On my vacation in Ireland and England i'll be renting a car to drive around.Do i need a license from any of those countries or can i use mine from the States? A couple of years ago, i drove in Switzerland and Germany with an "international" drivers license that i got from AAA.Do i need that? Thanks
Posted by
York, PA
300 posts
An IDP is required only in Italy. For other non-English speaking countries it may not be a bad idea but there's no legal requirement in Europe other than in Italy. As others have observed it acts as a translation of your license into several other languages, so there's actually no benefit to having one in the UK and Ireland.
Posted by
525 posts
You can use/rely on your US driver's license for driving in Ireland and England. At least that's what we did.
We did buy the ID from AAA when we went to Italy just in case we were stopped. Fortunately we did not need it.
Posted by
Ojai, CA
591 posts
Your U.S. license is all that is required. You don't need an international driver's license (that is only necessary in non-English speaking countries).
tjm
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32351 posts
Peter,
"An IDP is required only in Italy."
Actually, I believe the list of countries requiring an IDP may be more extensive than that, but I'm still trying to find some definite confirmation on that. I found this on one website:
"Indeed many European countries require of you, the foreign driver, no license apart from your domestic drivers license. However, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Ukraine, and Vatican City do, by law at least, require non-Europeans to carry an International Driving Permit (IDP) along with their domestic license." (boldface empasis mine).
While these countries may only choose to enforce this law on a random basis, given the low cost of an I.D.P. it seems like a good thing to have regardless.
Cheers!
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
Ken's list is helpful, we've had difficulty getting good info on this question.
Below is a link to a list from New Zealand AA, breaking countries down into 3 categories: those requiring an IDP, those in which it's recommended (by the NZ AA) but not required, and those in which it's neither required nor recommended; technically only applicable to holders of a New Zealand drivers list, but has been of interest here
http://www.aa.co.nz/motoring/licensingandtraining/international/Pages/where.aspx
Posted by
York, PA
300 posts
Looks like I wasn't even close. :-) Sorry about that. (Now I need to figure out why I thought that.)