What states have driver's licenses which are valid in France?

Question

I know there are some states that issue licenses which are (long-term) valid in France.. After one year , most US drivers licenses are no longer valid and you need to get a regular French driving license (costs $1000, btw) Some US states honor French driving licenses, therefore France honors licenses from those states.

Which are these states?

Thanks

Answer 1

This is from the U.S. Embassy in France's website;

http://www.ambafrance-us.org/visitingfra...

"If you have a valid driver's license prior to your first entry into France as a resident and issued from the following states: Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Kentucky, you may exchange it for a French permit if you apply at least three months before the expiration of the one-year recognition period. These States offer a reciprocal privilege of exchange for persons holding French permits."

You're smart to look into this. I came as an expat and didn't realize that I would end up living in France (meeting a frenchman, etc.) It was a horrible experience. Driving schools are rip-offs here and you're better to do everything in French and in stick shift. It's possible in translation and with automatic but very restrictive and wont save you any money.

Yes, I think mine cost about $800 by the time I finished everything.

You do need the acceptable license before you arrive in France. You can't run back to a state that has an exchangable license and do it afterwards. Some people ran into problems with new DMV security restrictions after 9/11. Before, they could get a license with a friends' address, sometimes claiming they were in process of moving to that state.

I found out the hard way, you don't get a break if your status changes. I thought when I became a permanate resident, my status would change. Wrong! My date d'entrée stayed the same and my one year was up. I had to take both tests and it was a big headache.

One girlfriend did have a valid license but didn't exchange it in time. She took it to court and lost. If you miss the deadline, you have to redo the entire thing!

Also, another girl I knew lived in Holland first, where she was able to exchange her license. When she moved to France, they knew her Dutch license was exchanged from an untransferable state and it was refused too.

French licenses don't have expiration dates, by the way. If you do have to retake it all, check to be sure I'm right but I didn't have to put that scarlet letter on my car, the red letter "A" they have to show for the first two years. But I did have to keep my California license with me, with a translation.

Oh, the joys of living in France...

Good luck!