How the country rules are read

Every tool and page reads three data files: the State Department's country texts and the UN convention dates, gathered by a script; our classification of each country, written by hand; and the permit's own facts, fees and delays. No status, date or fee is typed into a page. Automated tests check the date calculations on cases worked out by hand. Everything was read on November 1, 2026.

1. The State Department's country pages

The State Department publishes a country information page for each destination, with a Travel and Transportation section that usually says what a US license holder needs. Its website refuses automated reading, so we read the same texts through the Department's public data feed, which carries the section and its update date. For each of the 210 countries and territories in the feed, the script keeps the paragraphs that mention licenses or permits; 131 have such a passage. The country pages quote those paragraphs as published and show the Department's update date. The Department's general page on driving abroad was read in an archived copy of July 9, 2026 held by the Internet Archive, labeled as such.

2. The conventions

Dates of ratification, accession or succession for the 1949 Geneva and 1968 Vienna conventions come from the status pages of the United Nations Treaty Collection. Signatures without ratification are not counted. Declarations and reservations are not reproduced.

3. The classification

From those words, each country is placed by hand in one of five groups. A country is left "not stated clearly" when the text does not settle the question; we do not fill the gap with a secondary source.

Where the national rule could be read at an official source, it is used and the State Department's text is shown alongside:

4. Time limits

A limit is recorded with its unit and its starting point: from entry, of a stay, or from residence. The last day counts the starting day as day one. A month or a year ends the day before the same date in the following month or year. These are our conventions for the calculators; the text cited on the country page prevails.

5. The permit's own facts

Fees, photo charges, processing times and shipping options come from the AAA and AATA pages; validity and the list of authorized issuers from USAGov. The application deadline counts business days from Monday to Friday and ignores public holidays. For mail applications it uses the long end of AAA's range. Shipping times are what you enter.

6. Pages read

7. What the site does not do

• It does not publish rental company ages or fees: they change by company and location, so the calculator asks you to copy them from the offer.
• It gives no legal advice; every rule links to its text.
• It keeps nothing you type: the tools run in your browser.

Method version of November 1, 2026. A rule that looks wrong: contact.