Driving Permit for Montenegro

Montenegro drives on the right-hand side of the road and recognises the International Driving Permit under the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. For a typical tourist stay, visitors can drive on their home-country licence as long as it is a valid, physical document printed in the Latin alphabet. If your licence uses another script — Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Cyrillic-only, for example — you should carry a 1968-convention IDP or an official translation alongside it. Even for Latin-alphabet licence holders, motoring organisations such as the RAC note an IDP is not compulsory but "could provide extra peace of mind."

In practice, the rental desk is where paperwork matters most. Cars are widely available at Podgorica and Tivat airports and along the coast, and while EU, UK, US, Canadian and Australian licences are routinely accepted on their own, some agencies ask for an IDP as a condition of hire, so it is worth confirming before you travel. The legal minimum driving age is 18, but rental companies generally require drivers to be at least 21 with around two years of driving experience. Police checks are common, especially on coastal roads in summer: fines for traffic offences range from about 20 to 6,000 euros and often must be paid at a bank or post office within 8 days or before leaving the country.

Local rules are stricter than many visitors expect. Dipped headlights are mandatory day and night all year, the blood alcohol limit is a low 0.03%, and winter tyres are required whenever conditions demand them. Standard speed limits are 50 km/h in towns, 80 km/h outside built-up areas and 100 km/h on expressway-standard roads. There is no vignette system — only the Sozina tunnel carries a toll — but the spectacular mountain and Bay of Kotor roads are narrow and winding, so allow more time than the map suggests.