Before you start

A valid residence permit
Your foreign licence, valid, with an accepted Chinese translation
A Chinese driver medical examination
Passport and temporary residence registration slip

Step-by-step

1
Accept that the IDP does not work here
Mainland China is not party to the 1968 Vienna Convention, so an International Driving Permit confers nothing. Driving on a foreign licence is driving unlicensed.
OnlineWho: You
2
Get an accepted translation of your licence
The vehicle administration accepts translations from designated agencies only; one commissioned abroad will normally be refused at the counter.
In personWho: You
3
Complete the driver medical
A short examination at an approved hospital covering eyesight, colour vision and limb function. The certificate has a limited life — do it close to the application.
In personWho: You1 day
4
Sit Subject 1, the written theory test
One hundred questions from a published national bank, taken on a terminal, available in English. For ordinary car categories the field and road tests are waived when converting a valid foreign licence. Practise with a question-bank app.
In personWho: YouHalf a day
5
Check the current plate position before buying a car
Nanjing has not imposed the plate auctions and lotteries that constrain Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou. Municipal vehicle policy across China changes, so confirm with the Nanjing transport authority rather than assuming a permanent exemption.
OnlineWho: You
6
Remember Shanghai restricts non-Shanghai plates
If you buy a Nanjing-plated car and expect to drive into Shanghai regularly, note that Shanghai excludes non-local plates from its elevated expressways during weekday peak periods. The high-speed train at a little over an hour is almost always the better option.
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Documents you’ll need

Passport and residence permit
Temporary residence registration slip
Foreign driving licence and accepted Chinese translation
Driver medical certificate
Passport photographs to Chinese specification

Things most newcomers don’t know

The practical driving tests are waived, which makes China easier to convert into than Japan or Korea.

Holders of a valid foreign licence converting to an ordinary car category normally sit only Subject 1, the written theory examination, available in English. Japan and Korea both require closed-course practicals that experienced drivers routinely fail. The Chinese exceptions are heavy vehicle categories, and applicants who cannot evidence enough residence in the issuing country during the year the licence was obtained.

Source: Ministry of Public Security traffic management rules

No plate quota is a genuine and underrated advantage of a second-tier city.

Shanghai auctions plates at around RMB 90,000, Beijing's lottery odds are near 0.3%, and Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Guangzhou all ration. Nanjing has not. For anyone who wants a car in the Yangtze delta, living here rather than in Shanghai removes a five-figure cost and a bureaucratic obstacle entirely. Municipal vehicle policy does change, so confirm the current position, but the gap between Nanjing and its neighbours has been consistent for years.

Source: community-reported

The old city is compact and walled, which shapes how you get around.

Nanjing's historic core sits inside the Ming wall and is genuinely walkable, with the metro covering the rest of the city well. The plane-tree boulevards, the lake circuit and the wall itself all reward walking, and the hills at Purple Mountain are closed to ordinary traffic in large part. Many foreign residents here never convert their licence, and the ones who do usually did it for weekend trips rather than the commute.

Source: community-reported

E-bikes are the dominant road hazard, as everywhere in urban China.

Delivery and commuter electric two-wheelers are numerous, quiet, fast and frequently on the pavement or travelling against the flow. For a pedestrian or a cyclist this is the everyday risk in Nanjing as elsewhere, and a driving licence does nothing about it. On the plane-tree boulevards, where the cycle lanes are separated but the crossings are not, look both ways on a one-way street.

Source: community-reported