Dubai Forums Dubai Expat Forums Dubai Expat Help Forum

Hi All,

My wife an I will be coming to Dubai in a couple of weeks for about a year and have a question we are hoping someone can answer about driving licenses.

I will have a British licence and she will have an American one - is there a period when we can legally drive on those until we get them converted into Dubai ones or on the first day we want to drive will we need to have a UAE license?

And secondly - how do we go about getting the UAE one if we have our British and American ones? Is it a fairly easy process?

Thanks in advance,

Steve

Drive on your licence while you have a visit visa if you rent a car. Try and get an International Driving Permit before you get here but it probably isn't a big deal if you don't.

Driving someone else's car on visit visa - get a temporary licence from Police/RTA first and double check insurance.

Buying a car and driving it on visit visa probably not possible - need residence visa to register it.

Change licence after you get residence visa, should be straightforward if your passport from same country as licence.

More here... Dubai driving licences

Something to bear in mind when applying for a Dubai drivers licence.

If you have an entry stamp from anther Emerate they will not process and issue a drivers licence. This happened with me as I had an Abu
Dhabi entance stamp.

Does your wife have an American passport as well as American Driving Licence? If the passpport is not issued in the same country as the passport, they often make you take a test. If your passport and driving licence are issued from the same country either UK or USA, you can obtain a temporary UAE licence until your visa is issued.

Dont fred. Use your exisiting licences. Once you have your residence visas, you can directly convert to UAE licences. US and UK are exempted from test/exams.

The Major wrote:Does your wife have an American passport as well as American Driving Licence? If the passpport is not issued in the same country as the passport, they often make you take a test. If your passport and driving licence are issued from the same country either UK or USA, you can obtain a temporary UAE licence until your visa is issued.

I have a US driving license but my passport is from India. I'm pretty sure I cannot convert my driving license, but question is, do I need to take the classes, or can I just take the driving test to convert the license? Thanks!

you need to take classes, it was 20 classes last time i checked. they keep changing it, might be more now.
good luck

Thanks cheap_deal, I also heard that the need to take classes depend upon individual ability to convince the RTA for taking tests directly. Lets see how true that is when I land up in Dubai!