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Ireland Rental Car Documentation (8 years??)

Hello! This is my first-time post! I’ll be traveling to Ireland at the end of October and was looking to rent a car for a couple of days that I’ll be there. I made a reservation through booking.com and upon review of the “what you need at pick-up” I read that you need a drivers license that has been valid for at least 8 years or proof that you have held a valid drivers license for 8 years. What I read says:

“If you’ve had your driving licence renewed and it only shows the date it was renewed, you'll need to prove when it was originally issued.

All drivers must have held their driving licence for at least 8 years.”

I don’t even think that most US DL are valid for more than 8 years, (maybe a few states) but just wondering if this is a normal thing to rent a car in Ireland or Europe in general, or if this is something that I shouldn’t worry about.

Thank y’all for any help or insight!

Posted by
2708 posts

Have rented cars in Ireland numerous times and in many other European countries and never heard of that. I doubt if most states in the US have drivers licenses that are good for eight years or show when the original license was issued. Can you provide where you saw that ?? Perhaps this refers to very young drivers such as 21 years old?? It might also refer to a drivers license that was just renewed?? I have never used booking.com for a car rental and did this Information come from them? I wouldn't stress over this. Welcome to the forum!! It is a good place to come for travel help.

Posted by
1185 posts

Booking.com is a 3rd party booking site.

Which car rental agency are you actually using?