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What actually happens at the hire desk when your licence isn’t in English

Find out about this rule at the counter, with a queue behind you and a family waiting by the trolleys, and it is too late to do much about it. Here is what the desk is looking for, so it goes the other way.

Published 4 September 2026 · Official Translation

Hiring a car on an overseas licence?

Answer a few quick questions about your state and your licence and get your answer in 1 second.

Check your licence

The clerk is not reading your licence. They are matching it.

Here is the thing nobody tells you before you fly. The person at the counter is not trying to understand your licence. In plain terms, the counter has three questions: is the licence current, does it cover this class of vehicle, and can the name on it be read and matched to the booking and the card. If your licence is in Japanese or Punjabi or Arabic, that third question stalls, and the transaction stalls with it.

So the question they are really asking is not is this licence valid. It is what can I put next to it so I can read it. Two things do that job. An International Driving Permit, if you got one at home. Or an English translation of the licence.

The companies do not all say it the same way. Hertz’s terms accept a licence that “is in English or, if not in English, is accompanied by a certified English translation”. SIXT’s FAQ says that where a licence is in another language or has no photo, “SIXT will accept a certified translation in English or an International driver’s permit”. Budget’s and Avis’s FAQs give a permit as an example of “an approved translation”, but each also carries a line saying an International Drivers Licence is required when the licence is not in English, so ask those two before you book.

Hertz’s terms also set out a separate rule for licences issued in the People’s Republic of China, naming a China Notarial Certificate or Hertz’s own translation certification. If yours is a Chinese licence, read that part of Hertz’s terms, or ask Hertz, before you order from us.

The part people get wrong: the translation does not replace anything

Here is the mistake to avoid: the translation is on your phone, the plastic card is in the hotel safe, and the desk has nothing to match it to. The translation is a companion, not a substitute. Budget puts it as bluntly as anyone: “An International Driving Permit is not a stand-alone document and must be carried with your valid domestic drivers licence.” The same logic applies to a translation. Carry both. Always.

It also helps to know that the desk is not the last check. The road authority in whichever state you are driving through has its own wording, and a police officer at a breath-test stop works from that, not from the hire contract. New South Wales tells visitors they “must also carry an English translation, or an International Driving Permit”. Victoria uses almost the same sentence. So the document you show at the desk is the document you keep in the glovebox.

If you are already here without a permit

Say you landed, you did not know, and now you need to drive on Thursday. An IDP is not an option any more; the Australian Automobile Association is clear that only Australian licence holders can apply for one here. A translation is the route that is still open, and it is the one named on every state page we have checked except the Northern Territory.

What we send is both sides of the card, translated in full. Not a summary. The categories and their codes, the conditions, the dates, the issuing office, the little stamp in the corner that turns out to say the licence was reissued after a name change. That last one matters more than you would think, because the clerk’s job is to match the name on the licence to the name on the booking, and if the licence carries a maiden name in a stamp, the translation has to show it.

For driving or hiring a car, choose the NAATI certification option; several authorities and companies name NAATI. A NAATI-certified translator prepares it and their digital stamp carries a QR code the desk can scan. Where a company’s terms say “certified”, as Hertz’s, Thrifty’s and SIXT’s do, that same option is the certified form we offer; Standard, our other option, is a translation with no certification statement and no stamp.

State by state and company by company, in their own words: renting a car in Australia with an overseas licence. Or go straight to the order page.

Sources, checked on the date shown: