PNGMK wrote: ↑Tue, 15 Mar 2022 11:50 am
This comes up every time we plan to head back to the US. My wife inadvertently let her TX drivers license lapse and now we do not have anyone in our family with an American drives license. This isn't too much of a problem if you're renting a car and just visiting but as we were thinking of buying a car this trip for our eventual return (basically an ex hertz rental car and just keeping it) it turns out that having a US license is pretty important.
I've managed to keep my Aussie license (which includes difficult classes such as semi-trailers) going - even through Covid 19 as it is valid for 5 years and registered at my mothers address and they allow renewal via post but I understand from my wife that the main issue was that she did not move the registered address from a rental apartment and hence never got a renewal notice.
To re-instate her license is hugely difficult now because of the post 9-11 ID regulations. Fortunately- before her TX license expired - she managed to convert it to a Singapore license.
So, move your registered address to one where you will be able to get the renewal notice and secondly put into your calendar a reminder to renew it as least one month before it expires!
Note that technically an Australia can only hold a drivers license in the state he/she is legally resident but it's never really been raised as a point of concern. I do use my Singapore driver's license when I drive in my home state as a work around...
Sage advice. It’s even harder if you are no longer a citizen or resident of that country. I have managed to keep renewing my wife’s Michigan DL since we left in 1996 up to now. We changed her address to my parent’s address long ago, so that hasn’t changed. The last time she had to renew in person they just asked for her SSN, which fortunately she remembers from when we lived there. As long as she keeps renewing it, the 9-11 ID stuff can be waived in the state of Michigan.
As for myself I thought it wouldn’t matter and let my DL expire. Big mistake. The last time we went back in 2019, I tried to renew and they treated me like a new driver. Under Michigan law, a Singapore DL is not good enough for direct conversion, so I had to do a 45 minute on-the-road driving test with a driving instructor, and pass a written test before they would renew my license. Had I not let it expire beyond 4 years, I could have avoided that. Each state is different though.
The other thing to keep up is credit history. I had done that myself but not for my wife. Over the past 8 years or so I embarked on a journey to reestablish her credit history. First I tried applying for a card that didn’t require good credit, but was denied. I then added her as a supplemental user on my card, let that incubate for 3 months… then reapplied under her name — that worked and she got a $500 credit limit. Within 12 months it was upped to $1,000. After 24 months, several thousand, and by 36 months it was a 5-figure limit. In the US they don’t verify your employer or income, it’s all based on making timely payments. Today, just one of her cards has a $35k limit and she has a credit score > 800. Each time before we go back I apply for at least one new card for each of us and get a nice sign up bonus, cutting around $1k off our trip cost.