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Thread: How to get NZ driver's license

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    Default How to get NZ driver's license

    I currently hold a Hawaii driver's license. I moved to NZ last Monday. How do I convert it to a NZ driver's license? Do I have to take written test and driving tests? Will it mean giving up my US license?
    Thank you.

  2. #2
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    Oct 2007
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    Nrth Wellington from Tadley UK
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    Have you looked here ? I'm just trying to find it
    http://www.nzta.govt.nz/licence/resi...g-nz.html#year

  3. #3
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    See here http://www.nzta.govt.nz/licence/resi...riving-nz.html and scroll down. You'll find more here http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/fa...w-zealand.html further down again. So basically you just convert it as you don't have to sit theoretical and practical test.

  4. #4
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    It's really easy. Just go into an AA or other licensing agent (VTNZ I think do it as well). There is a form you fill out, you pay them the conversion fee, they take your picture and in a few days to weeks you'll have a new license. No tests, though you may have to do an eye test. You get to keep your US license.

  5. #5
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    Additional note to my earlier post.

    Excerpt from http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/fa...-zealand.html:
    "Some countries require similar driving skills and have similar licensing systems to New Zealand's. Depending on the country you have come from and the class of licence you are converting, you may not have to sit theory and/or practical tests."

    Something I couldn't figure out yet: Why is it that people from continental Europe and USA are exempt from sitting the practical test? Driving on different sides of the road does IMHO not "require similar driving skills".

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    You're still expecting all the regulations to make sense....?

  7. #7
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    Stanley Bay, Auckland, NZ
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    Quote Originally Posted by ralf-nz View Post

    Something I couldn't figure out yet: Why is it that people from continental Europe and USA are exempt from sitting the practical test? Driving on different sides of the road does IMHO not "require similar driving skills".
    It isn't that hard to make the switch ... and they already be let visitors with those licences drive for a year on their overseas licence so it would make less sense to make them sit a practical test after they have been driving here for up to a year!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2008
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    Wellington
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    Depends how long ago your US licence was issued, check the sites listed above.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by James 1077 View Post
    It isn't that hard to make the switch ... and they already be let visitors with those licences drive for a year on their overseas licence so it would make less sense to make them sit a practical test after they have been driving here for up to a year!
    The regulation re tourists need(ed) to be changed too. Look at Samoa: No foreign driver licence acknowledged! Of course, theur tests are not very difficult, according to what I was told.

    On the other side I can't complain, I benefited myself from that regulation too. Though back then I had to pass the theoretical test; which is by comparison, coming from Europe, a very easy one.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by JandM View Post
    You're still expecting all the regulations to make sense....?
    No I don't expect it! But I hope - still - that occasionally I might glimpse a reason in them.

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