Converting yourdriving licence.
This queue is at the Department of Land Transport, not immigration, and it wants a different set of papers from everything else you have filed this year.
Prefer this handled for you?
General information, not advice about your case. Procedures change, so where a detail matters to your application we confirm it with you rather than print a figure here that could be out of date.
A different queue, a different file
Two of the documents cannot be obtained on the day, and one of them is an errand with its own queue.
Prefer this handled for you?
Who converts
Jump to sectionConverting rather than sitting the full test, and what decides which one you do.
Prerequisites
Jump to sectionThe residence certificate, the medical certificate, and the rest of the file.
The day itself
Jump to sectionWhat happens at the office, in order, including the test nobody warns you about.
Motorcycles
Jump to sectionA separate entitlement, and the reason half of Hua Hin needs this page.
The paperwork that comes first
Arrive without one of these and the trip is wasted, which is the whole reason this page exists.
Converting, or sitting the full test
Holders of some foreign licences convert. Others take the full test as a new driver. Which of those applies to you depends on the licence you hold and how it is recognised here.
The prerequisite chain
Two of these you cannot get on the day, and one of them, the residence certificate, is itself an errand with its own queue. We deal with that first, or the trip is wasted.
The medical certificate is quick, and it has a short life, so it is obtained in the right week rather than in advance.
What it costs
There is a government fee and there is our fee, and we show you both separately. Ours covers the appointment, the prerequisite errands and going with you.
Prefer this handled for you?
We assemble the prerequisites, book the appointment, and go with you.
The office, in order
A morning, if the file is right. Two mornings if it is not.
What happens, in order
Documents are checked, then there is a short test of reactions and colour vision, and a road-rules element. It is not difficult, and nobody warns you about it, which is why people fail it.
Then there is waiting, and then there is a card.
Motorcycle entitlements
A car licence does not cover a motorbike, whatever the rental shop told you, and the insurance position when it goes wrong is the reason this matters more than the fine.
The motorcycle entitlement is a separate application with its own test, and it can be done alongside the car one rather than on a second visit.
Renewal, and the longer licence
The first licence issued after conversion is a short one, and the longer licence follows it. The renewal is a smaller errand than the conversion, and it asks for a shorter list.
The page this guide feeds
One service page, and the two guides that sit either side of it.
Thai driving licence
Read the guideConverting your licence, including the paperwork that comes before it.
Yellow book and pink card
Read the guideWhat the registration gets you at a counter, and who should not bother.
Your first 90 days
Read the guideEverything a new arrival files, in the order it becomes due.