Your international driving permit is worthless here

This is the one that ends trips at the rental desk. Mainland China does not recognize the International Driving Permit. Not "prefers you have something else". Does not recognize it, because China is not party to the convention that created the thing.

So the document you carefully obtained at home, specifically for this, is worth nothing at the counter, and the person telling you so has had this conversation a hundred times.

What works instead

A temporary Chinese driving permit, issued against your home license. Ordinary document, routine to get, and the thing the rental company actually wants to see.

Two ways to get one

• At the airport. Several major international airports have a vehicle administration desk that issues them on arrival. This is the quick route, and the fact that it exists at all tells you how many people land without one.
• Through the rental company, if you send documents ahead. Slower, and it has to start before you travel.

Either way: passport, home license, a translation of it, passport photographs.

The question worth asking first

Do you want to drive? Intercity rail is superb and DiDi covers cities for very little money. Renting genuinely makes sense for the places trains do not go, and makes very little sense for getting between cities, where you would be choosing traffic and parking over a 300km/h train.

If you do drive

Motorway signage carries pinyin next to the characters, so the roads themselves are navigable. The parking systems, the fuel pumps and every machine you have to operate do not.

And the paperwork is the sharp end. The rental agreement, the insurance options and the deposit terms are Chinese only, and those are precisely the documents where agreeing to the wrong thing is expensive.

Questions people ask

Is an International Driving Permit valid in China?

No. Mainland China does not recognize the IDP. You need a temporary Chinese driving permit issued against your home license.

Where do I get a temporary Chinese driving permit?

At vehicle administration desks in several major international airports, or arranged in advance through a rental company.

Should I rent a car in China at all?

For intercity travel, rail is usually faster and easier. Renting makes sense for areas the train network does not reach.

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• Beijing South and Beijing West are not the same building
• The errand you probably already did without noticing