South Korea on a Swiss Licence — IDP Required & the Motorway Drops to 110

A Swiss driver will feel at home with South Korea’s road quality and orderly motorway network — but not with its paperwork. The permit rules here are stricter than anything you meet around Europe, and that is the thing to settle before you book a car.

You need the IDP. South Korea accepts the 1949 Geneva International Driving Permit, and your Swiss licence is valid only when carried together with it. There is no exemption, no airport counter and no grace period; a rental desk will refuse you without the permit. Apply through your cantonal road-traffic office or the TCS before departure, and confirm the requirement with the Driving Permit Checker.

On the road, the change is pace. Korean motorways cap at 110 km/h, down from the Swiss 120, and the limit is enforced with fixed and average-speed cameras rather than discretion. Towns are 50 and rural roads 80, matching what you know at home. Around 10 km/h over typically draws KRW 30,000 (roughly EUR 20) — you can estimate any penalty with the Speeding Fine Calculator.

Alcohol is tighter: the limit is 0.03 against the Swiss 0.05, with regular roadside checkpoints, so plan zero before driving. You drive on the right, exactly as at home, so there is no side switch — the one stylistic shift is that Korean city traffic changes lanes faster and more assertively than Swiss drivers tend to.

Petrol is around $1.42/litre, cheaper than Switzerland, and there are no motorway vignettes to buy. The emergency number is 112. Keep your IDP, licence and passport together, download offline maps for rural routes signed only in Korean, and read the licence section of the South Korea driving guide before you travel.