The short answer
After registering your residence you may drive on the foreign licence for six months; after that conversion is compulsory. Whether tests are needed is decided by annex 11 of the driving licence regulation, depending on the issuing country. In every case you need a certified translation of your licence.
The procedure is well regulated and still confusing, because almost every statement begins with “it depends”. What it depends on, though, is always the same thing: the country that issued your licence.
The deadline
Six months from registering your residence in Germany. During that time you may drive normally. After it the foreign licence is no longer valid here — and driving anyway is driving without an entitlement. That is a criminal offence rather than an administrative one, and insurance cover falls away.
So the application should go in well before the six months are up: processing takes weeks, and if tests are required, preparation time comes on top.
Three possible routes
- EU and EEA: directly valid, no test, only the document exchange
- Annex 11 countries with no test requirement — among them Japan, South Korea, Canada and Israel
- All other countries: theory test and/or practical test
For Turkey, Syria and Iraq both tests are generally required. That does not mean repeating the whole training: there is no compulsory lesson count for conversions, and practice is aimed at what the German test does differently from wherever you learned.
What you need
- Your foreign licence, the original
- A certified translation by a sworn translator
- Registration certificate, ID or passport, a biometric passport photo
- An eye test — and, depending on the case, proof of a first-aid course
Which language the test is in
The theory test is available in twelve languages, among them English, Turkish, Russian, Polish and Romanian — which exactly is its own post. We can also advise you in Kurdish.
What happens to the old licence
It is withdrawn and returned to the issuing authority. In exchange you get the German EU card licence. With EU licences the existing classes are carried over.
Bring your licence to the first consultation and we will clarify your case before you sign up. Everything else is on the conversion page.