they don't confiscate it, you are required to go to the préfecture and exchange it. The link I posted below explains it ;-)
BTW, not all foreigners escape, more and more countries have reciprocal agreements and the points are taken away just the same :-O
Hi - here is our situation. We have UK passports and USA licenses. Since we don't have a visa or any other paperwork to state when we arrived how will the French know how long we have been here? We've been here 1 1/2 yrs. We have had our licenses translated, what else do we need to have?
Unfortunately new French licenses are being introduced that will need renewing every 15 years. it was supposed to have come in in January this year but surprise, surprise, they are not ready so it has been put back to September, see here
Service Public will also give you the facts and not the fiction, shame a few gendarmes etc don't read it!
The other reason for changing is if your UK licence runs out agewise (as mine did) and you have no continuing UK address. You must have a valid driving licence of course. You can lose certain towing ability I believe so if you have a trailer, caravan or hosebox watch out. I believe that you have to take a test for these in France- probably no bad thing.
Thanks for the advice! I have a French licence now but for the first several years of living in France I kept my UK licence and used it renting cars in quite a few countries without trouble. However they keep on changing the rules and don’t tell you! You have to find out by bad luck like you. Once however I turned up at Glasgow Airport to get a hire car and was refused because I had a conviction 10 years earlier! I had to hire a taxi to take me to one of the Western Isles and a client meeting via a ferry! On a completely different subject the French tax authorities have changed foreign asset declaration rules several times in the last year and without giving notice. Non declaration of Trusts outside France can leave you open to massive fines (tens of thousands of euros) even when the capital is not yours. It’s an increasing minefield and you need to spend time and money just keeping up to date. What happened to the old International Driving Licence- it used to be a way of keeping a licence even if you had lost yours in the UK.
We've been through this one before and I wrote loads giving the government website pages. The info I'm giving applies to holders of an EU licence. No requirement to change unless you commit an offence which involves the loss of points or worse. Many gendarmes aren't aware of the law and tell you that a licence has to be changed after a year's residency which is wrong! click here for details ;-)
a word of advice to all, there's so much misinformation and "advice" floating about - just check out the relevant government website for info, everything's there and openly available ;-)
Andrew, just curious. Where did you get your information. I'm having people tell me that I HAVE to change my license NOW. That I'm driving illegally and can face huge fines up to 15000 if I'm caught.
There is no limit, if you don't commit an offence then you don't have to change, but if you commit an offence even if it's the first day you're resident in France, you're legally bound to change ;-)
I cannot understand this three month limitation on applying. I know many people who have applied and received their French licence years after living here. Most of these people are europeans but I can't see that making a difference.
Frankly I think the information you are being given is wrong.
regards
geoff
On the subject of foreign licences, WATCH OUT, I just got a giant and costly surprize during my recent Christmas trip to the states. I landed in Chicago from Paris, for the umpteenth time. On the 24th of November, 2012, I had rented and paid in advance "on line" from France for a car, for the umpteenth time over the past 30 years, so it would be waiting for me on arrival at the Chicago O'hare airport on the 5th of December, 2012. The "on line" agency I booked through from France and which in the end would not allow me after our telephone discussion to pick up the car at the Chicago airport Dollar rental office without first showing them a valid French driver's licence, which I did not have with me, although I did have my American one, is called RENTALCAR.COM, and it is based in the UK. Imagine me standing vulnerable and seemingly naked at the Dollar counter, asking for my car in preperation for a 4 hour drive to my final destination, exhausted after all the last minute trip planning in Paris, the wrapping up of work projects there, the getting to the CDG airport after an all but sleepless night before, and then the flight, FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME...only to hear Dollar tell me that they couldn't give me the car due to new US Gov regulations if I did not produce a valid driver's licence from the country from wherein I had made the "on line" booking. And, to make matters worse, RENTALCAR.COM, which requires prepaid bookings, has a prepay/non refundable policy, so as I had prepaid at the time of my booking in November, but I had neither a car I had paid for nor the money I had paid. The Dollar agent slipped out that this happens often, then gladly, of course, offered me another car at over 3 times the price I had already paid. I told them I felt like they had just cheated me in a poker game, huffed out and proceeded to downtown Chicago by metro, where I had to spend the night in a hotel and then found another car rental agency the next morning after I had calmed down. I negotiated the price, but still had to pay twice as much as I had already lost at RENTALCAR.COM / Dollar Rent a Car, plus the hotel and time. The big rub is that I had also rented a car for my arrival a week later in Denver, using a different "on line" rental booking agency, and they didn't even mention those "new US Gov regulations"...WATCH OUT!!!
If you live in France and comit a driving offence you are legally bound to change your licence for a french one - they can't take points off an English one, there's no agreement between the two countries, as there is with some other EU countries. I escaped losing points for a number of years but they got me in the end :-(
I use a British licence, though I have French registered vehicles, so they know my address in France. This enables them to deduct points from my licence. I can only assume that the points are deducted from my name rather than the licence itself, the details of which have never been recorded by the authorities. Thus far I have had points deducted, points given back and points deducted again. Always wear a seatbelt, it is three points...
been there....done that! took me 3 years in the end to get the thing, as I was pregnant in between and just got fed up trying to take the test over and over again! good luck and just do it, you'll never have to renew it again - yeah!
There are certain places in the world I have heard on good authority you can just BUY a driver's licence with no lessons/no test and then exchange on arrival in Europe- but it has to be done soon after arrival.
@Stacey, you are not correct. New Zealand does have a reciprocal agreement. I found the info and the letter that was circulated to French authorities (dated I think 2009) and printed it off. All I had to do was to exchange my Kiwi DL for a French one within one year of arriving in France. Aha, what a nightmare but only because the fonctionnaires can't manage their way out of a paper bag. At one point I had three women crowded arounda computer screen trying ot work out if my visa date or my Titre de sejour date was the one they needed. I spent money on getting a translation of my license as they wouldn't accept the international friver license translation in Frenc. The NZ Embassy charge 70 euros to translate some numbers eh?????????? Someone gets pregnant so nothing happens, someone goes on holiday so nothing happens and in the meantime i wasn't allowed to drive for 6 months- total c***p but at least I have it. You have to surrender your Kiwi license but i'm going to figger something out around that.
I too had to get a French driver's license last year. I'm from NM and it's not on the list. I've heard of one loophole. If your CT driver's license is still valid you can apply for an international driver's license through AAA. If you want your French license you don't have to go through the 20 hours of driving, but the autoecole is handy for the code. Even if you repass your permit in France, keep your CT license so that you don't have to put the humiliating A on your car. As long as you have proof that you have been a licensed driver for more than three years, you don't have to put it on the car. This is also handy when it comes to getting insurance here, as long as you can prove that you have had a driver's license you may not have to pay the high premiums of a new driver. However, you will only have 6 pts on your permit with 2 being added each year that passes without incidents.
Good Luck,
Claire
Hello,
I just went through the same thing! My British Columbian licence wasn’t accepted, but this year changed. I battled it out with the Prefecture, but they did not accept it because I could not provide a document (carte de sejour, for example) with an official date of arrival. I’m Canadian with dual citizenship with Belgium, so I entered France on my European passport. So the long and the short, without a document showing your arrival into the country within 6-18 months, you will not be able to exchange your licence. I don’t know if getting a new licence somewhere else would help? The French administration also do not accept a licence less than 6 months of issue. If you do get a British one, I would suggest you wait more than six months before exchanging it, if you were to exchange it, because by law you wouldn’t have to.
Good luck from someone in the same boat. However, I’m signed up with an auto ecole. You can take the classes online (much cheaper). I paid 45€ for 2 months, and for experienced drivers it’s 1-5 hours on the road, not the obligatory 20 hours like it is for new drivers.
Bon courage!
I had the same issue - please see my posted article about this subject. http://twentyfourseveninfrance.com/2012/06/17/permis-de-conduire-getting-a-french-driving-license/
Bonne chance!
How do you do this? Do you have friends there?
This is something that I'm going through now. I went to an auto ecole last night as a matter of fact and they told me that I would have to take both tests. There is a possibility for you to have a translator for the test but it takes a long time to get the number of people needed to sign up for a translator to be provided, so they said that unless your French is really beyond horrible, to take it in French. For me, they told me that there really is no value in me coming to the school because if I had questions, they don't think that they would be able to answer efficiently (language barrier), so they told me to take online lessons (41 euros for 61 sessions) and to pay for the tests only. As far as driving, they said that since I've been driving for 20 years that I didn't need to take the 20 hours of driving that they provide but that I may want to take one or two so that I can see what they are looking for. Just to say, the whole course costs over 1100 euros, but I'll just have to pay 41 for the online course, 70 for the code exam, 80 for the practical exam, and 17 for the code book. If I want driving lessons, it will be 21 per session. Not bad. I'm signing up as soon as I get the paper work together.
Also, supposedly, they look at your carte de sejour. They can tell if it is your first one or if you have been here for a while. Supposedly, they won't let you do the whole exchange even if your CT license is current. I'm NY and they don't exchange either. I agree. No fair.