Original thread title: Canadian Drivers License Now Valid in Taiwan!
That is cool!
[quote]Well I was talking to a newly arrived Canadian last night. He told me
that Taiwan had recently signed an agreement with Canada to allow all
Canadians visiting or living in Taiwan to drive on their Canadian
driver’s license. This apparently means that if you are Canadian,
whatever you are licensed to drive in Canada under the rules of your
Canadian license you may also drive in Taiwan…
The bad news, it’s reciprocal!
I would double check this, but the guy says he asked the Canadian
licensing authority about driving in Taiwan, as he was going to apply
for an International license, and was told it was not neccessary, nor
was it neccessary to pass the local [Taiwan] driving test.[/quote]
Quebec has apparently signed an accord with TW; haven’t heard anything about the rest of the provinces. Btw, what is a “Canadian driver’s license”? All the licenses I’ve held in Canada have been issued by a province.
I found this link, and this one, too. Trouble is, I’m not sure if it’s talking about actual reciprocal agreements, international licenses issued in Taiwan, or just Taiwanese licenses being valid elsewhere. I find it really unclear; maybe someone else cna make some sense of the thing.
You’d think they’d at least put the “official” pages by an editor, but the government seems to do an even worse job than the private sector.
I also don’t get the “Canadian driver’s license” thing; I’d never heard it referred to that way. BC must have a reciprocity agreement, based on what the roads looked like last time I was in Vancouver; someone had even turned on his hazards in order to run into a shop. It got towed, of course!
marboulette, are we talking driving licenses or riding licenses, or both? The two are quite different.
I expect you mean both when you said “whatever”.
I fixed the quotation mistake in the OP. Now you can see that it’s not me who wrote that. That’s why I want to see if someone can confirm this. What I quoted in the OP was posted on KaohsiungLiving.
I’m guessing it’s both. In Canada, I have a class 5 & 6. My license is from Alberta. This means I can drive a car or a small truck (class 5), and a motorcycle (class 6). Class 6 doesn’t have a restriction regarding the size of the motorcycle. I know some provinces have two separate bike licenses for motorcycles; Smaller than 600cc and bigger than 600cc. Not sure how Taiwan will work that out.
I’m guessing that whatever you are allowed to drive/ride in Canada, you are also allowed to drive/ride in Taiwan. Give or take extra requirements when it comes to commercial licenses such has regular health check ups, etc, it seems pretty straightforward.
PS: I edited the thread title for the picky pants above.
I’m glad this thread has come up. I have a Quebec driver’s license and I heard about the agreement between Quebec province and Taiwan a few months back. So, I gathered my Quebec license, ARC, 4 pictures and headed over to the DMV for what was expected to be a simple affair…but…not at all…What any official website fails to mention is that any license from outside Taiwan (Canada, US or any other nation) must have their license “authenticated” by the Taiwanese so called embassy in the country where the license is from…what malarky…so, I was out of the DMV just as fast as I had entered with no new license in hand…Next, I checked to see what a Taiwanese would have to do in order to obtain the Quebec driver’s license, and sure enough, they don’t need to provide any such “authentication”…isn’t that what a reciprocal agreement means?..
So, I contacted the Consular section of the Canadian Trade Office here in Taipei. I sent them the info and web links for the pages from the DMV here and the SAAQ in Quebec so they can compare…all that is really needed is an official translation (which is easy to obtain here).
Are there any other Quebecers on here that have done this?
No, but I am very tempted to take my TW license and go back to find the lady who denied me renewal of my QC license about 10 years back. “Monsieur, comment veux-tu la permis? Tu n’as pas la carte d’assurance maladie! Tu ne pais pas de taxes! Tu n’es pas resident du Quebec!” Tralalala… :fume:
the international licence does not say it needs to be stamped… it just says its valid for one year, and thats what im going by. Even though i hear on this site that many people are being told it needs to be stamped, who knows why.
Im sure the DMV here will try to charge a fee, for them to “stamp” it. :fume:
I’m guessing it’s both. In Canada, I have a class 5 & 6. My license is from Alberta. This means I can drive a car or a small truck (class 5), and a motorcycle (class 6). Class 6 doesn’t have a restriction regarding the size of the motorcycle. I know some provinces have two separate bike licenses for motorcycles; Smaller than 600cc and bigger than 600cc. Not sure how Taiwan will work that out.
I’m guessing that whatever you are allowed to drive/ride in Canada, you are also allowed to drive/ride in Taiwan. Give or take extra requirements when it comes to commercial licenses such has regular health check ups, etc, it seems pretty straightforward.
marboulette[/quote]
With a lot of talking and official prove that in Belgium there was not limit on what bike I could drive bigger than 50cc and unlimited HP …
Not really, they didn’t give me my license to drive a truck or bus … they told me to come back as soon as I got work as truck or bus driver and than they would issue the license …
[quote=“dan2006”]the international licence does not say it needs to be stamped… it just says its valid for one year, and thats what im going by. Even though I hear on this site that many people are being told it needs to be stamped, who knows why.
Im sure the DMV here will try to charge a fee, for them to “stamp” it. :fume:[/quote]
It need to be stamped if you stay longer than 30 days. Basically it needs to be stamped if you are a resident, no country accepts IDL’s if you are resident in the country as far as I know. You are visitor and you are fine with a IDL, you are resident and it needs to be stamped (which actually is a small piece of paper they add to the whole thing). So if you have an ARC and you dont have it stamped you will be fined as you dont have a license at all, not sure about the prices anymore, it was once 6000NT but I think they put that up.
Good news for Irish citizens in Taiwan who have not passed the Taiwan driving test yet. Ireland now has a reciprocal agreement with Taiwan in effect for mutual recognition of driving licenses.
Hey mods, I wish you didn’t put my post about Irish licenses now being on approved exchange list into this thread, it’s too long and disappeared into this after just 2 hours : :s . It was not a general post, this is the biggest thing to happen in years for Irish citizens in Taiwan!
We don’t have a fully functioning trade office here so this is the only way we can spread the news efficiently.
If you want to search for an existing list of reciprocal agreement countries I will move your post there. If there isn’t one, perhaps you’d like to create one?
You can create a list if you like and add it in otherwise as I’ve stated this is of major interest for the Irish community in Taiwan , this is NEWS, please split back to the original thread. Would you do the same for Americans or British or Canadians?
If there isn’t one, perhaps you’d like to create one?