licenses

Two doors lead to a Chinese driver’s license. Walk in with a valid license from your home country and you’re headed for the exchange counter: one written test, no road exam, no driving school. Walk in without one and it’s months and thousands of yuan. The first door is the one most people refuse to…

TL;DR (30-second version): Your foreign license is not valid in China, and your International Driving Permit is useless here — China never joined the IDP system. The good news: converting takes one computer-based written exam, no road test. Budget a morning, roughly 200–300 RMB, and five documents. The rulebook is the Ministry of Public Security’s…