Yes, with an International Driving Permit carried alongside it. The Indian permit is the 1949 booklet, which is the correct one for Thailand, and it is issued by the Regional Transport Office that holds your licence record. That last point is the one that catches people: an IDP is an RTO job, done in India, on paper, and no Indian mission in Thailand will produce one for a tourist who has already landed.
What a permit is, and how Thailand treats foreign licences in general, are covered in the full IDP guide and which licence Thailand recognises. This page is the Indian answer: the treaty position, the Form 4A process, and the two-wheeler catch that is bigger for Indian visitors than for almost anyone else.
- Convention that appliesThe 1949 Geneva Convention — India is a party to it, not to the 1968 one
- Booklet you needThe 1949 IDP
- Who issues itYour RTO, on Form 4A under the Central Motor Vehicles Rules
- Cost and validityReported at around ₹1,000 including user charges. One year from issue
Why the Indian booklet is the 1949 one
India signed the 1949 Geneva Convention on the day it opened and ratified it in March 1962. It has never joined the 1968 Vienna Convention. Thailand is a party to both — the 1949 Convention since 1962, and the 1968 Convention with effect from 1 May 2021. Because the 1968 Convention replaces the older one only as between states that are both parties to it, Thailand's 1949 obligations towards India are untouched. So the 1949 permit an RTO issues is the right document, and it is the only one available to an Indian licence holder.
If you have read British advice describing Thailand as a "1968 country", that is accurate for British drivers and irrelevant here. India sits alongside the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand on this question.
The provision behind the split
Article 48 of the 1968 Convention terminates and replaces the 1949 Convention "in relations between the Contracting Parties" to 1968 — and India is not one. Thailand therefore remains bound to India under the 1949 Convention exactly as before. The 1968 Convention's transitional recognition of 1949-format permits expired in 1982 and is not the reason your booklet works; Article 48 is.
The RTO process, and why it needs planning
Applications go to the Regional Transport Office in whose jurisdiction your driving licence sits, on Form 4A under rule 14(2) of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules. The official requirements are your valid Indian driving licence plus copies, copies of your passport and visa where applicable and your air ticket, and the prescribed fee together with user charges. Many RTOs also want passport photographs, a medical certificate on Form 1A, and proof of address. Some states accept part of the application through the Parivahan portal and then require an appearance; others do the whole thing at the counter.
The reported total is around ₹1,000 including user charges, and the permit is valid for one year from issue — or until your Indian licence expires, if that comes first.
Start weeks before you fly, not days. Requirements differ meaningfully between states and between individual RTOs, and the appointment queue is the real constraint, not the paperwork.
The two-wheeler catch
Indian licences are endorsed by vehicle type: LMV for a light motor vehicle, MCWG for a motorcycle with gear, MCWOG (or M-50) for a motorcycle without gear — the gearless scooter. The permit translates those into the convention's classes: an LMV endorsement becomes category B, and motorcycle entitlement becomes category A.
Two things go wrong here, in opposite directions.
The first is the common one. A great many Indian licence holders have LMV only, and think nothing of riding a gearless scooter because at home it is what everyone does. In Thailand an LMV-only licence produces category B, category B is cars, and you have no motorcycle entitlement at all. Thailand issues car and motorcycle licences as separate documents, both conventions carry motorcycles as a single undivided category A, and Thailand has declared that it treats mopeds as motorcycles. A 110cc automatic in Krabi is a motorcycle, and there is no capacity below which the requirement disappears. See the Thai motorbike licence and engine sizes.
The second is subtler: check what actually gets stamped in the booklet. If your licence carries MCWOG or MCWG, category A should appear — but the permit is filled in by hand at the RTO, and a category that is not ticked is a category you do not have once you are abroad. Look at the booklet before you leave the counter, and again before you fly.
The insurance consequence is the whole reason this matters. Thailand's statutory maximum for driving without a licence is around ฿1,000, roughly ₹2,500 — an irritation, no more. But an Indian travel insurance policy will typically pay a driving or riding claim only if you were legally entitled to operate the vehicle, and an LMV holder on a scooter is not, whether or not anyone stopped them. Read your own policy's two-wheeler wording rather than a summary — the exclusions vary, and some policies exclude two-wheelers entirely. Does travel insurance cover driving in Thailand explains what to look for.
What is actually different about driving in Thailand
Indian drivers arrive with an advantage almost nobody else has: Thailand drives on the left, as India does, so the basic geometry needs no adjustment. Almost everything else does. Lane discipline is looser than in Europe but tighter than in most Indian cities; the horn is used far less and means something different; junctions run on U-turn cuts rather than right turns across traffic; and checkpoint enforcement of helmets and drink-driving is real.
Thailand's helmet law matters twice over: it is a legal requirement, and helmet use is commonly a condition of motorcycle cover. A rental shop's spare helmet is usually poor, and buying a better one for a fortnight is a reasonable thing to do.
If you are staying long enough to need a Thai licence
A 1949 permit lasts a year, and the Convention lets a state stop recognising a foreign permit held by someone who normally lives there. Indian nationals working or studying in Thailand run into both. Note also that the Department of Land Transport was reported in 2025 as consulting on a change under which a foreign licence or IDP would no longer be accepted as supporting evidence for a Thai licence, with foreign applicants taking the written test in all cases. That was a draft under consultation, so check the current position at your own DLT office rather than treating it as settled law. How to get a Thai driving licence covers what is involved.
Frequently asked questions
Can I drive on my Indian licence alone?
No sensible reading supports it. Thailand recognises foreign entitlements through the conventions, and the permit is what expresses an Indian licence in convention terms — an Indian licence is not in a format a Thai official is expected to read. Carry both.
Can I apply for an IDP from Bangkok?
Not as a tourist. Indian IDPs are issued by RTOs in India against an Indian licence record. Indian missions abroad handle re-issue in limited circumstances for residents, which is no help to a visitor whose permit is at home. Websites selling instant "international driving licences" are not issuing convention documents.
How long is an Indian IDP valid?
One year from issue, or until your Indian licence expires if that is sooner. The frequently repeated claim that an IDP is valid for only 90 days in Thailand has no statutory or Department of Land Transport basis that we could find, and exists in neither convention.
I have MCWOG. Does that let me ride a 125cc scooter in Thailand?
It should produce category A on your permit, which is the single motorcycle class both conventions use — there is no separate gearless tier. The thing to verify is that category A has actually been entered in your booklet. If it has not, you have nothing, regardless of what your Indian licence says.
Will a rental shop check any of this?
Often not. Scooter shops in tourist areas routinely hand over machines without looking at a licence at all, which is widely reported and changes nothing about the legal or insurance position.