International Drivers License in USA
 

Is it necessary for registering a US vehicle, or dependent on state
or not needed, would a translation suffice?
If dependent on state, which states on the East coast would not ask for one?
Thanks everyone.

Licence in USA
 

Hi Manfred
When I entered through the port of Long Beach, California, they did not ask to see my licence, all they asked for was the registration document for the motorcycle. I don't know about the East States, but I think it would be unusual to be asked for a licence when bringing a bike in.
good luck
Tiffany

I bought a bike in Alaska and am curently in oregon with it (I'm British). No one has ever asked to see my license. I think all you need is your license but I would have an Int. one as well just for the sake of it.

I've brought a bike to the USA twice now, no ne has ever asked to see a license on entry. When I was stopped for speeding in 2007, they only wanted to se my license, not IDP. As the license is in English, they can read t :-)

For REGISTERING a bike in the us you need a place of residence within the state you are attempting to register it in. In many (all?) states a Post Office Box is not an acceptable address. I am confident that you would not be able to REGISTER a vehicle in the united states on an international drivers license.

I believe that the correct procedure if you are a foreign resident who wishes to buy a vehicle here is to buy it here, register it at home, ship the plates from your home country to the US and put them on the bike. Which sounds a massive pain in the butt.

You won't be able to lie and say you live here because, without a US drivers license from that state they will require that you have some proof of residence such as utility bills sent to your name at the address you're claiming you live at, and they'd probably want you to get a license in that state too, but since you're foreign you'd probably have to take the test, which usually has to be scheduled in advance. Also, many states require US insurance to register a vehicle.

If you don't live in the USA there's no need to register the bike here. You just need some legitimate plates on it (from your home country). If you're not planning on crossing into canada or mexico then you could get away with just putting on any old plate from home even if it wasn't legitimate. Of course, you'd be in a bunch of trouble if you got into an accident with someone, but police won't be able to check if foreign plates are legitimate or not.

All that and, at least in the state of Georgia, you have to have a Social Security number in order to obtain a drivers license. In this process they have started to verify immigration status of foreign nationals, i.e. valid visa, permanent resident card (first hand experience)

I gather from previous threads that their are still states, beside Georgia, where supposedly all you need is a US address.

It would be nice to hear from somebody who has done it 2009 and later with a detailed description as to how far they had to stretch the truth with the tag-office and insurance companies...

This way you can make your own risk/benefit assessment.

Last time I bought a bike in the USA I used the address of the LA youth hostel to transfer the rego into my name - worked fine.