Registry entry

United Kingdom International Driving Permit (IDP)

Apply in person for a UK International Driving Permit (IDP) — a translation document that supports a Great Britain or Northern Ireland driving licence in countries where the licence alone is not sufficient — issued over the counter at PayPoint stores, which the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) appointed as the exclusive IDP issuer from 1 April 2024 (GSP-0020), replacing the Post Office. There is no online application and no downloadable paper form: the applicant (or someone applying on their behalf with the correct documents) presents their driving licence, a passport-standard photo, proof of identity if the licence is a paper one, and the fee at a participating store, and the permit is issued the same visit. This document models that counter transaction at the field/requirement level documented on GOV.UK and PayPoint's own pages; it never submits anything or implies government endorsement of PayPoint beyond the DVLA-appointed issuer relationship it records.

Registry entry

gb/dvla/international-driving-permit

Jurisdiction
United Kingdom · national
Version
1.0.0
Verification
draft
Authority
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency

Authoritative source No official form or form number exists; sourced from GOV.UK's 'Get an international driving permit (IDP)' and 'Check if you need an international driving permit (IDP)' guidance pages, and PayPoint's own 'International Driving Permits (IDPs)' service page (including its FAQ section), the DVLA-appointed issuer.

Machine access

Schema document
registry/gb/dvla/international-driving-permit/1.0.0/schema.jsonapplication/schema+json
Verification record
registry/gb/dvla/international-driving-permit/1.0.0/VERIFICATION.mdtext/markdown
Registry catalog
registry/index.jsonone record per schema id

Field reference

13 fields across 4 steps, read from the published schema.json, with names, types, requiredness, and validation as the document states them. The live government form remains the authoritative source.

Eligibility

  • livesInGBOrNorthernIreland boolean required

    Eligibility requirement.

  • isAtLeast18 boolean required

    Eligibility requirement.

  • holdsFullGBOrNIDrivingLicence boolean required

    A provisional licence does not qualify; the licence must be a full GB or Northern Ireland licence, photocard or older paper version.

  • licenceIsChannelIslandsIoMForeignOrDiplomatic boolean required

    Answering true means the applicant is not eligible to apply through this DVLA/PayPoint service.

Driving licence and identity

  • drivingLicenceType enum required

    photocard or an older paper licence. A paper licence holder additionally needs another form of photographic ID (their passport) at the counter.

    enum: photocard | paper
  • drivingLicenceNumber string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    length: 1–30classification: sensitive-pii
  • proofOfIdentityPassportNumber string optional

    Only needed when presenting an older paper driving licence, as an additional form of photographic ID.

    length: 1–20classification: sensitive-pii
  • applicantActingOnLicenceHoldersBehalf boolean required

    PayPoint explicitly allows a third party to apply with the licence holder's correct documents, which is the pathway a human's agent would use.

Permit type and travel

  • idpConventionType enum required

    Which of the three IDP conventions to request depends on the destination country or countries; the applicant should check GOV.UK's or PayPoint's country checker before applying. The 1949 convention is the most common (e.g. the USA); the 1926 and 1968 conventions each cover a smaller set of countries (e.g. Italy and France require a 1968 IDP).

    enum: 1926 | 1949 | 1968
  • intendedTravelDate date optional

    Informational: an IDP cannot be applied for more than 3 months before the travel date.

Photo and payment at the counter

  • passportStandardPhotoAttached boolean required

    Must be recent, a true likeness of the applicant showing the full head, in colour against a light background, in sharp focus, free from red-eye and shadows, free from reflection or glare from glasses, and undamaged.

  • feeAmountGBP number required

    Fixed fee of £5.50 per permit.

    range: 5.5–5.5classification: financial
  • paymentMethod enum required

    Payment method

    enum: cash | card

Verification record

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice.

Current claim

  • status: draft
  • verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
  • verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-04

The document was derived from and cross-checked against the official/primary sources below. The full field-by-field comparison the practice requires has been completed once against those sources (this record), but not yet by a second, independent reviewer — so status remains draft, not verified.

Sources examined

  • Document (id, version): gb/dvla/international-driving-permit / 1.0.0
  • Spec version: GovSchema 0.3.0
  • Authority: Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA); operated by PayPoint (GSP-0020 authority.operatedBy).
  • Primary sources:
  • Official form id: none. Unlike the US IDP pair (us/dos/international-driving-permit-aaa/-aata, each derived from a printed application form), the UK service has no downloadable paper or online application form — it is an in-person, over-the-counter transaction at PayPoint stores. This document is therefore guidance-derived, at the same granularity as gb/dvla/vehicle-tax: fields transcribe the "what you need" checklists and FAQ answers on GOV.UK/PayPoint's own pages, not a form's field labels.
  • Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-04 (all sources fetched and read live at authoring time; the PayPoint page was fetched and its raw HTML text extracted directly, not summarized secondhand).
  • Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer, initial authoring source-review).

A secondary-source claim was checked and rejected

During research, a third-party summary (not a primary GOV.UK/PayPoint source) asserted that "the licence holder must attend in person (you cannot apply for someone else)." PayPoint's own FAQ directly contradicts this: "Is someone else able to apply for an IDP on my behalf? Yes, anyone can apply for an IDP on your behalf if they have all of your correct documents." This document follows the primary source and models the on-behalf-of pathway as applicantActingOnLicenceHoldersBehalf, and does not include any in-person-only constraint.

What was confirmed against the source

| Source element | Field(s) | |---|---| | "You must: live in Great Britain or Northern Ireland / have a full UK driving licence / be 18 or over" | livesInGBOrNorthernIreland, holdsFullGBOrNIDrivingLicence, isAtLeast18 | | "If you hold a driving licence from the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, a foreign country or drive under a diplomatic licence, you are unfortunately not eligible to apply." | licenceIsChannelIslandsIoMForeignOrDiplomatic (eligibility exit) | | "Things you will need" checklist (licence type, fee, photo, passport for paper licences) | drivingLicenceType, drivingLicenceNumber, proofOfIdentityPassportNumber, feeAmountGBP, paymentMethod, passportStandardPhotoAttached | | Three IDP conventions (1926/1949/1968) and their validity periods | idpConventionType | | "you cannot apply more than 3 months before you travel" | intendedTravelDate (informational) | | PayPoint FAQ on-behalf-of-another-person answer | applicantActingOnLicenceHoldersBehalf | | Passport-photo specification (full head, colour, light background, no red-eye/shadows/glare, undamaged) | passportStandardPhotoAttached description |

What remains out of scope

  • The per-destination-country IDP-type lookup table (150+ rows on PayPoint's page) is not modeled as data; idpConventionType is left as an applicant choice with a description pointing at the checker tools, consistent with how the US desiredPermitType field models a country-dependent choice without enumerating every country.
  • No mapping.json — there is no online form/screen to map selectors against.

Next review

nextReviewBy: 2027-01-04, or sooner if DVLA changes the appointed issuer, the fee, or the eligibility rules.

View the raw record (VERIFICATION.md)

Version history

  • 1.0.0 draft latest this page has verification record schema.json

Independent and non-affiliated

GovSchema is an independent, open-source project. This reference is not produced, reviewed, or endorsed by Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency or any government. The authoritative source is always the live government form and its official instructions.