QUESTION: Are international driver's licenses required?

An International Driving Permit is an official multilingual translation of your national driver's license, which confirms your right to drive a vehicle abroad. It is important to understand that this document is not independent and is valid only when presented together with your plastic national driver's license.

The need to obtain an international permit directly depends on the country you are traveling to. For example, having this document is a mandatory requirement for driving in such countries as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, India, China, Japan, as well as in many countries of the Asian and African regions.

At the same time, when traveling to the countries of the European Union, the United States of America, or Canada, it is usually sufficient to have your new-format Russian driver's license with you, as all necessary information on it is already duplicated in Latin characters. Nevertheless, specific rules are dictated not only by the laws of the state, but also by the internal regulations of rental companies, which may at their discretion require the presentation of an international translation even in countries with lenient legislation.

The procedure for obtaining the document in traffic police (ГИБДД) departments is simple and fast. Processing takes about thirty minutes when submitting an application in advance via the public services portal, the state fee is 1600 rubles, and the validity period of the issued license is three years.