India for Chinese Drivers — The Left-Side Switch & an IDP You Must Carry

India puts two hurdles in front of Chinese drivers before the trip even starts. The first is the side of the road: India keeps left, the reverse of China, so every roundabout and overtake begins with your instinct facing the wrong way. The second is documentation — an International Driving Permit is required to sit beside your Chinese licence and passport. Sort it at home, because it cannot be issued once you arrive, and it stays valid for a year from entry.

Clearing those two doesn’t make India ordinary. The traffic runs on a logic of its own. Lane lines are treated as advice, any gap is filled at once, and the horn does the work a mirror does in China — a short tap means “I’m here, I’m coming past,” not anger. Mix in cattle, dogs, cycle- and auto-rickshaws and pedestrians on the same surface and you have a system built on continuous give-and-take rather than signals. Make your first drive a quieter road, not the centre of Mumbai or Delhi, and watch how locals negotiate space before you join the flow.

The signed limits look high — 120 km/h on the new expressways, 80 rural, 50 in towns — but actual speeds are far lower thanks to the congestion and the hazards on the road. Treat the numbers as a ceiling, not a goal. The drink-drive limit is 0.03 BAC, a touch above China’s 0.02 but still effectively zero in practice, and urban checks are frequent.

Speeding penalties are small — about INR 1,000–2,000 (≈ €11–22) for a 10 km/h overrun — but the genuine danger is a collision in tight traffic, not the fine. Fuel costs around $1.22/litre, and the national emergency number is 112.

Read the full rules on our India driving guide, check the IDP requirement with the Driving Permit Checker, and price any fine on the Speeding Fine Calculator.