Before you start

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

Step-by-step

1
Accept that the IDP does not work here
Mainland China is not party to the 1968 Vienna Convention, so an International Driving Permit confers nothing. Driving on a foreign licence is driving unlicensed.
OnlineWho: You
2
Get an accepted translation of your licence
The vehicle administration accepts translations from designated agencies only; one commissioned abroad will normally 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 — do it close to the application.
In personWho: You1 day
4
Sit Subject 1, the written theory test
One hundred questions from a published national bank, taken on a terminal, available in English. For ordinary car categories the field and road tests are waived when converting a valid foreign licence. Practise with a question-bank app.
In personWho: YouHalf a day
5
Learn the weekday plate-digit restriction
Chengdu excludes vehicles whose plate ends in a given digit from the roads inside a defined ring-road zone on one weekday each week, on a rotating schedule, during set hours. Everyone who drives here knows their day. Check the current mapping and zone boundaries, both of which have been adjusted over time.
OnlineWho: You
6
Consider that the mountains are the reason to bother
Chengdu sits at the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Within two to four hours' drive are Qingcheng Mountain, Dujiangyan, Siguniang Shan, Bipenggou and the road toward western Sichuan. This is the one major Chinese city where a car buys you something the metro cannot, and it is why more foreign residents drive here than in Shanghai.
In personWho: You

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

Chengdu has no plate auction and no plate lottery, which is a large hidden saving.

Shanghai auctions plates at around RMB 90,000, Beijing draws them with odds near 0.3%, and Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou all run quotas. Chengdu does not. You buy a car, you register it, you drive it. Against the eastern cities this is worth tens of thousands of yuan and, in Beijing's case, the difference between owning a car and never owning one. Combined with cheap parking and cheap fuel, it makes car ownership a genuinely reasonable proposition here for the first time in a major Chinese city.

Source: Chengdu municipal traffic authority

One digit of your plate is off the road one weekday a week.

Chengdu operates a rotating restriction excluding vehicles whose plate ends in a given digit from a defined ring-road zone on one weekday each week during set hours. Everyone who drives here knows their day and plans around it. Newcomers who buy a car without learning the scheme find out at a camera, and the fines accrue per occurrence. The digit-to-day mapping and the zone have both been adjusted over the years, so check the current version.

Source: Chengdu municipal traffic authority

The practical driving tests are waived, which makes China easier to convert into than Japan or Korea.

Holders of a valid foreign licence converting to an ordinary car category normally sit only Subject 1, the written theory examination, available in English. The exceptions are heavy vehicle categories, and applicants who cannot evidence enough residence in the issuing country during the year the licence was obtained — those can be sent to the full three-subject route.

Source: Ministry of Public Security traffic management rules

Western Sichuan's roads are a different proposition from city driving.

The roads west of Chengdu climb onto the Tibetan plateau and involve altitude, weather, landslides in the rainy season, and long stretches without fuel or phone signal. Some areas also require permits for foreign nationals, and the rules differ between Tibetan-designated prefectures in Sichuan and the Tibet Autonomous Region itself. Check the current position before planning a trip west — this is not something you want to discover at a checkpoint.

Source: community-reported

Common mistakes to avoid

Arriving with an International Driving Permit and assuming you can drive.
Not knowing which weekday your plate digit is restricted.
Booking the theory test before the translation and medical are in hand.
Driving west without checking whether the area requires a permit for foreign nationals.
Underestimating mountain road conditions in the summer rainy season.

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