Exchanging a foreign driving licence in Spain

What the price covers

Two tariffs, depending on your licence categories. In both the DGT fee is included: we buy it in your name, so you do not have to work out which one applies.

The gap between the two is not a mark-up: the official fee itself changes. Lorry and bus exchanges normally require additional tests, and for those the DGT catalogue sets fee 2.1 at 93.12 € instead of the 28.58 € of fee 2.3.

The price covers the whole file: checking first whether your case qualifies, preparing the paperwork, buying the correct fee, filing electronically at the DGT with a registered gestora's professional certificate, following it to the decision and handing in the original licence on your behalf. That last point is the difference: you never go to the traffic office.

The only thing paid separately

The medical fitness report, between 25 and 75 € depending on the centre, and a sworn translation if your licence requires one. Nothing else.

Why we are not the cheapest

You will find exchanges advertised from 130 €. Those are volume operations and they work fine for a standard file. We charge more because the file is handled by a gestora registered with the ICGA of Valencia, because we work in four languages including Russian and Ukrainian, and above all because the step that stalls exchanges is proving you were not resident in Spain when you obtained the licence. Knowing which document works in each case is the whole job.

You do not go to the DGT, we do

The digital exchange removed the appointment, but almost everyone still assumes you have to turn up at the Jefatura Provincial in person to hand in the original licence. Not with us: we act as your representative, so we file the case, hand in the original licence and collect the provisional authorisation.

This is not a loophole. Article 5 of Law 39/2015 says it plainly: interested parties with legal capacity may act through a representative, and the administration deals with that representative. Representation can be evidenced by any means valid in law, and the DGT's own electronic office has a dedicated procedure for it, the authorisation of representatives in the electronic register of powers of attorney.

We say it plainly rather than overselling: the medical test is a physical examination and the centre has to carry it out on you in person. Nobody can do that for you. Everything else, we can.

How long it takes

The exchange is decided by the provincial traffic office, and the timing is not the same across Spain. We work with several provinces and we have had files resolved in two days and others that ran into weeks. We do not promise a date, because the deadline is not ours to set.

What does depend on us, and this is where the real time is won or lost, is that the file goes in complete and correct the first time. A badly evidenced document does not delay the procedure, it sends it back and restarts the wait from zero.

Who can exchange

Two conditions at once: you must be resident in Spain, and your country must have a bilateral exchange agreement. Agreements exist with sixteen countries in the Americas, nine in Europe including Ukraine and the United Kingdom, three in Africa, four in Asia and New Zealand.

Licences issued in the EU and the EEA follow a different and simpler route: the DGT states that no examination is required, and what applies is registration, renewal or replacement rather than a non-EU exchange.

The document that derails most files

Among the papers the DGT asks for there is one most people do not expect: evidence that you were not resident in Spain when you obtained the foreign licence. It follows from the logic of the agreement, which recognises a licence obtained in your own country rather than one taken abroad while living here.

Proving it is not always simple. Depending on the case it can be a migration movements certificate, the historical padrón record or consular documentation. This is where most exchanges get stuck.

While the file is running

When the original licence is handed in you receive a provisional authorisation that lets you keep driving in Spain until the definitive licence arrives. Its validity is limited to Spanish territory, so driving abroad needs the final licence or, where applicable, an international permit.