Review LTO Foreign Conversion Drivers License

Today my wife and I went to the LTO office that offers foreign conversion drivers licenses (not Robinsons, this one is across from a prison). We really have no complaints about the service except that when you go for the medical, there is a prominent office that charges p200 and a less prominent one that charges p100. All they really do is look at you and talk for a few seconds making sure you are alive, can hear and maybe read I think. No exam at all. Then there is the drug urine test, not sure what they check for. If you are here on a balakbayan visa, no need for the ACR card. Bring original and copy of passport with latest visa page and USA drivers license. USA and Phils has a 90 day limit for reciprocity for DL, after which you need to get the DL issued in country. At the end, after paying p850 apiece, we were told to use the LTO receipt temporarily because they ran out of the plastic licenses. Has anybody heard about this? Any inputs as to how long it took to get the plastic DL? ... Dan in Candau-Ay.


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Nearly 1 year for me. I believe others longer

 

Thanks Wrye and all for the responses. I was hoping to have a good Philippine ID but it looks like the DL won’t be helpful for that, for a long while.


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We went to the LTO last week, after being here 1-1/2 yrs, and no problem for CONVERSION. Yes the "medical" scam down the street is a scam but it's accepted, no worse a scam than the San Francisco California building permit office and a lot less expensive 250 pesos versus 25,000 USD... They said to check back in March for the plastic license. Took one hour and $16, try to get ANYTHING done at a US department of motor vehicles in less. The drug test form says "meth- yes or no" "cannabis- yes or no ??"., that's the pee test.....

For ID, we use SRRV or CA driver's license or ACR card...carry passport copy but not the original, never been a problem for 1-1/2 yrs, except once needed it.

 

Unfortunately that is not my personal experience. My balikbayan stamp given in 2016 did not have 'BB' on it (but it did have an expiry date of one year later, so I was okay with that and it was confirmed to be valid for immigration purposes when I exited in 2017 (I mean "confirmed to be valid" in that I was not questioned about it)). My new balikbayan stamp in 2017 also has no 'BB' on it.

Because of that the LTO office you refer to does not accept my balikbayan waiver and so told me I am not allowed a driver's licence unless I get an ACR card. The same happened in BDO banks (I have not tried other banks).

I have 2 out of 2 balikbayan waivers with no 'BB' in them, so if this is very rare I would be surprised (on the basis of odds and the fact I never win the big prize in the lottery). The fact that authorities here (other than immigration itself) seems unable to recognise a balikbayan waiver would have surprised me when I first arrived but now I regard it as 'par for the course'.

 

The “BB” marking is hand printed in ink inside the tourist visa stamp directly below the entry date that is printed as part of the stamp. Below the hand printed “BB” is the hand printed notation “1 YR”. As far as I can remember, that is what our B.B. visa’s always looked (btw, yeah I know it’s not really a visa but a privilege etc.). Anyway, when going to the LTO in question there was a young lady seated at a table near the door. She asked for our ACR card but I told her that the ACR people would not issue a regular ACR card, just a voluntary tourist card which has no value according to them BI. I told her we are only tourist Balikbayan but here longer than 90 days so we needed the foreign conversion license. She said fine, let me see your passport with the Balikbayan stamp plus one copy of the visa page and front page of the passport. With that, no ACR is required. I have found that, in general, when an ACR is required, you can use the BB visa as an alternative. It is not always understood by the employees but fortunately I have had no problems up to now. If your visa is not stamped B.B., that may be the problem. I would like to attach a copy of my stamp but no luck accomplishing this in my iPhone. By the way, we always enter the Philippines through Cebu which in my experience is the best place to come in & very well organized.



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