Finland to CA driving Q

[Nordic 2]

Anyone out there from Finland living in CA who could enlighten me on driver license stuff? Apparently CA doesn't recognize international licenses ( which is just a weird piece of paper as a translation I know, used it before in CT). But is my Finnish license okay while on K1 until AOS? Thanks!

[newacct 688]

California law says that people visiting from out-of-state or out-of-country can directly use their valid out-of-state or foreign driver's license to drive in California. It also says that people who take up residence in California must get a California driver's license in 10 days. But what separates residing in California from visiting California is kind of subjective. Technically K1 is a temporary status, but it is for you to stay and AOS, so it is not clear if you count as residing in California or not.

Note that you cannot get a regular California driver's license at this point anyway. If you get it during the 90 days of K1 status, it will expire at the end of those 90 days, if they even give you one. You do not qualify for a California driver's license during AOS after the K1 status ends until you get either EAD or green card. You might be able to get one of those AB60 driver's licenses that don't require legal presence document, but I'm not sure that's a good idea.

[TBoneTX 43,058]

*** Thread moved from K-1 Process forum to the Moving to the US forum -- topic is driving. ***