International Driving Permit or JAF Translation? What You Actually Need to Drive in Japan

For the vast majority of foreign visitors, Japan follows the world's most common rule: drive on your national licence together with an International Driving Permit (IDP), issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention format. This multilingual booklet, recognised in the large majority of countries, has to be requested before departure in your country of residence — never on arrival, and never as a last-minute airport fix.

That's the route taken by, for instance, travellers from Canada, Australia or the UK heading to Japan. In each home country the exact process and fee differ, but the principle is the same everywhere: apply well before booking the car, since processing typically takes one to several weeks depending on the issuing authority — a mechanism we cover in more detail in our article on the international permit for Namibia. The catch, for Japan specifically, is that not everyone is entitled to use this document at all.

Here's the part most general travel guides skip over: licences issued in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco and Taiwan do NOT get access to the international permit route for driving in Japan. This isn't about a badly filed application or an expired document — it's a carve-out written into Japanese law itself, which chose to negotiate bilateral agreements with these places instead of applying the Geneva Convention to them.

In practice, a French international driving permit handed over at a Japanese rental counter — even a brand-new one, issued the day before departure — will be turned down. Nearly all francophone travellers planning a Japan road trip fall directly into this exception, which is exactly why the confusion is so common: the instinct to "just get an international permit, like for Namibia or Botswana" simply doesn't work here.

The fix is an official translation of the national licence, produced exclusively by JAF, Japan's automobile federation — the only body Japanese law recognises for this document. Carried alongside the original national licence, this translation stands in, for these six places, as the full equivalent of an international permit.

Before starting either process, it's worth checking which category applies — the costliest mistake is requesting the wrong document, or requesting it too late.

The process has shifted noticeably over the past two years, and some information still circulating online predates these changes. Since 31 March 2025, JAF no longer accepts translation requests sent by post or email from abroad: every application now has to be started online, through JAF's website.

Good news for travellers pressed for time: the translation doesn't need to be in hand before boarding the flight. Once the online request is filed, several pickup options exist once you're in Japan — direct printing at certain convenience stores (7-Eleven, FamilyMart, Lawson) via a code issued after payment, collection at a JAF branch office, or delivery to a hotel depending on the service used.

On cost, the fee rose on 1 April 2026: JAF now charges ¥6,000 for the official translation (roughly €33 at current exchange rates), up from ¥4,000 previously. Worth budgeting for alongside fuel and tolls — and still far cheaper than a flat rental refusal on arrival.

Beyond the administrative hurdle, the licence question ties into a genuine road safety issue: driving on the left in an unfamiliar country, with different signage and right-of-way rules, raises the odds of a mistake for a foreign driver. A study by Kento Yoh, Toshiyuki Okamoto, Hiroaki Inoi and Kenetsu Doi, published in 2017 in IATSS Research, compared traffic violations and accident statistics of foreign drivers in Japan by country of origin: it found that violation and accident patterns differ noticeably depending on whether a driver comes from a left-hand or right-hand traffic country, with right-hand traffic drivers statistically more exposed to certain intersection collisions (study available via Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Yoh+Okamoto+Inoi+Doi+Comparative+study+foreign+drivers+traffic+violation+accident+statistics+Japan).

That pattern shows up very concretely in Okinawa, the Japanese prefecture most visited by foreign drivers in rental cars: according to the local rental car association, accidents involving foreign visitors there approached 9,600 cases in 2016, a year in which fatal and serious accidents involving foreigners nearly tripled in two years. A reminder that beyond the document handed over at the counter, a few minutes spent getting comfortable with left-hand driving before setting off are never wasted.

Having the right document doesn't quite close the administrative chapter. Japanese rental agencies almost always add what's called NOC insurance (Non-Operation Charge), which covers the agency's lost income while a damaged vehicle is off the road — a clause rarely explained at the counter but one that can run to several hundred euros after an accident if it wasn't taken out in advance.

On the road, a handful of strict rules come up again and again in traveller accounts: stop signs, marked on the road surface with the characters 止まれ, apply without exception; turning on a red light is illegal, unlike in some English-speaking countries; and tolerance for drink-driving is absolute zero, including for a passenger who lent out their car. Finally, the ETC toll card, rented along with the vehicle, avoids stopping at every toll gate — a real time-saver on a route that strings together several expressways.