Driving Licences: The 90-Day Rule and Conversion

Traffic in North Cyprus runs on the left, and cars are right-hand drive — familiar territory if you are coming from the UK or Ireland, a genuine adjustment if you learned to drive in Türkiye or continental Europe. Driving licences are governed by the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Law (21/1974) and its 1974 Regulation, and handled by the Traffic Department's Driving Licences unit. This page summarises how long your foreign licence is valid, how conversion works and how to get a licence from scratch, based on official sources (most of which are published in Turkish).

Your foreign licence: the 90-day rule

Per the official source (the TRNC Public Information Office):

• Short-term visitors can drive non-commercial vehicles on foreign licences — including those from the UK, the EU and Türkiye.
• A visitor's licence is valid for 90 days from the date of entry.
• At the end of the 90 days, visitor status expires. You must then apply for a TRNC driving licence within 30 days of your visitor status expiring.

Official sources do not mention an International Driving Permit (IDP) requirement — for a short visit, your national licence is treated as sufficient.

The catch: residence, work and student permits

The 90-day rule is for visitors only. Once you hold a residence, work or student permit, you are no longer a visitor for driving purposes. The official source spells this out for Turkish citizens — those holding such permits cannot drive on a Turkish licence and must convert it to a TRNC licence — and the visitor-status framing means the same logic applies once any long-stay status begins. The deadline is the 30-day rule above. If you are moving here to study or work, plan the conversion as part of your arrival admin rather than assuming your home licence carries on working.

Converting a foreign licence

The process described by the official source (PIO FAQ):

• Third-country nationals: a preparation exam on road rules and traffic signs from the "TRNC Highway Traffic Rules Book", plus at least 5 days of driving lessons under a driving-school instructor (8 hours of daytime and 2 hours of night driving per day).
• The source lists the exam-and-lessons route for third-country nationals and does not say whether Turkish-licence holders face the same steps; no official text settling this was found. Confirm what applies to your licence with the Traffic Department before you apply.
• A medical report is not a general requirement: only drivers whose licence records a disability are referred to the Health Board, and the conversion follows the board's report.

The full document list for conversion is not published on the Traffic Department's or the Police's pages.

Call the Driving Licences unit (below) for the current document list and fee before starting.

Converting a Turkish licence: how it works on the ground

Official sources do not publish a step-by-step document or process list for conversion. The route below fills that gap with what actually works in practice: it comes from a first-hand conversion experience, not a written official source. It reflects current practice; confirm with the relevant department before applying.

1. Get your Turkish licence certified at the Turkish Embassy in Nicosia (a small certification fee applies).
2. Fill in a form and pay the licence tax at the Tax Office (Maliye / Gelir ve Vergi Dairesi).
3. You can start driving immediately on the tax receipt; the card licence is ready roughly 3 weeks later.

Cars are issued a class D licence, which also covers class J (mopeds up to 50cc), valid for at least 2 years.

Türkiye-TRNC licence agreement: not yet in force

An amendment signed in Nicosia on 30 December 2025 would change how licences are handled during conversion: instead of being retained, licences would be returned to the holder with an official record (in exchange for signing an undertaking not to use both licences at once). It covers TRNC citizens in Türkiye and Turkish citizens working in the TRNC. This change is not yet in force — ratification by both sides is still pending. Confirm the current status with the Traffic Department before applying.

Licence durations

Per the line items in the official fee regulation, a TRNC driving licence is issued for 2, 3, 5 or 10 years, with an additional age-restricted 1-year licence category. The regulation also lists a temporary driving licence and a TRNC-issued international driving licence. Fees change over time and are not quoted here; ask the Traffic Department for current amounts.

Getting a licence from scratch

The process skeleton, confirmed from the official fee regulation's line items:

1. Learner's licence exam — the written/preparation stage.
2. Learner's licence — a provisional document for learning to drive.
3. Motor vehicle driving test — the practical test.
4. Driving licence — issued for the durations above.

The minimum driving age is set in the Regulation, not the Law, and its current value could not be verified from an official source; confirm with the Traffic Department before applying.

Traffic penalties: the court route and the fixed-penalty route

North Cyprus does not use fixed lira fines. Penalties are indexed to the minimum wage, applied through one of two separate mechanisms.

Court route: driving offences under Law 21/1974 (speeding, reckless/dangerous driving, careless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs) carry fines defined as multiples of the minimum wage, with imprisonment as an alternative; a drink-driving conviction also brings disqualification from driving. Driving while disqualified is a separate court offence too: under Cap. 333 s.3, a conviction can carry a fine of up to 3 times the minimum wage, imprisonment, or both.

Fixed-penalty route: under the law on the extra-judicial settlement of road and traffic offences (58/2005, as amended by 66/2007), each offence in the attached schedule carries a fixed fine defined as a percentage of the minimum wage plus penalty points. Driving without a licence, for example, is listed as schedule code 025: 100% of the minimum wage plus 100 penalty points (per the 66/2007 schedule; check the current version). If a fixed penalty is not paid within 30 days, the case is referred to court.

Penalty point system: reaching 100 points within 15 months of the first penalty point triggers a 3-month licence suspension; a second time, 6 months; a third time, 1 year; each time after that, the previous suspension period doubles. If 100 points are not reached within 15 months, the points reset to zero.

Driving without insurance is covered separately: see Car Insurance.

The current gross monthly minimum wage is ₺60,618.00^{7 Jul 2026 ↗}, in force from 2026-01-01^{7 Jul 2026 ↗}.

The legal alcohol limit and speed limits could not be verified from official sources — figures circulating online vary, so check the current values in the law against official sources before relying on them. Alcohol limits sit in a separate law (the Road Safety Law) as tiered thresholds, and a 2024 amendment process proposed stricter limits for drivers of public-transport vehicles.

Contact

For licence matters, the Traffic Department (official pages in Turkish):

• Driving Licences unit — tel +90 392 228 86 92
• General — tel +90 392 601 15 50; email info.trafik@gov.ct.tr

Numbers may change; verify current details on the department's page.

If you are also weighing up bringing a car or buying one locally, the age limits, right-hand-drive requirement and inspection process are covered in Importing a Car vs Buying Locally.