Registry entry

United States International Driving Permit (IDP), issued by AAA

Apply for a U.S. International Driving Permit (IDP) — a translation document recognized in over 150 countries under the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, valid only alongside a current U.S. or U.S.-territorial driver's license — through the American Automobile Association (AAA), one of the two entities the U.S. Department of State authorizes to issue IDPs (the other is the American Automobile Touring Alliance, see us/dos/international-driving-permit-aata). AAA membership is NOT required. This document models AAA's own paper application form (used for its in-person and mail channels; AAA also offers a functionally equivalent online channel at AAA-IDP.com) and ends at submission — AAA reviews the application, prints, and mails or hands over the physical permit; the live aaa.com source is always authoritative (see VERIFICATION.md).

Registry entry

us/dos/international-driving-permit-aaa

Jurisdiction
United States · national
Version
1.0.0
Verification
draft
Authority
U.S. Department of State

GovSchema spec v0.3

Authoritative source AAA International Driving Permit / Inter-American Driving Permit Application form, plus https://www.aaa.com/vacation/idpf.html

Machine access

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

Field reference

30 fields across 7 steps, read from the published schema.json — names, types, requiredness, and validation as the document states them. The live government form remains the authoritative source.

Applicant qualifications

  • applicantIsAtLeast18 boolean required

    Applicant qualification: an IDP can only be issued to an applicant who is at least 18 years old.

  • holdsValidUSOrTerritorialLicense boolean required

    Applicant qualification: the license must not be suspended or revoked. The IDP is valid only in conjunction with this license and only as long as the license remains valid, not to exceed one year from IDP issuance.

Application channel and identity

  • applicationMethod enum required

    in_person = submitted at a AAA branch with immediate/same-day processing; mail = mailed to AAA/IDP with a photocopy of both sides of the license and payment by check or money order (no cash by mail), 5-7 weeks for return mail; online = submitted at AAA-IDP.com with digital photo and license images, 5 business days plus return shipping, and an additional $10 online photo fee.

    enum: in_person | mail | online
  • firstName string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    length: 1–100classification: pii
  • middleName string optional

    Middle name (must match license exactly)

    length: 0–100classification: pii
  • lastName string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    length: 1–100classification: pii
  • email string required

    Email

    length: 0–200classification: pii
  • phone string required

    Phone

    length: 0–30classification: pii

License details and place/date of birth

  • driversLicenseNumber string required

    Driver's license number

    length: 0–30classification: sensitive-pii
  • driversLicenseStateOfIssue string required

    State of issue

    length: 0–100
  • driversLicenseExpirationDate date required

    License expiration date

  • birthplaceCity string required

    Birthplace city

    length: 0–100classification: pii
  • birthplaceStateOrCountry string required

    Birthplace state or country

    length: 0–100classification: pii
  • dateOfBirth date required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    classification: sensitive-pii

Address and travel details

  • homeAddressStreet string required

    Home address street

    length: 0–200classification: pii
  • homeAddressCityStateZip string required

    Home address city/state/zip

    length: 0–200classification: pii
  • foreignAddressIfKnown string optional

    Where the applicant can be reached abroad, if known at the time of application.

    length: 0–300classification: pii
  • departureDateFromUSA date optional

    Departure date from the U.S.A.

  • permitEffectiveDate date required

    Must be effective within 6 months of the application date; the permit does not give driving privileges before this date and is not valid for driving within the United States.

    length: 0–20

Permit type and vehicle class

  • desiredPermitType enum required

    international_driving_permit covers the ~150 countries recognizing the 1949 Geneva Convention IDP. inter_american_driving_permit instead covers the smaller list of countries honoring the 1943 Inter-American convention (currently Brazil and Uruguay per the form's own country list).

    enum: international_driving_permit | inter_american_driving_permit
  • licensedVehicleType enum required

    The permit is issued for the same vehicle class(es) as the applicant's underlying U.S./territorial license.

    enum: motorcycle | passenger_car | vehicle_over_7700lbs | vehicle_over_8_seat | vehicle_with_heavy_trailer

Photos, fees, and mail-only requirements

  • passportPhotosAttached boolean required

    2 identical passport-type photos (2"x2"), signed on back, attached

  • permitFeePaid boolean required

    Fee is per permit. Mail applications must pay by check or money order only; no cash by mail.

    classification: financial
  • onlinePhotoFeePaid boolean optional

    Additional fee charged only when applying through the online channel (AAA-IDP.com); does not apply to in-person or mail applications.

    classification: financial
  • mailApplicationLicensePhotocopyAttached boolean optional

    Photocopy of both sides of U.S. driver's license attached (mail applications only)

  • expeditedReturnPostageAmount number optional

    Optional additional U.S.-funds postage for expedited return mail; only relevant to mail applications.

    classification: financial

Certification and signature

  • certifiesInformationTrueAndLicenseNotSuspendedOrRevoked boolean required

    Certifies the information is true and the license has not been suspended or revoked

  • signature string required

    Signature is mandatory for issuance of the permit.

    length: 0–200classification: pii
  • signatureDate date required

    Signature date

  • mailReturnAddress string optional

    Printed return name and address used as the mailing label for the physical permit.

    length: 0–300classification: pii

Verification record

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice. It documents the provenance of the published fields and flow and states the current verification claim honestly.

Current claim

  • status: draft
  • verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
  • verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-02

The document was derived directly from AAA's own printed application form (a primary source, not a secondary description of one), so field coverage is higher-confidence than a typical first-pass schema. It remains draft because the live AAA-IDP.com online channel's own screens were not independently walked through.

Source examined

  • Document (id, version): us/dos/international-driving-permit-aaa / 1.0.0
  • Spec version: GovSchema 0.3.0
  • Authority: U.S. Department of State (DOS), operated by the American Automobile Association (AAA) per GSP-0020
  • Primary sources:
  • Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-02 (both sources fetched live at authoring time)
  • Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Founding Engineer, initial authoring source-review)

What was confirmed against the source

| Source element | Field(s) | |---|---| | Applicant qualifications — 18+, valid U.S./territorial license, not suspended/revoked | applicantIsAtLeast18, holdsValidUSOrTerritorialLicense, certifiesInformationTrueAndLicenseNotSuspendedOrRevoked | | Three application channels (in-person, mail, online) with distinct requirements/fees | applicationMethod, mailApplicationLicensePhotocopyAttached, onlinePhotoFeePaid | | Identity block — name (must match license), email, phone, license number/state/expiration, birthplace, DOB | firstName…dateOfBirth | | Address and travel — home address, foreign address if known, departure date, permit effective date (within 6 months) | homeAddressStreet…permitEffectiveDate | | Permit type — IDP (Geneva 1949) vs. IADP (Inter-American 1943, Brazil/Uruguay) | desiredPermitType | | Vehicle class the permit is issued for, matching the underlying license | licensedVehicleType | | Requirements — 2 signed 2"x2" passport photos, $20 fee, mail-only license photocopy, optional expedited postage | passportPhotosAttached, permitFeePaid, mailApplicationLicensePhotocopyAttached, expeditedReturnPostageAmount | | Certification and signature, mandatory for issuance | certifiesInformationTrueAndLicenseNotSuspendedOrRevoked, signature, signatureDate | | Mail return address as the physical shipping label | mailReturnAddress | | Online channel's distinct $10 photo fee (idpf.html, not on the printed form) | onlinePhotoFeePaid |

Scope boundary

This document models AAA's own paper application (channel-agnostic apart from the two mail/online-specific fields called out above) and ends at submission. It does not model AAA-IDP.com's own online-only screens field-by-field, since those were not independently examined; onlinePhotoFeePaid is the one online- specific fact confirmed from idpf.html. It does not submit the application or issue the permit — AAA prints and mails/hands over the physical IDP; the live aaa.com source is always authoritative.

What is NOT yet independently verified

  • The online channel's own field set (AAA-IDP.com) was not walked through live; this schema assumes it collects the same substantive data as the paper form plus the photo fee, which was confirmed from idpf.html but not cross-checked field-by-field against the live online form.
  • Processing times and channel-specific fees (in-person same-day, online 5 business days + shipping, mail 5-7 weeks) are documented in field descriptions/notes only, not encoded as schema data, since they change.
  • The participating-country list (IDP vs. IADP eligibility per country) is real and current as of the source PDF (May 2015 IDP list / January 2009 IADP list, both reprinted unchanged on the current form) but is not reproduced as schema data — desiredPermitType's two enum values are the permit categories, not a per-country lookup.

Path to a verified claim (next step)

To advance to status: verified, a reviewer applies manual-source-review-v1 (Procedure step 2 field-by-field against the live AAA-IDP.com online channel, step 3 flow), confirms the source is authoritative, resolves any discrepancy by shipping a new schema version (immutability — VERSIONING §3, practice Procedure step 5), and records the outcome here plus sets status: verified with a current verification.lastVerifiedAt/nextReviewBy. This v1.0.0 record stays as the authoring provenance.

Re-verification

Per the practice's Cadence, nextReviewBy is set to 2027-01-02 (6 months): fees, photo requirements, and channel processing times on this surface change periodically. Re-check the source on or before that date and on any source.url change.

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 U.S. Department of State or any government. The authoritative source is always the live government form and its official instructions.