Not long ago, a man in his twenties walked up to a rental car counter in Tokyo with a confirmed booking, his German driving licence, and an International Driving Permit he'd picked up back home. He was travelling alone, the car was the backbone of his plan, and the staff at the counter told him, politely and firmly, no.
The booking was fine. The permit wasn't.
Nothing was wrong with his booking. Nothing was wrong with his licence. The problem is a legal one that surprises German travelers every single week: Japan only recognises International Driving Permits issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention, and Germany never joined that convention. So the IDP he was holding — perfectly valid in dozens of other countries — carried no legal weight at all in Japan. The counter staff weren't being difficult. Handing him the keys would have meant letting him drive without a valid licence, and no rental company in Japan will do that. We've written up the exact rules here if you want the legal background.
He found us online, still standing somewhere in Tokyo with his luggage, and asked the question everyone in his position asks: can I get this fixed today?
What we could do — and what we couldn't
And here's the honest answer we gave him, the same one we'd give you: no. Same-day wasn't possible. What we could do — because it was a weekday and the issuing side in Japan was working — was get him the official translation the next day. That's the fastest realistic outcome we've seen, and even that depends on timing, clear photos of the licence, and a bit of luck with the calendar. He wasn't thrilled. A day of his trip was about to disappear, and we understood exactly how that felt.
He sent us photos of the front and back of his licence from his phone. We checked them, submitted the official application the same day, and the next day his translation was ready — a PDF in his inbox, printed out, and back to the rental counter. This time he got the keys.
He told us afterwards that in the end almost nothing in his itinerary had to change. One lost day, and the rest of the trip went ahead as planned. Of all the messages we get, that kind is the one this whole service exists for.
Why this keeps happening
We run this service from Fukuoka, and this story is not rare. We started JDLTC because guests of our campervan business kept hitting exactly this wall, sometimes at the airport, sometimes at a counter in Shinjuku with a full day of driving planned. The pattern is always the same: the traveler did prepare — they got an IDP, they read a forum thread, they assumed it was fine. For licences from Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Monaco and Taiwan, it isn't. What Japanese law asks for instead is an official Japanese translation of your licence, carried together with the original.
If you're reading this from Germany before your trip: do it the calm way. The standard service is €99 and takes a few weeks, the PDF arrives by email before you fly, and you'll never have to live this story. There's a German version of everything here, and the application takes about five minutes.
If you're reading this from a hotel room in Japan because a counter just said no — we're not going to promise you a miracle, because we'd rather be straight with you than sell you one. Rush processing is €179 and typically takes one to three business days; on a good weekday, like it did for him, it can mean you're driving again tomorrow. Get in touch, send clear photos of both sides of your licence, and we'll tell you honestly what's possible for your dates.