In June, Eric and I got our Mongolian driver’s licenses. We had put a down payment on a vehicle in early spring, and when it finally arrived in-country, we realized, “Oh yeah, we need to be able to legally drive this thing.” So we started the process of procuring local driver’s licenses.

And boy, was it a process.

The good thing was that we had legal US licenses, so we didn’t have to pass a driving test, only a written test, which was nice. However, in order to apply to take the written test, we had to do the following:

1. Make copies of our US driver’s licenses.
2. Get said licenses translated and notarized.
3. Photocopy residence cards (notarized).
4. Photocopy and notarize passports.
5. Have copies of passport pictures.
6. Get a number of tests done at the district hospital with accompanying signatures and stamps. These included: blood test/typing*, hearing, vision, mental faculty, and basic physical capability. I feel like there was something else, but I could be misremembering. It was a lot, and if we hadn’t gone to the hospital with a Mongolian colleague, it would have taken us forever to navigate the hospital and the different offices we needed to visit.

Once we had all of this documentation in hand, we returned to the police station/testing center and submitted our applications. Then, we had to return in one week to take the actual test.

The test itself was a total of 20 randomized questions (translated to English), of which you can miss up to two and still pass. On our first attempt, I missed five–hahahaha–and Eric missed three. So neither of us passed, and we couldn’t take the test again for another week. The night before the second attempt, we studied together, and I passed, miraculously. Eric slept poorly that night and so missed too many questions, but he passed on the third attempt the following week. This is totally normal and expected for foreigners, tbh. I don’t know anyone who has passed on the first try. In fact, there are people who you can pay to help you study in order to pass the test. It’s challenging and a little confusing, so if you come here and need to get a license, don’t be discouraged if it takes awhile!

Alternatively, if you are a foreigner and come from a country that follows international traffic laws from the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, your application is streamlined. For more info on the process of getting a license, you can check the Mongolian National Police Agency website.

*Blood types in Mongolia aren’t A/B/O, but 1/2/3. Our friend Bat who was with us said that in the military, the tattoo the number of dots of your blood type on your chest. I thought that was pretty clever!