If you already drive and you have moved to Australia, you are not starting from zero, but you are dealing with eight separate licensing authorities rather than one national process. What you need to do depends on which state or territory you live in, which country issued your licence, and how long you have been a resident.
The deadline that catches people out
New South Wales requires you to sit the tests required for conversion within six months of becoming a resident. That is the fact worth acting on immediately, because it is a clock that starts without anyone telling you it has, and it is the single most common reason a straightforward conversion turns into a problem. It was checked against the New South Wales requirements on 27 August 2026.
The general pattern across jurisdictions is that you may drive on your overseas licence for a defined period after arrival, after which you need a local licence. What that period is, and what tests it ends with, is set separately by each authority. Do not assume the New South Wales six months applies where you live: check with the authority for your own state or territory as soon as you arrive.
Which country your licence comes from matters
Australian jurisdictions treat overseas licences differently depending on the issuing country. Broadly, there are countries whose licences convert with minimal testing under a recognition arrangement, and countries whose licence holders need to sit some combination of a knowledge test, a hazard perception test and a practical driving assessment.
Which countries fall where is set by each jurisdiction and does change, so the list to trust is the current one on your own authority's site, not a summary written elsewhere. What is consistent is that the country on your licence, and not your driving experience, determines the pathway.
What you will usually need
Expect to prove your identity, prove your residential address, and produce your overseas licence, together with a certified translation if it is not in English. If your licence has expired or you have lost it, expect the process to become considerably harder, so start before either happens.
Where testing is required, the knowledge test is the same one local learners sit. In New South Wales that is the Driver Knowledge Test: 45 questions in two sections, 12 of 15 on general knowledge and 29 of 30 on road safety, drawn from the question bank Transport for NSW publishes in full. Experienced drivers frequently underestimate this. The road safety section allows one wrong answer, and a decade of safe driving in another country does not tell you the Australian rule for a specific intersection type.
Where experienced drivers actually lose marks
The failures cluster in rules that differ from other countries rather than in driving ability. Roundabout rules and signalling, give way rules at unmarked intersections, school zone times and speeds, the various line markings and what each permits, and the specific rules on stopping and parking are the recurring gaps.
Then there is the obvious one. If you learned in a right hand traffic country, everything about your positioning, your mirror habits and your instinct at intersections is mirrored. Supervised practice before booking a practical assessment matters far more here than the test format does.
Whatever your state, do this early. A six month window in New South Wales is not long once you have found housing and started work, and running out of it turns a paperwork exercise into a licensing problem.
How this guide is kept honest
Every figure above names the agency or dataset it came from and the date it was checked. Where a number has not been confirmed against an agency or an open dataset, the guide says it is being verified rather than filling the gap. Licensing rules change, so check the agency page before you pay for anything or book a test.
Last reviewed .