Can a Pole Drive in Jordan? — Yes with an IDP, Same Side as Home

Can a Polish licence holder drive in Jordan? Yes — your Polish licence is accepted for tourist driving, with an International Driving Permit recommended to carry alongside it as a recognised translation. The licence question is the simple part, and there is an immediate bonus for a Polish driver: Jordan drives on the right, exactly like Poland, so none of the left-hand-drive disorientation that catches out visitors from the UK or Ireland applies here. Your instincts at junctions and roundabouts all point the right way.

What does change is the character of the driving. Jordan is built around long desert highways — the Desert Highway and the slower, scenic King’s Highway being the two routes most visitors use to reach Petra and Wadi Rum — where traffic moves fast and assertively, overtaking is opportunistic, and you will share the road with heavy trucks and the occasional wandering camel or goat near rural settlements. The town limit, by contrast, is a strict 40 km/h, lower than you are used to, with rural roads at 80 and motorways at 110. The gap between fast open road and tight town limit is where speed-camera fines are earned, so watch the signs on the approach to built-up areas.

The drink-drive limit is 0.08 on paper, but practically you should treat it as zero: alcohol is far less freely available than in Poland, social norms differ, and the combination of fast highways and tired long-distance driving makes a clear head essential. Carry the mandatory safety kit your rental provides — a warning triangle and the rest — as roadside checks do happen.

Fuel costs around $1.32 a litre, and stations are well spaced on the main highways but thin out on the desert side-roads, so fill up before any long empty stretch and carry water. The general emergency number is 112. Signal can drop in the desert, so download offline maps before you leave Amman.

For the full rulebook see our Jordan driving guide, confirm what to carry with the Driving Permit Checker, and you can estimate a speeding penalty with the Speeding Fine Calculator before you set off.