Tl;dr – Spoiler alert: Chances are you don’t!
While filling out an application for an International Driving Permit, in preparation for renting a car in Japan, I noticed an interesting option on the application. When deciding which type of permit I wanted, I noticed there was a option to select an “Inter-American Driving Permit.” The name seems straightforward, but I wanted to confirm my suspicions that this was a permit designed explicitly for driving within the American continents but outside of one’s home country within North America, Central, or South America.
It’s just that. According to Wikipedia, the ‘Inter-American Driving Permit is an identity document that licenses the holder to drive a private motor vehicle in another nation when accompanied by a valid license from their home country.’
And here are the countries that recognize it:
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Chile
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Mexico
- Nicaragua
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Trinidad and Tobago
- United States
- Venezuela
Fortunately, as a tourist visiting most of these countries (save for Venezuela and Haiti, where currently all bets are off for other reasons), you don’t need an Inter-American Driving Permit. Typically, you can rent a car/operate a vehicle in these countries by showing a valid license from your home country alongside your passport.
So, when does an Inter-American Driving Permit come into play? Honestly, it’s not clear. The internet suggests that it can help if your driver’s license is in another language that doesn’t use the Roman alphabet – such as Mandarin or Arabic. That doesn’t sound too legitimate here since all those countries in the Americas that recognize the IADP do use the Roman alphabet. If your license is in a non-Roman alphabet language, then your home country is not in the Americas, and you’re better off with a traditional International Drivers Permit.
What seems much more likely is that the IADP is simply a relic of the past. The IADP dates back to the Convention on the Regulation of Inter-American Automotive Traffic, which itself was replaced by international driving accords at both the 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1968 Vienna Convention.
