Montenegro con Carné Español — Sin IDP, pero Carreteras de Costa Estrechas

For Spanish drivers, Montenegro removes the paperwork worry entirely. Your EU photocard licence is accepted as-is — no International Driving Permit, no translation — and you drive on the right exactly as you do at home. Bring the licence, your passport and the car’s documents, and the bureaucratic side is done. What’s left is the part that actually defines a Montenegrin road trip: the geography.

The country is small but vertical. The signature drive around the Bay of Kotor hugs the water on a road that narrows to barely two cars in the old villages, with tour buses, scooters and parked cars all competing for the same metre. Inland, the climb toward Lovćen and the serpentine to Njegoš’s mausoleum is a sequence of tight switchbacks with sheer drops and no barrier in places. None of it is dangerous if you slow down and use the horn before blind bends the way locals do — but it rewards caution far more than the 80 km/h rural limit suggests.

Then there are the tunnels. Montenegro’s mountains are pierced by long, single-bore tunnels that are often dimly lit and damp; the Sozina tunnel between Lake Skadar and the coast even carries a small toll, unusual in a country with otherwise free roads. Switch your lights on well before entering and don’t assume oncoming traffic will hold its lane.

On the numbers: the motorway limit is 130 km/h (though motorway is scarce — the new Bar–Boljare section is the main stretch), rural roads are 80, and towns 50. The alcohol limit of 0.03 is stricter than Spain’s, and summer enforcement on the coast is genuine. A speeding fine in the €30–80 band is typical for a modest overspeed, payable on the spot, so carry a card or cash. Winter tyres are required in the cold season if you head into the mountains.

Fuel sits around €1.52 a litre and stations thin out in the interior, so fill up before long mountain legs. Emergencies are 112. Read the wider rules on our Montenegro driving guide, and if you’re touring the broader Adriatic, compare neighbours using our country driving comparisons to plan border crossings.