Before you start

A valid residence permit with adequate remaining validity
Your foreign licence, valid, with an accepted Chinese translation
A Chinese driver medical examination
Passport and temporary residence registration slip

Step-by-step

1
Know that your foreign licence and IDP are not valid here
Mainland China is not party to the 1968 Vienna Convention, so the International Driving Permit confers nothing. Driving on a foreign licence is driving unlicensed. Hong Kong and Macau are separate jurisdictions, which is where much of the confusion comes from.
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2
Get an accepted translation of the licence
Beijing's vehicle administration accepts translations from designated agencies only. A self-made or notarised-abroad translation will be refused at the counter.
In personWho: You
3
Complete the driver medical
A short examination at an approved hospital covering eyesight, colour vision and limb function. The certificate has a limited life, so do it shortly before applying.
In personWho: You1 day
4
Sit Subject 1, the written theory examination
One hundred questions from a published national bank, taken on a computer, available in English. For ordinary car categories this is normally the only test — the field and road tests are waived when converting a valid foreign licence. Practise with one of the widely used question-bank apps; the test rewards familiarity with the phrasing more than driving skill.
In personWho: YouHalf a day
5
Enter the plate lottery if you must, and expect nothing
Ordinary petrol-car plates are drawn twice a year and the winning rate reached roughly 0.3% in 2025. New-energy plates are queued in order of application rather than drawn, and the wait has exceeded eight years. Eligibility for foreign residents is set out on the Beijing municipal government's own page and generally requires a residence permit of adequate duration and local tax records.
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6
Understand the driving restrictions before you rely on a car
Beijing bans one plate-ending digit from the roads inside the fifth ring on each weekday, on a rotating schedule. Vehicles registered outside Beijing need an entry permit (jìnjīngzhèng) that is limited in both number per year and days per permit. Together these make a non-Beijing plate an unreliable substitute rather than a workaround.
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Documents you’ll need

Passport and residence permit
Temporary residence registration slip
Foreign driving licence and accepted Chinese translation
Driver medical certificate
Passport photographs to Chinese specification

Things most newcomers don’t know

Beijing rations plates by lottery, not auction, which means money does not solve it.

Shanghai auctions plates, so a Shanghai plate is expensive but obtainable. Beijing draws them, and the winning rate for an ordinary petrol-car plate reached about 0.3% in 2025 — roughly one applicant in three hundred. The new-energy queue is deterministic but has run past eight years. There is no legitimate way to shortcut either, and arrangements offered by intermediaries to 'lease' someone else's plate leave you driving a car you do not legally control. Plan on not owning a car.

Source: Beijing Municipal Transport Commission

The out-of-town plate workaround is closed by the entry permit system.

Registering a car in a neighbouring province is the obvious response to the lottery, and Beijing anticipated it: vehicles with non-Beijing plates require an entry permit to come inside the city, permits are capped in number per year and in days per permit, and they do not cover the innermost roads at all times. The practical result is a car you can use for weekend trips and not for commuting.

Source: Beijing Municipal Transport Commission

One digit of your plate is banned from the road every weekday.

Beijing operates a rotating restriction that excludes vehicles whose plate ends in a given digit from the roads inside the fifth ring on one weekday each week, with the digit-to-day mapping rotating every quarter. Everyone who drives in Beijing knows their day. Newcomers who buy a car without knowing the scheme discover it at a checkpoint, and the fines accumulate per occurrence.

Source: Beijing Municipal Transport Commission

The written theory test is the whole conversion for an ordinary car, and it is available in English.

Unlike Japan or Korea, China waives the practical driving examinations for holders of a valid foreign licence converting to an ordinary car category. What remains is Subject 1, a hundred questions from a published bank, sat on a terminal in English. This makes China one of the easier major countries to convert into. The exception is heavy categories, and applicants who cannot evidence enough residence in the issuing country during the year the licence was obtained.

Source: Ministry of Public Security traffic management rules

Common mistakes to avoid

Arriving with an International Driving Permit and assuming it works.
Buying a car on a provincial plate and discovering the entry permit limits.
Not knowing which weekday your plate digit is banned.
Booking the theory test before the translation and medical are ready.
Taking up an offer to use someone else's plate, which leaves the vehicle outside your legal control.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.