My (almost free) 2,000 € Driver's License!

Well, almost free considering the usual cost. We did have to pay something like 38 Euros for the translation of my American license by ADAC, 8 Euros for a picture and 45 Euros for the license itself. So I guess that makes it the 91 Euro ($136 ... geez the exchange rate sucks!) driver's license. Now I just need an actual car (not likely in the near future) to use this ugly new card.

If you're exceptionally bright (which you must be, or you wouldn't be reading my blog, harhar) you may have noticed that I've covered up all the personal data in the pic above, however the bunny head shot does look amazingly similar to my real face =;-)

As everyone back home has probably known for years, it ain't cheap getting a German driver's license. Currently, I guess it can cost up to 4,000 Euros ($6000) in the end if you have to learn everything from the beginning. (This figure was found by Bunny on some German driving forums. Most English sites I've seen claim as little as 2,000 Euros. Whatever the actual cost, I'm sure it varies from place to place and is still absolutely freakin' ridiculous.) This insane cost is incurred by those who
a) have never had a license before, or
b) aren't lucky enough to have a reciprocity agreement between their old country (or state/province within said country) and Germany.

How to get your very own _,000 € Führerschein (hopefully for less)

The 6-month clause
If you're from the US, it basically works as follows. You can drive legally here with your valid American license for the first 6 months of residence only. If you are here only for a limited time past six month and up to 1 year (like your company sent you here for a total of 10 months and then you're going back home), you can go to your local Führerscheinstelle (driver's license office) and get a special exemption. They may bend the rules if you're here for slightly over a year (say, 14 months), but they certainly don't have to. If you're planning on staying here for a longer time (2 years, 5 years, indefinitely), you simply cannot drive after 6 months of entering the country.

Don't wait too long to do it!
Since a lot of expats don't have cars at first (maybe ever), it may not be that pressing of an issue for you. But be warned: don't wait TOO long! When obtaining your German one, your US license only counts for something during the first two years you're here. After that you may as well have never had a license in your entire life, as far as the German authorities are concerned.

There's also another caution about waiting too long. What comes next is in the heresay category, so I can't confirm it. It's just what I've read in forums. You know how our licenses back home expire every 3 to 5 years? Well, if you officially move here, then renew your license back home (online or during a visit) at some later point, the Germans may not consider that "new" license of yours valid. Why? Supposedly because you are living in Germany now and are not supposed to be getting/renewing licenses in other countries! Something like that. Plus, a real important date for them is the "issue date" of your license. In most US states the "issue date" changes each time you renew to the latest renewal date. There is usually nothing on the license to prove you've been a legal driver since the Stone Age. If you renew today it says "issue date: Feb 29, 2008".

Also, licenses that have been held for less than 1 year (according to the "issue date" on yours) are usually not good enough, either. If you've just renewed it in the US before moving here and want to get your German license right away, you might have to get sworn statements from your state's DOL/DMV proving you've actually had a license for way longer than the "issue date" would lead one to believe. Remember that Germans have a goal of making your life ridiculously complicated. Unless you're lucky enough to have everything exactly the way they want it. But only if.

Are you from a "good" state or a "bad" state?
This is THE big important question and the answer is not fair. States either have or don't have what's called a "reciprocal agreement" with Germany. The agreement is a mutual acceptance of each other's licenses, in whichever degree of totality they decide. Your state can either have full reciprocity, partial reciprocity or nichts/nada/zilch. Again, no, it's not fair. [Note: If you live in Hamburg, Hesse, Saxony-Anhalt, Schlesweig-Holstein or Saarland it's more complicated than below. Or easier, I guess. You maybe don't even have to worry about reciprocal agreements, lucky you. Visit AmCham for more info. Scroll down to #8 on their page for more info on this point.]

A full reciprocal agreement means you can simply trade your license for a German one. You are exempt from taking the usual driving test and written test. All you need is a certified translation (go to any ADAC office) and photocopy of your valid American license, the license itself (duh), your passport, a recent passport photo and about 50 bucks. (You might take your registration paper with you, too, just in case, but they should have you in their computer if you're a legal resident.) Just go directly to the Führerscheinstelle and that's that. They will, however, take your American license away from you. Yep. That's part of the agreement. It wouldn't be very German to allow you to have both! How does this affect the validity of your license-ness (is that a word? =;-) back home? Good question! I'll write more about that toward the end of this post.

A partial reciprocal agreement means that you're exempt from one aspect of testing, either the written or driving portion. You should take all that crazy paperwork to the Führerscheinstelle and they'll guide you from there. You may have to go to a driving school for a while so you'll actually pass those tests, though! (This could cost over 1,000 Euros for a simple signs-and-rules course, according to one source!) And, again, in the end, after you pass the required test, they will take away your US license from you, so you'll just have the German one.

If your state has no reciprocal agreement, sorry to say, but I pity you. I really do. Unless you live in Hamburg, Hesse, Saxony-Anhalt, Schlesweig-Holstein or Saarland, you are basically in the same situation as a non-licensed German. To get a German license you must start from the very beginning by going to a driving school (Fahrschule) and paying up.

But, just because your state doesn't currently have an agreement, it doesn't mean they won't ever! If they would, you wouldn't have to go through all the hell of getting a license from scratch. Soooo, if you don't need the German license right now (no need to drive, plenty of time before that would-be first 2 years limit is up), I strongly suggest writing back home to your licensing officials to see why your state doesn't have an agreement. Find out why! Maybe they're just dragging their feet and need someone to pester them. Maybe they need some type of new law that will allow them to enter into such an agreement. Whichever the case, write (and beg your family and friends to write) to the appropriate parties, such as DOL/DMV, the governor and the legislators in your voting district. I'm serious! Urge your state to make the deal with Germany. Believe it or not, officials will most likely respond in some way.

My state (WA) did not have an agreement. I checked into this about a year or so before moving here. I wrote the Dept of Licensing and they told me they wanted to do it, but WA law prohibited them from making agreements with foreign countries. A bill to change this had been started the previous year, but it died in committee and was never even voted on. They would try it again during the next legislative session. That next spring I found out the new bill number and I wrote the governor and my legislators about it, about how important this was for me and for the state and how it really needed to get to the floor. And guess what! The bill went through! WA now has a full reciprocal agreement with Germany! I'm not saying my amazing letters of begging and Senator Shinn's winning smile did it alone, but who knows. The point is: change is possible.

AmCham (the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany) has addresses to write to and sample letters, as well as an up-to-date listing of reciprocal agreements, so you can determine if you're from a "good" state or a "bad" one =;-)

How long does it take?
All I can say is how long it took me to get mine. That was about a month and a half overall. We went to ADAC in mid-January and, since I live in Duisburg instead of a cool city, they had to send my license away for the translation. It took two weeks to get it back. (And I was under time pressure, since the license expired in Feb.) Once we got the certified translation we went to Duisburg's one and only Führerscheinstelle, of course clear on the other side of town. I've always heard how horrible it is to visit any government office in Germany. "Get there first thing in the morning and be prepared to wait all day!" However, anytime we've gone anywhere in Duisburg, from the Ausländeramt to the Einwohnermeldeamt, it's been very easy. Hardly any wait at all, people so friendly you'd think they attended some American Customer Service seminar and surprisingly few if any hassles. The license thing was correspondingly easy. We were there for maybe 20 minutes tops. The lady looked up WA's agreement status, took my paperwork and had me sign two documents and we paid the 45 Euros. We then had to wait a month and call them to see if my German license had arrived there yet. Yep, it had. We went back yesterday and had it, again in less than 20 minutes.

That's one thing you should know in any case. You'll wait. Anywhere from a month to three months, so don't plan a big driving adventure the next week. You're not driving anywhere for a while.

With a reciprocal agreement, what happens to my American license?
Good question. If anyone has more insight into this, please leave a comment! They supposedly either keep it or send it back to the issuing state. Some have begged or had employers beg on their behalf to keep it, since it's used as an ID in the US. You may or may not have luck with this.

Most people whose license has been taken by the Germans just go to their DMV/DOL on their first visit back home and say they've lost their wallet or something and get a new copy of their US license. My WA State license was about to expire, so I renewed it online (allowed once every 10 years) just before I applied for the German one. I therefore have a new spare (hehe! =;-) waiting for me at my mom's house back home. The Germans took the "old" one that was about to expire anyway. The scary part now is whether WA will know about this German transfer and invalidate my WA license. I pray they don't because it's required to have a valid WA license to keep a car registered there (and the tabs for my car that lives in WA must be renewed every July!) and of course I must have a valid US license to keep my US insurance policy alive.

(I pay a tiny amount to keep my policy active, with my car in "storage". When I go back to visit I simply call my agent and have it changed back to regular status for the time I'm there. I did this because, in case things didn't work out in Germany, I didn't want to have to go back home and pay $300 a month as a brand new "previously uninsured" driver. Obviously I'm staying here, so at some point I'm going to have to give up my poor old piece of junk car that my mom is currently stuck with and therefore my Allstate insurance policy as well. Ugh.)

I would love to know about others' experience on this one. Is your US license still valid? Even so, I suspect different states might handle things differently. It's kind of scary. WA's website has a function that enables one to check the validity of a license by typing in the number. I'll do that in a couple of months.

Renting a car with your new German license
Another point I can only offer hearsay on. Supposedly, no one will be willing to rent you a car here if you've had your German license for under a year. Some say they've rented nevertheless by showing their US license. Of course, to try this you need to have a US license in your possession. (If the Führerscheinstelle took yours, do you have another copy of your US license to show the rental company? Does cashing in with a reciprocal agreement invalidate your US one in some states? Since it's illegal to drive past your first 6 months here with your US license, does the rental company just need to see it to know you're a longer-term driver? If you don't tell them you've lived here for quite a while and only show them the US license, leaving them to believe you've just moved here or are visiting, couldn't you end up in serious trouble if you get pulled over or are involved in an accident, since your rental agreement was in essence a lie? Technicalities, you know.) Well, if anyone has experience renting a car with a new German license after their initial first six months of residence, please leave a comment. This would be good info for everyone to have.

And finally (!)
I can't think of anything else right now (unbelievable, huh? blah, blah, blah....) except that we found an excellent website about driving in Germany. It even has pictures and explanations of road signs, something I need to study sometime. See www.gettingaroundgermany.info