Saint-Martin Driving 2026: Local Code, 0.5 g/l Limit

Saint-Martin is one of the few French places where the Code de la route is not automatically the answer. Article LO6314-3 of the Code général des collectivités territoriales lists “circulation routière et transports routiers” among the matters in which the Collectivité fixes the applicable rules itself — so mainland default limits for driving in Saint-Martin do not cross the Atlantic on their own, and we publish no default table for the island. What does cross is the criminal side: the same article keeps with the State “les règles relatives à la recherche, à la constatation et à la répression des infractions pénales”, which is why the alcohol thresholds below are national ones.

Your case: A beach lunch with wine and the drive back to Marigot do not sit comfortably at 0.5 g/l — see where your own weight and drinks actually put you with the BAC calculator.

Emergency Numbers in Saint Martin

General Emergency: 112 (French side) | Sint Maarten (Dutch side): police and ambulance 911, fire 919

Save these numbers before you start driving. In Saint Martin, emergency calls are free from any phone.

Speed Limits in Saint-Martin

No official published figure. Drive to the posted signs.

That is not evasion, it is the constitutional position: because the collectivity holds the road-traffic competence, a speed limit on the French side is whatever the Conseil territorial has enacted and the signs display, and we could not obtain the current territorial schedule from the Collectivité or from any official gazette. Rather than dress a French mainland table up as local law — the island has no motorway at all, so a “motorway limit” is meaningless here — we leave the number out until an official text is in hand.

Practical reading of the road: 53 km2, a single coastal loop, roundabouts at Marigot and Bellevue, and traffic that queues rather than flows at the Dutch-side border. The signs are metric and the speeds they carry are low.

Speeding Fines in Saint-Martin: No Tariff Published, Ask the Gendarmerie

Enforcement is carried out by the gendarmerie and the territorial police. Because we cannot verify the territorial speed schedule, we do not publish a fine tariff for speeding on the French side either; ask the Collectivité or the gendarmerie for the current amounts rather than trusting a figure copied from a mainland table.

Traffic Rules and Regulations

Drive on the right on both sides of the island. Overtake on the left, and give way to traffic already circulating in a roundabout.

Seat belts are worn front and rear, and children are carried in restraints appropriate to their age and size.

Using a hand-held phone while driving is prohibited. Hands-free systems are permitted.

The French-Dutch border has no barrier and often only a welcome sign. Remember that crossing it changes the applicable law: Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with its own traffic rules, its own police and its own fines, and this page covers only the French collectivity in the north.

Legal Alcohol Limit in Saint-Martin: 0.50 g/l, 0.20 g/l for Novices

The legal alcohol limit in Saint-Martin is the national one, because catching and punishing offences stays with the State under LO6314-3. Article R234-1 of the Code de la route sets the contravention at:

• 0.50 g per litre of blood — or 0.25 mg per litre of exhaled air — for a full licence holder;
• 0.20 g/l — or 0.10 mg/l — for anyone whose licence is still within the probationary period, which in practice means most newly qualified and most young drivers.

The penalty at that level is a fourth-class fine with a licence suspension of up to three years and six points. Above 0.80 g/l the offence stops being a contravention and becomes a délit under article L234-1.

On an island where the drive home from a beach restaurant is short, dark and winding, the 0.2 g/l tier catches out more visitors than the 0.5 g/l one: a single glass can reach it.

Tyre Requirements and Regulations

Winter tyres and studs have no place on an 18-degrees-north Caribbean island, and no local rule addresses them.

Wet grip is the real question. Rain arrives hard and briefly, the hill roads above Marigot and Grand Case are steep, and rental fleets here are worked hard — look at the tread and the sidewalls before you accept a car, because the tyre is the part of the rental you cannot inspect later.

International Driving Permit in Saint-Martin: Home Licence Plus IDP at the Rental Desk

An international driving permit is not a substitute for your home licence in Saint-Martin, though it can help at a rental desk. The Collectivité runs its own licence counter: issuing, renewing and exchanging the permis de conduire is a Saint-Martin procedure, not a préfecture one, and the collectivity’s mobility pages are where the current formalities are published.

Visitors normally drive on their home licence. Keep it with you — an International Driving Permit is a translation of that licence, useful at a rental desk, not a substitute for it.

Parking and Fuel

Marigot fills up early on market days; the paid and free bays around the waterfront are the first to go and the ones most often ticketed.

Fuel is priced in euros on the French side and in US dollars or Antillean guilders on the Dutch side, which makes a routine tank the one purchase where the border is visible on your card statement.

Practical Driving Tips for Saint-Martin

• Allow far longer than the map suggests around Simpson Bay: the bridge lift for yachts stops traffic entirely, several times a day, on a published schedule.
• Rental contracts commonly bar you from unsurfaced tracks to remote beaches — the insurance follows the contract, not the map.
• Cash in euros on the French side, dollars on the Dutch: fuel, parking and tolls on either half are simplest in the local currency.

Roadside Assistance, Car Hire and Insurance in Saint-Martin

On the French side dial 112; on Sint Maarten, the Dutch half, police and ambulance are 911 and fire 919. Traffic keeps right on both halves. The border has no barrier, but crossing it changes the law, the police and the fines. Saint-Martin is an overseas collectivity of France, so confirm in writing that your motor policy and any breakdown plan name the island and both halves; many exclude Caribbean territories. With a hire car, the insurance follows the contract rather than the map: check the unsurfaced-track clause and the breakdown number before you leave the airport.