Countries With No Test
Countries with no test — and only 7 US states
With a license from the no-test group, you need only a paper check and an eye check. With any other license, you take 50 questions and a driving test. For the United States, there are three different answers.
28 countries and regions plus 7 US states skip both the knowledge test and the driving test. Canada is the whole country. Indiana in the USA skips only the driving test, so you still take the 50 questions. Brazil, Peru, Vietnam, the Philippines, Nepal and China are not in the group — they take both.
Three groups
| Group | Knowledge test (50) | Driving test | What you take |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 countries and regions, plus 7 US states | None | None | Paper check and eye check only |
| Indiana, USA | You take it | None | Paper check, eye check, knowledge test |
| All other countries | You take it | You take it | All four steps |
In the no-test group, one day can be enough once you have a booking. Outside it, the process splits into three steps. They are a paper check, the knowledge test and the driving test. Some prefectures want a separate booking for each one. The Gifu police say the paper check is about 2 months away. The two tests are about 5 months away.
The 28 countries and regions
| Area | Countries and regions |
|---|---|
| Europe | Austria / Belgium / Czechia / Denmark / Finland / France / Germany / Greece / Hungary / Iceland / Ireland / Italy / Luxembourg / Monaco / Netherlands / Norway / Poland / Portugal / Slovenia / Spain / Sweden / Switzerland / United Kingdom |
| Asia | South Korea / Taiwan |
| Oceania | Australia / New Zealand |
| North America | Canada (the whole country) / United States: 7 states only (see below) |
Canada is in the group as a whole country. No province is left out. We checked five prefectural police pages (Tokyo, Osaka, Kanagawa, Fukuoka, Saitama). All of them write "Canada" with no province listed.
The USA has three layers
For the United States, the answer depends on the state. Get this wrong and you lose your booking.
| Group | States | What you take |
|---|---|---|
| No test at all | Oregon / Ohio / Colorado / Virginia / Hawaii / Maryland / Washington (7 states) | Paper check and eye check only |
| No driving test | Indiana | You take the 50 questions |
| Both tests | Every state except those 8 (California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois and the rest) | Knowledge test and driving test |
The states with the most people — California, New York, Texas and Florida — are all outside the group. Most people who come from the USA take both tests.
Big countries that are not in the group
With a license from these countries, you take the knowledge test (50 questions, 45 right to pass) and the driving test (70 points out of 100). Many of the largest groups of foreign residents in Japan are here.
- Vietnam / the Philippines / Nepal / Indonesia / Myanmar / Thailand / Cambodia / Sri Lanka
- China / Mongolia
- Brazil / Peru — Portugal and Spain are in the group, but Brazil and Peru are not
- India / Pakistan / Bangladesh
- Russia / Ukraine
- Every US state except the 8 above
In Portuguese, Portugal is in the group and Brazil is not. In Spanish, Spain is in the group and Peru is not. The country that gave the license decides, not the language.
Why the list is not in the law
You may look for the list on a government site and find nothing. That is not your fault. It really is not there.
Search the full text of the Road Traffic Act, its Order and its Rules, and no country is named. The National Police Agency pages have no list either. The reason is written inside the notice.
"The naming of foreign countries … with a license system found to be at a level equal to ours is sent separately by the Director of the Driver's License Division, Traffic Bureau, National Police Agency."
So the list is not even in the notice itself. It goes to each prefectural police force as an internal message from that division. The most solid public source is the list each prefectural police force puts on its own page.
Our table here is built by comparing several of those pages. Check your own country on the page of your prefectural police.
October 2025 did not change the list
The rules for license conversion got harder on 1 October 2025. The list of countries did not move.
We compared the Tokyo police page at six points in time. Three were before the change and three after it. The text came out the same down to the byte, small writing habits included. Nothing was added and nothing was dropped.
What got harder is the tests for people outside the group, and the address rules. The knowledge test went from 10 picture questions at 70% to 50 written questions at 90% (45 right). The driving test added a crosswalk, and the marking for signals and for turning got stricter. → Knowledge test / Driving test
One prefecture does not agree with the others
We found one conflict in our research. We write it here instead of hiding it.
The Yamaguchi police page puts Indiana in the no-test-at-all group. Six other forces (Tokyo, Osaka, Kanagawa, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Saitama) all say the driving test only is skipped. We follow the six. If you hold an Indiana license and live in Yamaguchi, ask at the counter.
On this site we write it down when official sources do not agree. The answer changes how many tests you take. Do not go on "it is probably fine". Call your prefecture. → All 47 prefectures