campos

Brit and Italian citizen resident in Italy, I have a UK driving licence. Is it straightforward() to convert it to an Italian licence? Expensive? Time-consuming?

Listen Very Carefully

The best advice I can give is to go to your local ACI office and they will deal everything including the medical but obviously they charge a fee but it is worth it.-that is what I did when I lived in Italy
However AFAIK Italian licences have a 5 year validity, so do you have to change your licence -what does the Anglo Italian exchange agreement say?

philat98

The DVLA wont send a licence to Italy so if you lose your card you could end up having to take an Italian test. As LVC says just ask the ACI. On my licence I had a lot of vehicle types (minibus and small lorry) and they removed them.

Lugsbug

Hi Campos! Agree - go via your ACI office which is what my OH did (I don't drive). He did this in 2019 and I made a note of the process:

Health certificate from GP obtained
Appt at local hospital for eye test and presentation of the certificate**
Form from local hospital then taken to ACI office
Two days later, temp paper licence issued
Approx 12 weeks later, plastic licence ready

The cost at ACI office was e100

**Not straightforward for OH as he's type 2 diabetic so additional health checks needed - blood test, eye test and ECG.

He has to repeat the process in 2024 as the licence is for five years

philat98

They sent my partner to a health assessor at the ASL. No tests just an interview. The interval gets shorter as you get older.

37100

British licences have to be exchanged within 1yr of residency in Italy. The validity of an Italian licence will depend on your age and/or health. It can be anything fron 1 to 10 yrs.

2nd (or 3rd) using an ACI office.

modicasa

It wasnt, now it is. In theory. From last March there is shiny and clean new post brexit reciprocity for GB licences, but your motorizzazione may not know that and decide you cant.

daniel_t

My information may be out of date, and I tried *unsuccessfully* to convert my UK licence years before Brexit. I gave up in the end since I don't need to drive in Italy.

So hear me out:

I went to the local ACI (association of motorists) but got politely turned away. They needed me to join their club membership before they would agree to help me. I was given the application form and directed to the Ministry of Transport local office instead. Mind you my Italian was more or less at Elementary level at that time.

Day 1 - I paid a visit to a local optician who certified that I had good eyesight and who gave me a scribbled note. Poor optician - he got massively confused by the pronunciation of English alphabets. I used to think the Italians mispronounced pretty much every alphabet, but I've since come to learn we don't own Latin alphabets at all. Never mind.

Day 2 - I turned up at a local GP practice without an appointment. The doctor and I had a pleasant thirty-second chat. He then wrote another scribbled note stating that I was healthy. Like a kind grandfather giving his grandson a gift card.

Day 3 - Armed with these two scribbled notes, two passport-sized photos, my passport and certificate of residence, I queued the whole morning at the local NHS (ASL) office for an appointment with their 'doctor' - a random official dressed in a white cloak. She played a convincing role and issued an official medical certificate to me.

Day 4 - After wasting 3 days of my life, I queued another whole morning at the Ministry of Transport local office. I brought along my application form, stamp duty stickers, medical certificate issued by that so-called 'doctor', certificate of residence, certificate of entitlement to drive issued by the DVLA, and a photocopy of my (stolen) UK driving licence.

Unfortunately, there was a mad civil servant on duty at the counter that day. She was hysterically yelling at everybody for not having the right document or filling out the correct sections. When it was my turn, she refused to process my application because I wasn't able to produce an Italian ID card. (Being British, this was an alien concept to me so all I had was my residence certificate at that time.) I had to see the director, who kindly rang up the town hall to verify that she needn't have asked me for any ID card at all. The director then went back to the counter with me just before the office was about to close at lunch time. The mad official went through her rituals and started yelling at me again - only for me to show her I had indeed done everything correctly. She wouldn't have it, of course, and eventually she made a big fuss out of my stolen driving licence. She insisted that I needed to produce a police report, and she would accept neither the photocopy nor my DVLA certificate of entitlement without a theft report.

Sorry for this unhelpful long rant, but I decided that I couldn't be bothered to go through this kafkaesque process again. What a jobsworth this woman was. It made me feel fortunate that things were (and still are) more straightforward back in the UK.

I hope things are simpler now with the post-Brexit conversion of driving licence.

modicasa

The mad woman was right though - if you have a document stolen or lost you must make a police report before you do anything else.

campos

Excelling rant daniel t. Made my morning🙂
I've been through equally frustrating bureaucratic scenarios with various departments over the years.
I'm beginning to think it's not worth the candle on this occasion.
i remember years ago when i had the old pink foldable UK license from late 80s. Was stopped at a spot check by the vigili. When i presented my licence they just unfolded it, looked at it in apparent bewilderment for a few seconds and then waved me on.

tpw21

I exchanged mine back in 2019 and all I had to do was fill in a form and pay a small fee, it was really straightforward.

philat98

When I did mine they wanted a legalized translation of the licence for some reason. May be the dont do that now.

GeorgeYoung

All I can say is I have had much better experiences dealing - and occasionally arguing - with people in Italian offices compared with the truly impossible situation of British call centres. The opportunity to do things in person is, I think, a huge benefit which you only miss when it's not there. Which is not to say Italy couldn't make things a bit easier when it comes to doing certain things online.

philat98

I remember when I first passed my driving test there was a local DVLA office in my small market town. In Italy these local facilities come at quite a high cost to the tax payer even though as you say they are useful.

daniel_t

It's their (Italian) way of thinking. But at the end of the day, I guess all bureaucratic systems are more or less the same.

Having said that, I've had positive experiences of email exchanges with Agenzia delle Entrate and the local town hall. They have always been helpful and responsive.

I wonder what that mad lady is doing now. Confined to a mental asylum after years of hysterical shouting?