You have to bring a valid photo ID and an official document proving Spanish residency. If you have a valid driver’s license from an EU or European Economic Area (EEA-Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) country, yes, you can simply exchange it by making an appointment with the Traffic Department or DGT (click the option called “canje”). Little did I know that the driver’s license system here has nothing to do with teaching someone to drive, and everything to do with bureaucracy.Ĭan’t I Just Exchange My License for a Spanish License? I’m pretty sure the expression “pride cometh before a fall” was coined by some other poor soul who assumed that the Spanish driver’s license test wouldn’t be a problem. It didn’t seem like it would be a problem. Having to take the written test would force me to learn the road signs and vocabulary in Spanish, which would be useful, and having to take the practical test would require that I get better at driving an automatic transmission. At the time, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. When I moved to Spain I had to go through the process of getting a driver’s license from zero, as the US and Spain don’t have a bilateral agreement to allow the exchange of one license for the other.

I had also driven countless rental cars both in the US and Europe. When I moved to Spain, I’d had my US license for 15 years, and had put hundreds of thousands of miles on three different cars while traveling cross-country.

Navicat perpetual license