International Driving Permit: The 51 Countries That Require One

Quick answer: An International Driving Permit (IDP) is a multi-language translation of your licence that 51 of 195 countries legally require or strongly enforce for foreign drivers — including Japan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and Egypt. Most other countries only "recommend" one — but rental desks and roadside police can still demand it. At a few dollars from your national automobile association, it is the cheapest travel document you will ever buy.

What an IDP actually is

An IDP is not a licence — it is a standardised booklet that translates your existing licence into multiple languages, valid only alongside the original. There are two live treaty versions (1949 and 1968), and countries recognise specific ones: Japan famously accepts only the 1949 version, so a 1968-only permit is refused at the rental counter.

Buy it in your home country before travelling — genuine IDPs come only from government-authorised motoring bodies (AAA in the US, the AA/RAC in the UK, and their equivalents). Online "instant IDP" sites selling laminated cards are a scam; police in strict countries know the difference.

The three groups of countries

Required or strongly enforced (51 countries). Japan, South Korea, China's neighbours across Southeast Asia — Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar — plus India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan's neighbours in the Gulf, and much of francophone Africa. In these, driving without one can void your rental insurance and turn a routine stop into a fine or worse.

Special cases. China does not recognise the IDP at all — visitors need a temporary Chinese licence issued locally. Myanmar similarly requires a local licence. Several Caribbean islands (Grenada, Saint Lucia, Barbados) sell their own local visitor permit at the rental desk instead.

Recommended (the rest). Most of Europe, the Americas and Oceania will rent to you on a home licence — but "recommended" is doing quiet work in that sentence: if your licence is not in Latin script, or you are stopped outside tourist areas, the IDP is what ends the conversation quickly.

The insurance angle nobody mentions

The expensive risk is not the fine — it is the claim. If your destination legally requires an IDP and you crash without one, insurers can argue you were driving unlicensed, and both the rental waiver and your travel insurance can collapse. Given the permit costs less than airport coffee, treat "required" as non-negotiable.

Check your destination in 10 seconds

Every country's page in our driving laws directory states whether an IDP is required or recommended — alongside which side of the road to drive on, speed limits and the drink-driving limit, verified August 2026. Before any driving trip, pair it with the local emergency number from our worldwide directory, and see how your destination ranks on our driving-risk table.