How to Read an International Driving Permit

The first pages of an IDP carry your core details: your full name, date and place of birth, your home country, and the number of your national driving licence. Your photograph and signature usually appear here too, allowing an official to confirm the document belongs to you.

You will also find the date of issue and the expiry date, plus the issuing country or authority. Checking these dates is important, because an IDP has a limited validity period and only works while your underlying national licence remains valid.

An IDP repeats the key information in multiple languages so that police, border officers and rental agents in different countries can understand it. The exact languages depend on which convention the document is based on, but the structure is consistent: the same fields appear in each language block.

This is the whole point of an IDP. It does not give you new driving rights; it simply makes your existing national licence legible to someone who cannot read your home language or alphabet, which is especially useful where your licence uses a non-Latin script.

The vehicle category section is the part that tells officials what you are permitted to drive. Categories are typically labelled with letters, where one letter group covers motorcycles, another covers passenger cars, and others cover larger vehicles such as buses or goods trucks.

Each category that applies to you is marked, stamped or validated; categories you are not licensed for are left blank or struck through. Always confirm that the category covering your rental vehicle is present, and never assume the IDP grants more than your home licence does.

Beyond identity and categories, an IDP may show conditions or restrictions carried over from your national licence, such as a requirement to wear glasses. These restrictions still apply when driving abroad, so check them before you set off.

If anything on your IDP looks incorrect, such as a misspelled name or a missing category, resolve it before you travel. The information is taken from your national licence, so errors usually trace back to that document or to the application details you provided.