We have written already about what an International Driving Permit is — that it is a translation booklet rather than a licence, that it never travels alone, that it expires a year after it is issued. That article explains the document.
This one answers a differently shaped question, and it is the shape the question actually arrives in. Nobody writes to us asking about the Geneva Convention. They write saying I live in Germany or I live in Istanbul, and what they want to know is what that particular fact changes.
The short answer is that it changes less than people expect on our side, and something specific on theirs. Here is both halves.
What we require, and it is the same for everybody
As of September 2026:
- Licences from any country are accepted. There is no nationality condition on hiring a car from us. We do not ask you to convert the licence, translate it through us, or obtain a local equivalent.
- The minimum driver age is 23.
- The licence must be valid on your dates. There is no minimum period you must have held it for.
- Bring the physical licence. A photograph of it is not a document.
That list does not vary by passport, by country of issue, or by how long you have been away. It is the same list for a returning Syrian with a German residence permit as for a Dutch engineer who has never been to Syria before.
Two other things that are the same for everybody and worth stating because they come up in the same breath: fuel is handed over full and returned full, and cancellation is free.
What is different where you live
This is the half that varies, and it is worth going through by country because the wrinkle genuinely differs.
If you live in Türkiye
You are, by our figures, the largest single group reading this. The practical point for you is rarely the licence itself — a Turkish licence is accepted without qualification. It is the second licence.
Many Syrians resident in Türkiye hold a Turkish licence and an older Syrian one. The instinct is to work out which of the two to bring. Bring both, and check the expiry on each before you pack, because an old Syrian licence that quietly lapsed while you were away is not the fallback you think it is. If only one of them is current, that is the one you present, and it is enough.
The other Türkiye-specific point is the arrival itself, which we have covered in flying into Damascus from Istanbul.
If you live in Germany
A German licence is accepted as it stands. The German wrinkle is a document one: the EU card licence is accepted here as the licence it is, and the old grey or pink paper Führerschein that many people who left Germany years ago still hold is the one worth looking at twice before travelling, simply because it is old and because it is the kind of thing that turns out to have been superseded.
Germany issues International Driving Permits readily through ADAC and the licensing authorities, which is the practical reason most German-resident readers end up carrying one. See the section below on whether that is worth doing.
If you live in the United States
An American licence is a state licence, and this is the only thing worth flagging: it is issued by New Jersey or Michigan or California rather than by the country, and it is written only in English. Neither of those facts is a problem for hiring a car from us. Both are the reason American residents are the group for whom an International Driving Permit is most obviously useful, because the booklet restates the categories in a standard international layout and in several languages.
AAA issues IDPs in the United States. The application is short and does not require a trip abroad.
If you live in the Netherlands
A Dutch licence is accepted as it stands, and the ANWB issues International Driving Permits. There is no Netherlands-specific complication we are aware of on the hiring side.
If you live in the UAE
An Emirati licence is accepted as it stands. The point worth making for Gulf-resident readers is a different one: driving in Syria is not driving in the Emirates. The distances are shorter, the road surface is much less uniform, and the M5 between Homs and Aleppo in particular has stretches that are patched rather than smooth. Our article on what to expect on Syrian roads is worth twenty minutes before a first long drive.
So should you get an International Driving Permit?
Here is the honest position, and it has two parts that must not be run together.
From our side: no, you do not need one to hire a car from us. Your national licence is what we ask for and what we accept.
From the law's side: we are not your authority, and neither is any other rental company. What you are required to carry while driving touches traffic enforcement and insurance, it is not identical for every nationality, and it changes. Ask two bodies before you travel: whoever issues IDPs where you live — ADAC, AAA, ANWB, the Turkish Touring and Automobile Club, the relevant Emirates body — and the Syrian diplomatic mission in your country of residence.
The conclusion most travellers reach for themselves is the sensible one. If an IDP is easy to obtain where you live, obtain it and carry it. It costs little, it weighs nothing, it is valid a year, and carrying a document you turn out not to need is a far smaller problem than needing one you left at home.
If more than one of you is driving
On a family visit the driving usually gets shared, and the rule is unglamorous: every person who is going to drive needs to meet the same conditions — 23 or over, a licence from any country held at least a year — and needs to be on the booking. Putting a second name on at booking time takes a moment. Adding one at the kerb, with the luggage still in the boot, does not.
Where you will actually be driving
Most of the people this article is written for land in Damascus and drive out from there, so the practical pages are car rental at Damascus Airport and in Damascus itself — both free to deliver to. If the family is elsewhere, we deliver to Homs, Hama, Latakia, Tartus and Aleppo for a flat fee, and one-way hire between cities is available if the trip does not end where it began.
Anything on this page that reads as a rule about you rather than a rule about us — check it with the consulate. Anything about the car, the licence we will look at, or the price, is on the questions page or answered by asking us.
