Why a US-Italy driving licence deal is 'not going to happen overnight'

Local Italy

17-02-2025

The difficult but often indispensable process of getting an Italian driver's licence is largely considered to be one of the biggest challenges faced by Americans moving to Italy.
With the exception of diplomatic and consular personnel and their family members, there's currently no US-Italy licence exchange agreement allowing Americans in Italy to convert their US driver's licence to an Italian one.
This means that Americans must take the full Italian driving test to obtain an Italian licence, which they need to continue legally driving in the country after one year of residency.
Unfortunately, taking the Italian esame della patente is no easy feat, not least because the theory exam requires quite a bit of technical knowledge and cannot be taken in English.
And even after passing both the theory quiz and the practical exam, and getting an Italian licence, Americans must abide by stringent rules reserved for newly licensed drivers, including the requirement to drive low-power cars for three years.
As the lack of an exchange agreement continues to create major headaches for US nationals moving to Italy, you may wonder why there isn't one in the first place, especially seeing as EU countries including France and Germany have long signed exchange deals with many US states.
'Legal, administrative and regulatory differences'
Nick Metta, an Italian lawyer who is specialised in cross-border immigration, estate and tax law, says that 'the lack of a reciprocity agreement between Italy and the United States for the automatic conversion of driver's licences is due to the complexity of the issue,' including 'several legal, administrative, and regulatory differences between the two countries.'
'These differences have made harmonisation very difficult, or evidently, not possible for Italy so far,' he adds.
That said, 'the fact that some EU countries have reciprocity agreements with some US states shows that there is a way to negotiate and reach an agreement'.
'It's a judicial matter'
Francesca La Marca, an Italian senator from the North and Central America constituency, has been working with the Italian Transport Ministry in recent months to draft licence exchange agreements with the states of Florida and New York, as well as several Canadian provinces and Central American countries.
The path to a driver's licence agreement for Americans in Italy is not a simple one, she says.
Under Italian law, exchange agreements must be signed by the two countries' central governments. This means that Italy needs the US government to sign off on any potential exchange deal.
In the US, however, driver's licences are a matter of state, not federal law, meaning that every state sets its own standards for testing and driving.
With driving and licensing regulations falling under the jurisdiction of state law, the US government has so far refused to discuss exchange agreements with Italy, referring the Italian government to individual states.
But La Marca says that 'according to the [Transport] Ministry, the Italian government will not bypass" the US federal government, as it insists on "sign[ing] with Washington first' as opposed to dealing with individual states.
The difference in the two countries' approach to an exchange agreement has resulted in an ongoing deadlock.
'It's a judicial matter that we are trying to figure out,' La Marca says.
Negotiations have recently become more difficult due to the transition to a new administration in the US and ongoing shakeups in government agencies.
'It's a very confusing time,' La Marca says.
'Many people have lost their jobs. We have to wait until the dust settles because we don't know who the interlocutors are right now,' she adds.
'Not going to happen overnight'
Both Metta and La Marca believe a US-Italy agreement won't happen soon, but are optimistic it will ultimately become reality.
'The seeds have been sown, and I am confident that in the future we will get there,' says La Marca.
Should the two governments manage to resolve the impasse, the next step would be to verify and ensure that the testing standards of both parties match.
A US-Italy agreement may result in some US states having to raise the bar for their exams in order to meet Italy's standards, according to Metta.
'I don't expect it to happen overnight. Usually these agreements, once established, have a transition period,' he says.
But a deal will ultimately come to fruition 'because that's the natural course of bilateral agreements I have seen happen,' he adds.