TLDR: You need an international drivers permit to rent a car in Poland if you’re from the US, and looks like Canada and Australia too .
I returned to the US from a two-week trip to Poland and the Baltic countries.
I had missed, or maybe it wasn’t on the Europcar site, that an international driving permit was required to rent a car.
Found this out when I was at the counter at the Warsaw airport.
For those of you not familiar with an International Drivers Permit, have a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Driving_Permit
Anyway, I figured I was screwed, as Europcar wouldn’t rent me a car without having one, and they told me there was a horrific fine if I was stopped by the police and didn’t have one.
Did a quick search and found I could get one online. No connection to them, but was able to get one in about ten minutes for US$25at https://idlp.org/ But some comments below say this may be a scam and not official. But it made Europcar happy.
In the US, you can also go to a AAA auto office and get one, but online was way easier, but may not be effective.
Edited in light of comments below.
LPT on renting a car in Poland as a foreigner
byu/JerrytheK inpoland
Posted by JerrytheK
5 Comments
Mentioned multiple times over in many threads. US domestic driver’s licenses are not accepted in Poland because USA is not a signatory to the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic.
nice. Also its bullshit u cant use a US license in Poland.
Crazy Polish bureaucracy. It has never been a problem in Western EU w US DL. Suddenly around 2018 Poland started demand IDL. A friend of mine got pulled over in PL and she presented US DL. Cops impounded the car and she got a fine. That was in 2021.
>Did a quick search and found I could get one online. No connection to them, but was able to get one in about ten minutes for US$25at [https://idlp.org/](https://idlp.org/)
>
>In the US, you can also go to a AAA auto office and get one, but online was way easier.
Bad lie. Only AAA can issue u IDL and digital ones are just a scam.
Wrong, mamy foreign drivers licenses are accepted in Poland.
US didn’t sign any international convention creating this problem for their citizens abroad.