1949 nor the 1968 convention and accepts the US license anyway; China is in neither and accepts nothing.

The 1968 Vienna convention, which 90 of the countries tracked have joined, created a newer permit model and mutual recognition of national licenses among its parties. The United States has not joined it, which is why a country that is party to 1968 only can treat a US license differently from a European one. The conventions page shows each country's position and year.

How long your US license counts

Most countries that accept a US license limit how long you may drive on it, and the clock runs in different ways. Some count from your entry into the country, as Great Britain does, so a new entry starts a new period. Some count the length of a stay, as Iceland and Portugal do. Others count from the day you become a resident: six months in Germany, one year in Italy, after which a local license is needed whatever permit you hold; Switzerland gives a year after arrival. Australia shows how this can tighten: since July 1, 2023, New South Wales requires temporary visa holders who live in the state for six months or more to convert to a NSW license, with fines for those who keep driving. The limit calculator gives the last day for an arrival date.

Visitors and residents are often treated very differently. Japan accepts a permit from the United States for short-term visitors but never a foreign license alone for residents; the United Arab Emirates lets visitors drive on a US license and requires residents to hold a UAE license. If you are moving abroad, read the resident rule first: it is usually the stricter one.

Rentals, insurance and the gap between law and practice

The most common question about the permit is whether rental companies check it. Some do, some do not, and the answer is beside the point: the obligation binds the driver on the road, and it is checked at a police stop or after an accident, when the insurance is also at stake. The State Department's Greece page puts it directly: Greek law requires the permit even if the rental company does not ask for it, and most insurers require both documents for coverage. Its Czechia page warns that an insurer may deny a claim when the permit is missing.

Rental companies add conditions of their own: minimum ages that are often higher than the legal driving age, surcharges for young drivers, a credit card in the driver's name, restrictions on crossing borders. These are company policies, not law, and they differ by company and location, so we publish no company figures; the rental guide has a calculator into which you copy the terms of the offer you are looking at. Some countries also require local insurance, as Mexico does for every vehicle, and in Austria car insurance is void after an accident on a car without winter tires in the required months. The Italy rental page covers the country Americans rent in most, with its limited-traffic zones and camera fines.

The online permit scam

Search for an international driver's license and many results are neither AAA nor AATA. These sites sell documents with official-looking seals, often for several times the $20 fee, sometimes as a PDF or a phone app, sometimes with the claim that they replace a license or work for people without one. None of that is true of the real permit. AAA states that no digital version exists. The State Department's Japan page warns that permits sold over the internet are not valid there. The scam page lists the warning signs and has a checker; the rule of thumb is simple: if the seller is not AAA or AATA, it is not a US International Driving Permit.

Planning a trip across borders

A road trip has to satisfy the strictest country on the route. Lisbon to Madrid starts in a country that accepts the US license and ends in one that requires the permit; Munich to Vienna crosses from a translation rule under German law to an explicit permit-or-translation rule in Austria. The planner above takes up to three countries and your dates, and returns each country's rule, the window in which to apply for the permit, and whether the permit and your license both last until you return. The trip checklist adds the steps to take before departure.

Road rules differ as much as document rules. Traffic drives on the left in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan, Australia, South Africa and India. Alcohol limits are often lower than in US states: 0.05 percent in Germany, Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands, 0.03 percent in Japan and South Korea, zero in Czechia, Hungary and Brazil. Several European countries require a motorway sticker, and several collect fines from foreign drivers on the spot. Each country page quotes what the State Department says about these points.

The country pages

Thirty destinations have a page of their own, with the rule for a US license holder, the time limit, the convention dates, our commentary and the State Department's driving passage quoted in full, with the date the Department last updated it.

What the site does not do

It reports what official sources say, each with its address and the date we read it. It does not sell permits, does not link to rental companies and does not collect anything you type. It is not legal advice: a country can change its rules, and the State Department updates its pages at different times, so each country page shows the Department's update date. When we could not confirm a rule at an official source, we say so instead of guessing; that was the case, on November 1, 2026, for New Zealand and Thailand, which have no driving passage in the State Department's data and whose transport authorities' pages we could not load.

Every page of the site