For a long time, many non Irish citizens who moved here were happy to drive with EU driving licenses not necessarily issued in Ireland. While this is still perfectly legal for licenses issued from many states, not holding and Irish drivers license may affect your insurance.

First things first – brush up on your rules of the road for Ireland here.

You can exchange a driving licence issued by an EU member state or an EEA member state (Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) for an Irish driving licence. It is also possible to exchange a driving licence issued by certain recognised states for an Irish driving licence. These include Australia, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, New Zealand and Taiwan. However, under the Road Traffic (Recognition of Foreign Driving Licences – New Zealand and Taiwan) Order 2010 (SI 402/2010) New Zealand and Taiwan were added to the list of recognised states but with certain qualifications.

If you are the holder of a driving licences issued by a country that is not recognised for driving licence exchange, you cannot exchange your licence for an Irish licence. You will only get an Irish driving licence after you have gone through the full driver licensing procedure here.

If you require any document translation services or assistance in the form of a professional interpreter, don’t hesitate to contact instantranslation.ie.

For a list of documents you’ll need to bring with your, visit http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel_and_recreation/motoring_1/driver_licensing/exchanging_foreign_driving_permit.html