Cay Horstmann’s Unblog

German Driving Licenses for Expats

Are you living in Germany? As an expat, for an extended time? With a license from your home country? Do you feel the urge to speed along the autobahn once in a while? After six short months, you'll need a German driving license. Not a problem, right? Well, this is Germany. Read on for the gory details.

Can I Drive in Germany?

If you have a driving license from another country, of course you can. As a tourist. Or, as a resident, for the first six months of your stay. Presumably starting with your Anmeldebescheinigung. Or if your license is from the EU, it is valid until it expires.

Really, everone can zip along on the autobahn? Don't count on it. If your driving license is issued in the German language (Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), no worries. Otherwise if you have an international driving license, that's good too. You are also in good shape if your license is from the states of Andorra, Hongkong, Monaco, New Zealand, San Marino, or Senegal. Or if it conforms to the “Muster des Anhangs 6 des Übereinkommens über den Straßenverkehr vom 8. November 1968”. Otherwise, it depends on the local Führerscheinbehörde.

Seriously, for those six months, get an international driving license. In the US, you can get it for about twenty bucks from any AAA office.

As a non-EU expat, once those magical six months of zipping along on the autobahn are over, it is time to embark on the Umschreibung. Actually, you should not wait six months, because, Germany. The process will drag on.

Do I Need to Take an Exam?

It depends. When the Federal Republic rose like a phoenix from the ashes of WW2, freshly-minted government officials contacted every country on the planet, as well as states and provinces that issue their own licenses, to suggest a reciprocity agreement. Thirteen US states must have tossed the letter, because they now have no reciprocity. That's bad news. You need to take both the theory and driving exams. Ten states and the District of Columbia have partial reciprocity (only the theory exam), and 27 US states and Puerto Rico, as well as all Canadian provinces have full reciprocity (hooray, no exam). You can find the full list of reciprocal countries here.

If you need a driving exam, you will be asked for your driving school when you start the process. You must take the exam in the city in which you reside. Find a driving school in that city, in order to practice on the roads that you will encounter during the exam. It might take some time to find a school that has an English-speaking instructor, and, if you don't drive stick shift, a car with an automatic transmission. Be prepared to pay an initiation fee (Grundgebühr) of several hundred Euro.

The Umschreibung

Your next step is the Bürgeramt. In Düsseldorf, make an appointment for Fahrerlaubnisbehörde → Umschreibung ausländische Fahrerlaubnis. Then you pick EU, Anlage 11 FeV (partial or full reciprocity), or sonstige Staaten (no reciprocity). Be persistent and keep trying at 7am and 9am every day when a trickle of appointments may become available.

You need the following:

A first aid course. Try erstehilfekurse.eu for an English course (fairly easy by train and bus in Cologne).

A vision exam (from your first aid course, or an optician such as Fielmann). Try an eye doctor if your vision is not great.

A passport photo (of course). Your first aid course might include one.

An official translation of your driving license. The German auto club ADAC does this for about seventy euro, also for non-members.

Your driver license (of course). The officer may or may not insist to take it from you right then and there. I would never recommend such a thing, but there are people with the foresight to report their license “misplaced” back in their home country and secure a second one.

If your driver license doesn't say when you first got your permit, some proof that you've had it for a while, such as an expired license. (This is particularly important if you renewed your foreign license after you moved here. The officer may suspect that you never had a license before, and are trying to weasel out of the even more stringent driving school requirement for German residents.)

If you are the lucky owner of a license from a full reciprocity country, state, or province, you are all set. Your German license will be ready for pickup in a few weeks or months, depending on when you can snag an appointment. (Pro tip: If you can't snag an appointment online, and you live in a tony suburb with a service-oriented Bürgeramt, such as Kaiserswerth, try going there. They may be able to get you one.)

Otherwise, you'll get paperwork entitling you take a theory test, or both the theory and driving test.

The Theory Test

It is difficult for Americans to comprehend the complexity of the German theoretical driving exam. Or for Germans to grasp the more laid-back testing regime elsewhere in the world.

German readers: Take a...