Driving Permit for Iraq

Iraq recognises the International Driving Permit under the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, which it formally acceded to on 1 February 2017. For foreign visitors, the correct document to carry is the 1968-format IDP together with your original national driving licence — the IDP is a translation and companion document, never a replacement for your home licence. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office tells British drivers they need the 1968 version of the IDP for Iraq and to arrange it before departure, since an IDP cannot be issued once you are already abroad.

Traffic in Iraq drives on the right-hand side, and signage is predominantly in Arabic (with Kurdish in the Kurdistan Region), which makes the IDP's multilingual translation genuinely useful at police checkpoints — of which there are many. Expect regular document checks between cities, and keep your passport, licence, IDP and vehicle papers within easy reach. Government travel advisories are blunt about conditions: road travel in Iraq is described as dangerous, driving standards are lower than in Europe or North America, traffic accidents are frequent and often fatal, and there are documented risks of carjacking and fake checkpoints in some areas.

In practice, self-drive car hire is concentrated in the comparatively stable Kurdistan Region — Erbil and Sulaymaniyah — where international visitors most commonly rent vehicles. In federal Iraq, including Baghdad and Basra, most foreign travellers hire a car with a local driver rather than driving themselves. Wherever you rent, the desk will expect to see your home licence together with your IDP, and companies typically impose age minimums above Iraq's general driving age of 18.