You can get a Thai motorbike licence from scratch in Pattaya in about two weeks for 1,555 baht. A residence certificate from Jomtien immigration costs 300 baht, a medical certificate from a clinic around 150, two days at driving school around 1,000, and the DLT fee is 105. Your first licence is always a temporary one, valid for two years.
The documents you need:
- passport
- residence certificate
- medical certificate
1. Get a residence certificate at immigration
Chonburi Immigration Pattaya https://maps.app.goo.gl/XniUKPKCTfiddLjd6
For the residence certificate, make a copy of your passport’s photo page, your entry stamp, your visa if you have one, your latest stamp and your registration. You’ll also need 2 colour photos (you can get them done nearby) and proof of the TM-30 residence notification; if your landlord hasn’t filed it, file it yourself online. At immigration, say you need a residence certificate for a motorbike driving licence, pay 300 baht, and an hour later you collect the certificate.
2. Get a medical certificate at the clinic next to immigration
Chanya Medical Clinic Jomtien https://maps.app.goo.gl/WjTpxvGmRs788hM76
Go to the clinic next to immigration, say you want a certificate for a motorbike driving licence, hand over your passport, pay 150 baht, and in 5–10 minutes you’ll have your certificate. All they do is take your blood pressure and ask your height and weight.
3. Do the driving school course
Boss Pattaya Driving School https://maps.app.goo.gl/z2AfUPeyhoeMCt4PA
⚠️ UPD: word is the school above no longer takes foreigners, and you need to sign up here instead: Pattaya Klang Driving School https://maps.app.goo.gl/Qp8XNB95MmxaU1Mu5
With this set of documents, ride your own bike straight to the driving school by 7 am and sign up for the course. If you’re lucky and there are free places, they’ll put you in that same day. The course costs 1,000 baht and takes 2 full days.
On the first day you take the practical test, which is a series of exercises. The hardest is riding slowly along a narrow plank about as wide as a kerb. You get roughly an hour to practise, and then you have to get through every exercise without a slip. After that you head back to the school and spend the rest of the day on practice tests. Don’t waste that time: go through the test at least 5 times to catch all the nonsensical questions. Why nonsensical? Because Google Translate turns them from Thai into Russian, and in places the meaning comes out horribly mangled. You just have to memorise the answers to those. Anything involving numbers is best written down separately and learned by heart.
On the second day (most likely the next one) you again arrive by 7 am, sit with the group in a classroom, watch a film and listen to a lecture in Thai, then move on to the theory exam at individual computers in a room with CCTV. You can’t bring your phone in, and an instructor keeps an eye on that.
LIFE HACK: in the real exam you’ll also be allowed to use Google Translate in the browser, but the exam itself lets you switch its built-in language from Thai to English, and you can then run the English through the translator into Russian. That makes some questions much clearer, but it can trip you up on the nonsensical questions whose look-alike answers you memorised during practice: in the English version those answers are completely different.
To pass, you need 45 out of 50 points, so you’re allowed 5 mistakes. You can only sit the exam twice a day, which means one retake on the same day. If you fail, they book you in for a retake a few days later: the rules require at least three days between attempts, and the school sets the exact date. Ours was scheduled a week later, with no extra charge. Here’s a PDF with the questions and correct answers in English: download (2.3 MB, 8 pages). Some of the answer wording in the real exam may have changed by now. It isn’t our material: it has been doing the rounds of Russian-speaking chats in Thailand for ages, author unknown. We host a copy because the old link pointed to someone else’s Google Drive, and files like that get taken down without warning, and this guide depends on it.
Once you pass the test, you’re given a set of documents for the transport office and photographed holding them.
4. Book your licence appointment at the transport office
Chonburi Provincial Transport Office https://maps.app.goo.gl/WeTgDULsWv2gHQMYA
The next day, take the documents from the school and your passport to the transport office by 8:00 and join the queue where the plastic chairs are. The office opens at 8:30; a woman comes round, you hand her your documents in queue order, and she books you a date and time to collect your licence. On average she books you about 10 days out. IMPORTANT: your residence certificate and medical certificate must still be valid on the day you collect the licence, and they will check. If they’ve expired by then, you’ll be told to get new ones before the issue date.
5. Collect your licence at the same office
On the appointed date and time, go to the transport office, take a queue number, go up one floor to the waiting room and wait to be called. Pay the 105 baht fee, take a new number, go downstairs and outside to the tent where they take photos, and wait your turn for the photo. Then, in the ground-floor hall, you receive your licence and a receipt.
Total cost
residence certificate - 300 baht
medical certificate - 150 baht
course - 1,000 baht
fee - 105 baht
Total: 1,555 baht.
Profit! You’re brilliant: you got your licence in a foreign country all by yourself!
Your first licence is always temporary, valid for two years; five-year licences are only issued when you replace it. Towards the end of its term you’ll need to do just that, and we’ve covered how to renew separately.
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