Expat Community > Philippines

dwolf
Joined 2023
Posts: 12

Converting USA Licenses

4 months ago

So just wanted to briefly explain my experience of converting my USA drivers licenses to Philippine Drivers Licenses.

To begin with I am in the Philippines on a 13A Visa, arrived May 9th. I live in Northern Samar and have two places to go to that could do this, one LTO office was in Catarman and the other was Calbayog. I read on the LTO site that both places could handle this process. I download the requirements for the paperwork and set a date and choose Catarman. My wife had previously converted her licenses in Calbayog, but she said it took a long time, but she had a niece that had connections at the facility. They were giving a written test and ended up with licenses being issued for both motorcycles and auto.

I collected the documents, copies of my passport pages three pages to be exact and copies of my licenses and my ARC card that I have even though the website didn't mention I need a copy of the ARC card.

Drove to Cartarman to the LTO office and right across the street from the entrance, went in and paid $400Php for a physical that is nothing except a document that was signed by a doctor with my picture on it. There was no blood pressure check, no eye test, no hearing test, nothing except me sitting by her desk in a chair and her filling out this paperwork on the computer, printing it out and I paid the fee and left the building, that took about 30 minutes.

Went to the LTO office and was given another document that required my personal information, name, address, age, date of birth etc and was sent to Window # 4, presented my paper work to them, along with a copy of my passport, drivers licenses, (front and back) and waited about 1 hour, eventually my wife went up to the window and asked if I was in the system and the guy told her that the day before there was a Brownout and they were processing a lot of people that came back to pick up their licenses from the day before. Oh, there were two power losses in that hour while we were waiting on that day also. I picked a Tuesday to go to LTO because I hate doing anything on Mondays.

After about another 20 minutes I was called to window # 4, gave a document and told me to go to the Cashier it was immediately to my right, I think I paid $780 Php there and took the paperwork to window # 2. This is where they took your picture and fingerprints, I was asked to sit down and wait and in about another 30 minutes was called to the same window where the guy gave me my driver’s licenses.

Now that I had my licenses I could leave, but as I was leaving, I noticed that they had only gave me a license for an auto. I wanted one for motorcycles and cars, So instead of going back I took the licenses as they were and left.

There was no written test, there were no waiting for a month to return and get them, and they had plastic to coat the licenses. So, my wife who is Filipino had to take the written test, get the physical, and was given a paper copy of the licenses and told that the real licenses would be delivered by mail in about a month which by the way they paid a fee for. When I am using the term they, I am referring to my wife and her sister that went with her to get their licenses in Calbayog. Plus, it took them almost 5 hrs. from the time they arrived at the time they left, she said there were lots of people. Cartarman took me about 2.3 hrs. And even with the occasional brownouts that day, with cut cock bottles setting in the floor to catch the water that was leaking in the building in various places Cartarman was a smarter choice. My only regret is that I didn’t list on the document that I wanted both Motorcycle and auto privileges. I should of marked it myself but I thought somewhere along the process they would ask me.

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Converting USA Licenses

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