I’m planning to convert my driving license from my home country to a Japanese one. I’ve read the procedure on the official website, but it wasn’t clear whether it's possible to complete the document verification, written test, and practical test all in one day. Has anyone tried this?
by PercentageWonderful3
7 comments
Depends where ‘home’ is. But if you need to do all those tests, don’t count on it.
U have to do the written test and then schedule for the behind the wheel test. I haven’t heard of anyone being able to “walk-in” to do the practical test after the written test.
Forgot to get the IDP before you left, eh?
There wasn’t an appointment open for us for over 3 months.
It’s unlikely you can convert it in one day. But the best thing to do is just go down to the Okjnawa Drivers License Center in Toyosaki and ask them.
I’m going to be real with you…..as a foreigner it’s highly unlikely you will pass the driving test first try. Japanese pay a lot of money to go through the driving schools, aka pay to win! You didn’t and they know that.
I have had my Japanese license for 12 years…..I’m not trying to be negative and I’m sure someone will downvote my comment. I know plenty of people that failed the driving test multiple times. My friend was told he was too close to the curb when turning, next time too far away, then too centered…..lol.
I got lucky and had all the paperwork they wanted as a friend went through it a month before me.
It took me from 9 am to the afternoon to convert EU drivers license to Japanese drivers license, and I did not have to do written test and driving exam (because most EU licenses unlike US license entail mandatory driving school and classes, which is what they want to see in Japan). But I had to verify that I was in the home country when the original drivers license was issued. So I brought university diploma and a state exam documents (official looking, with many stamps and signatures) from around the time the drivers license was issued. They struggled with the university diploma in Latin, but eventually I did not have to find an official Latin translator in Japan (which they could have requested). The whole point in this document verification of residence in the country of original drivers license is to defeat fakes, especially in some south Asian countries it is easy to get a good-looking fake drivers license. It is easier for them to probe veracity of a document that shows your residency in the country that issued the license.
So there is a substantial bureaucratic process when converting, and if you have to take the written test and the exam, it is likely you will go to the drivers license plate at least five times. It is also very likely that they fail you during the driving test the first and second time unless you do everything with a robotic precision of every move to their satisfaction. They do not like foreigners, they think their driving in sloppy. They usually fail them during driving test repeatedly. Then they will offer you their own super-expensive driving school (and if you take their expensive driving classes they will let you pass the driving test easily).
It seems exaggerated, but my colleague from Viet-Nam just gave up on trying to pass the exam. I have many Russian and Indian colleagues who struggled, got rejected repeatedly during the driving exam. So it is a great advantage to have a drivers license from EU states, or from US from Alaska or Hawaii = the only states where they have mandatory driving school classes for the license