Hi folks,

Another driving related matter: I have been in Italy for a year now and I have been told that I need to convert my UK (European) driver’s licence into an Italian (European) one. I have a few questions:

1. Is it absolutely necessary to convert the licence or can one ‘take a chance’ of keeping a UK one? Has anyone opted for keeping their UK licence past a year, if so, what happened?

2. If I do convert the document, what happen if I moved back to the UK, would I have to reconvert my licence through the DVLA or can I just keep the changed document? Does the ‘12 months from moving back’ apply in the UK too?

3. If I decided to move back to Britain, would this have an impact on getting ensured back in the UK?

Many thanks in advanced and do PM if you prefer.

BM10

You can keep and drive on your UK Licence until it expires - you are not taking a chance.

However, when it expires you are supposed to convert it if you are still resident in Italy.

As Mike said, you can keep you UK licence until it expires under Italian rules. Even if it does not currently have an expiry date, you need to renew it after 10yrs from the date of residency if you are under 50, after 5yrs if you are over 50.

Thanks guys,
Your answers seem to confirm what I thought and contradict what the man from the motoring agency through which I recently bought an 2nd hand italian car said. He was maybe just trying to milk some more cash out of me, who knows...

One mere quick one - have you had any problems insuring an Italian car with you as a UK licence holder?

Ta!

yes in italy who knows each little jobs worth can read and interpetate the law how they want try and ask at the ACI officew somtimes you can get sence out of them

try con te conte.it which is admiral and they don't penalise you for having a UK licence - and you can bring your No claims from the UK to ITaly - you will need to get your UK insurer to issue a certificate (preferably in Italian) showing your no claims

I thought the issue with driving licenses both in Italy and the UK, is not that they need converting, but that the address needs to be correct on it.
So if you get the address changed you'll probably end up with it converted.

That said, I had an italian license with the wrong address on it for years and drove both in the uk and italy.

Rules change, Ariel. I think it was Nov. You can now keep your UK license uchanged passport to licentil expiry or you get points.