Exchanging a foreign driving licence

If you are only passing through, Service-Public has a separate answer: a non-European licence can be used for a short stay, under conditions on that page, and a European licence can be used while it is still valid. I am not repeating the holiday rules here. This page is for the person who is moving to the coast.

Trains, the bus and the days you do not need a car at all are already in Getting around. Read that before you import a car out of habit. If you do settle, and you will drive, the rest of this page is the part nobody puts on a postcard.

Service-Public draws the line at Europe. A licence from an EU or EEA country is recognised in France while it is valid. You do not have to exchange it just because you moved. The exchange becomes obligatory if the licence is about to expire, you want a new category, you commit an offence here that costs you points or leads to a restriction, a suspension or a cancellation, or the licence is lost, stolen or damaged. A British licence issued before 2021 is treated the same way: recognised while it is valid, and exchanged only in those cases. A British licence issued in 2021 or later has to be exchanged.

A licence from anywhere else is different. Service-Public says it is valid for one year from the day you acquire your normal residence in France. After that year, if you have not exchanged it, it is no longer recognised. The application is made online, on the France Titres site run by the ANTS, the national agency for secure documents.

The one-year clock is not "one year after the plane landed" for everyone. For a foreigner arriving to stay, in a regular situation, for the first time, Service-Public ties it to the first residence document. If you were handed a first residence card, the year runs from the day it was handed over. If you hold a long-stay visa that counts as a residence permit, the VLS-TS, the year runs from the day you validated that visa online, or from the day OFII stuck the vignette on that first visa. Renewing a card, or changing the reason on it, does not start a fresh year. Students are the exception I come back to below.

You also need a residence document that is still valid, unless you are French or a European citizen. The card, the visa and the prefecture are in the carte de séjour and, for the first appointment as I lived it, in Visas & paperwork. The address those desks ask for is the part I can look for: I'll find your place.

This is the line I most want you to read twice. A non-European licence can be exchanged only if the place that issued it is on the interior ministry's reciprocity list, for the category you hold, and only if the licence is still valid, was issued while you had your normal residence in that place, and is in French or comes with an official translation. If those conditions are not met, Service-Public says you sit the French driving test.

The list I am using was updated on 1 May 2026. It is not "the United States" and it is not "Canada". It is specific states and specific provinces, and the French category they will give you is not always the one you expect. A full motorcycle category A is not issued by exchange at all. Service-Public says you receive an A2, then a training course after two years if you want the A.

For Canada, every province on that list is exchanged only into category B. The provinces named are Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador. A province or territory that is not named there is not on this edition of the list.

For the United States, the same list names these states, with the French categories beside them:

• Arkansas, category B
• South Carolina, all categories
• Colorado, category B
• Connecticut, categories A and B
• Delaware, category B
• Florida, categories A and B
• Illinois, all categories
• Iowa, all categories
• Maryland, category B
• Massachusetts, category B
• Michigan, all categories
• New Hampshire, all categories
• Ohio, category B
• Oklahoma, category B
• Pennsylvania, categories A and B
• Texas, category B
• Virginia, category B
• Wisconsin, category B

California is not on it. New York is not on it. If your state is missing, the licence is not exchangeable on this list, and the path Service-Public describes is the French test.

"All categories" still does not mean a category A motorcycle. And the list is a snapshot. The interior ministry, Service-Public and the ANTS all point back to it. Use the Service-Public simulator, or open the PDF, on the day you apply.

Two more limits sit on the front of that same PDF. An electronic licence is not exchanged, because the original physical licence has to be handed over. And if you hold a temporary student or pupil residence card, or a special foreign-ministry residence document, the foreign licence is recognised for as long as that right to stay lasts, and an exchange is not available during that period. Service-Public says the same thing in plainer language for a student residence card and for the job-search card that follows studies: you can drive on the foreign licence, and you do not file an exchange.

For a foreigner who is not in the international-protection case, Service-Public asks you to prepare photographs or scans of the original licence, front and back, and a translation if it is not in French. A translation done abroad has to be legalised or apostilled. A translation done in France has to be by an authorised translator, or by the embassy in France of the country that issued the licence. You also need proof of identity, proof of address from the last six months, proof that your stay is regular (the residence card, or the OFII vignette in the passport), and a digital photo-and-signature code.

The piece people underestimate is the attestation of your right to drive, issued by the authority that issued the licence, dated less than six months before the application. It is how France checks that the licence was not suspended, withdrawn or cancelled. If that paper is not in French, it needs a translation by an authorised translator in France. If you are not a national of the country that issued the licence, you also show that you had your normal residence there when it was issued. Heavy-vehicle categories need a medical opinion, or a statement that you are giving those categories up. The instructor can ask for the originals.

Service-Public prices the electronic fiscal stamp for a foreign-licence exchange at 40 euros, paid at the end of the online application. The same page gives a different amount for Guyane. I would not memorise the 40 euros. Open the page when you pay.

While the file is being examined you keep your own licence, and Service-Public says you may keep driving. It also says the examination can take several months, depending on the file. At the end they ask for the original foreign licence, by text and by email, sent by registered post, so they can check it is genuine. Once they have it, you can download a secure deposit certificate, the ADS, valid for four months, which lets you drive in France while you wait for the French licence, and only for as long as the foreign licence would still have been recognised. Service-Public says that once you get the text confirming the online request has been validated, allow about fifteen days for the French licence to arrive by tracked post. That is their figure for the posting, not a figure for how long the examination took before it.

The French licence shows the date France issued it. From that date, Service-Public says it is valid for fifteen years, unless a medical condition shortens it or you hold a heavy category. If the licence you handed in was still a probationary licence, the French one is probationary too, and the time you already served counts.

I would put the exchange on the same list as the bank and the doctor, not in a drawer for "once we are settled". The year runs from the residence document, the list of states is shorter than people think, and a licence that cannot be exchanged means a French test. None of that gets easier in month thirteen.

The move that has to happen before any of this, if you are coming from the US or Canada, is in Moving to the French Riviera. The shelf of first-month notes is Settling in.