Before you start

Cédula de identidad
Your foreign licence and, where required, an official translation
Medical and psychosensometric assessment at an authorised centre
Proof of a Manta address for the vehicle registration

Step-by-step

1
Check with the ANT whether your licence can be converted at all
Ecuador converts licences from some countries and requires the full course and examination from others, and the position has changed over time. Confirm with the national agency rather than with a driving school, which has an interest in the answer.
OnlineWho: You
2
Complete the medical and psychosensometric assessment
An authorised centre tests sight, hearing, reaction time and coordination. It is required for issue and for renewal and is a standard part of the process rather than an obstacle.
In personWho: You
3
Register the vehicle with Movilidad de Manta EP, not with the national agency
Manta's municipality exercises the transit competency through its own public company, so matriculación and the technical inspection are booked and paid through the municipal system. Someone arriving from abroad and looking for a national agency counter will not find one that handles this.
OnlineWho: You
4
Budget intercity travel from the current fares, not from an old table
The ANT's Resolution 020-DIR-2026-ANT, adopted on 25 July 2026 and in force from 1 August, raised interprovincial and intraprovincial bus fares by 25% — the first adjustment since 2021 and expressly a bridge until a new tariff methodology is finished. For a city where Guayaquil is three or four hours away by road and the bus is the default, every fare published before August 2026 is now wrong. Seniors, children and people with disabilities keep the half fare.
In personWho: YouFrom 1 August 2026
5
Learn the coast road before you depend on it
The Ruta del Spondylus links Manta to Santa Marianita, Puerto Cayo, Puerto López and the beaches south, and the road north to Crucita and Bahía is a separate run. Both are two-lane, both carry heavy trucks, and both are affected by the January-to-April rains. If your housing choice depends on a daily beach-town commute, drive it at the hour you would actually be driving it before you commit.
In personWho: You
6
Think about salt before you buy a car
This is a seafront city and vehicles here corrode. Underbody and body rust is the single most consequential thing to inspect on a used car in Manta and it is what depresses resale values locally. Wash the underside regularly, look hard at sills and mountings on anything you are buying, and be sceptical of a very clean-looking older car that has lived a block from the beach.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Cédula de identidad
Foreign licence with translation if required
Medical and psychosensometric certificate
Municipal matriculación and revisión técnica certificate, once you own a car
Compulsory insurance documentation

Things most newcomers don’t know

Bus fares across the country rose 25% on 1 August 2026, which matters more in a provincial city than a capital.

The ANT approved Resolution 020-DIR-2026-ANT on 25 July 2026, applying a single 25% tariff adjustment factor to interprovincial and intraprovincial fares from 1 August, replacing rates unchanged since 2021 and driven by diesel costs. Manta's connection to Guayaquil, Quito and Portoviejo is overwhelmingly by road, so this is a direct and recurring cost for anyone whose paperwork, specialist medicine or family sits in a bigger city. The agency has said the rise is temporary pending a definitive methodology.

Source: ANT, Resolución 020-DIR-2026-ANT

The municipality registers your car and the national agency licenses you, and the split is invisible until you need it.

Ecuador devolved transit competencies to municipalities, so Movilidad de Manta EP handles matriculación and the technical inspection while the ANT still issues the licence. Guayaquil and Cuenca run the identical arrangement through their own companies. Half your paperwork therefore lives on a municipal system and half on a national one, and a guide written for the country as a whole will send you to the wrong counter for one of them.

Source: Movilidad de Manta EP; ANT

The airport is inside the city and shares its runway with an air base, which is unusual and useful.

Eloy Alfaro is minutes from central Manta rather than an hour out like Quito's, and it is a joint civil and military field — it hosted a United States forward operating location for counter-narcotics flights between 1999 and 2009 before the arrangement ended. Practically, the short hop to Quito turns an eight- or nine-hour road trip into a flight, which changes the calculation on every appointment that cannot be done locally.

Source: community-reported

Sea air is a running cost that no Ecuadorian car guide mentions.

Manta is six metres above sea level on an exposed Pacific coast, and salt spray attacks vehicles continuously. Corrosion on sills, subframes, brake lines and mountings is the standard local failure, it is largely invisible on a forecourt inspection, and it is the main reason a coastal used car should be looked at underneath rather than admired from the front. Residents in the sierra never think about this; here it decides what a car is worth in five years.

Source: community-reported

Common mistakes to avoid

Looking for the national agency to register your car, when the municipality does it in this canton.
Budgeting intercity bus travel from a fare table published before 1 August 2026.
Buying a coastal used car without inspecting the underbody for salt corrosion.
Committing to a beach-town address without driving the coast road at commuting hour.
Missing the annual revisión técnica and being unable to renew the matriculación.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.