This petition was submitted during the 2019 to 2024 Parliament
Closed petition Seek to conclude UK/France reciprocal agreement on exchange of driving licences
Closed on
Currently no one holding a UK licence can exchange it for a French licence due to the failure to have the reciprocal agreement in place before 01/01/2021. This is causing genuine hardship to many.
Seek to conclude the deal so the exchange process can start again.
15,715 signatures
Petition progress
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Petition closed
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Government responded to this petition
The Government is committed to establishing arrangements with France, that facilitate private motoring with the minimum of bureaucracy, as soon as possible.
Read the response in full
The Government is committed to establishing reciprocal arrangements with France that facilitate private motoring with the minimum of bureaucracy. At the end of 2020, the Department had successfully agreed arrangements with France for the mutual recognition of photocard licences. As such, UK photocard licence holders will not need to carry an additional International Driving Permit (IDP) when driving in France – nor any EU Member State.
For UK residents in France, we have secured interim arrangements which will allow UK licence holders’ to continue to use their UK licence until 1 January 2022, provided that it remains valid in the UK. There is therefore no requirement for these valid UK licences to be exchanged during this period, until a reciprocal agreement is reached between the United Kingdom and France. We are working with the French government to finalise this agreement.
These interim arrangements however do not extend to those UK residents whose licence has expired, and we are aware that this is causing difficulty for a number of UK residents in France. We are working closely with the French Government to explore solutions for those with expired licences and the Government commits to providing an update as soon as possible. In the meantime, the Department for Transport are working with the British Embassy in Paris to clarify the approach to exchanging UK licences in France and updates will be made to the Living in France guide and the the driving licence section on Gov.uk.
Department for Transport
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Government will respond to this petition
This petition got more than 10,000 signatures meaning that government will respond to it.
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Petition published
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If this petition gets 10,000 signatures, government will respond to it.
If this petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.
This petition will stay open until 11 September 2021.