The road transport department (JPJ) has urged Malaysians to obtain a physical driving licence before driving into Thailand to avoid being fined by Thai authorities, New Straits Times has reported. While digital driving licences are sufficient for driving in Malaysia, physical licences continue to be mandatory in Thailand, said Kelantan JPJ director Mohd Misuari Abdullah.
The Kelantan JPJ director’s comment follows reports of a Malaysian driver being fined 1,000 baht (RM121) for failing to produce a physical driving licence at a roadblock in Thailand.
During the inspection, the driver presented the digital version of her Malaysian driving licence in the MyJPJ app, and was fined by Thai authorities as she was unable to produce either a physical Malaysian driving licence or International Driving Permit (IDP) as required in Thailand.
In Malaysia, the digital driving licence or e-LMM was part of the Malaysian government’s digitalisation plan that also brought the introduction of digital vehicle road tax (e-LKM) in February 2023.
A new Malaysian driving licence card was introduced in May 2025, however drivers intending to acquire the physical licence were required to provide proof of overseas travel. That requirement of proof was waived in January this year, though the fee of RM20 for Malaysians and RM100 for non-citizens continue to apply.
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Nobody asked for digital driving license. Nobody asked for abolishment of physical roadtax stickers apart from criminals and roadtax-dodgers.
The transport ministry went ahead anyway. And now people who want to drive overseas have an extra inconvenience to attend to. Police and JPJ had to carry out wide scale operations like Ops Luxury to nab roadtax dodgers just because it can no longer be visually determined at a glance.
My friend who runs a rental car agency was only able to get leads on the whereabouts of his stolen car because a municipal council officer noticed that the number plate on the car did not match that on the roadtax stickers when issuing a parking ticket, and raised the issue to the police who found out that this was the reported stolen car.
But somehow our transport minister supports law-breakers by making enforcement work harder.
your concern already invalidated by the use of modern tech. simply mount a 360 cam on a patrol car, drive around , and ANPR will automatically flag any surrounding vehicle which is stolen , didnt renew roadtax , or any other sort of reported crime .
eforcement is harder if they enforcing at the first place which they dont
then make it available online, instead of forcing people to line up at JPJ offices. YOU created this problem, then YOU should fix it
why do you want to drive in thailand ? better just stay in malaysia . in malaysia you get budi05 cheap petrol ,cheap diesel, and a prayer room in every building/condo/office/mall/petrol station. thailand doesnt give you any of this.
Dah beritahu kan. Tapi JPJ degil. Last time can go post office and get physical licence within 10 minutes depending on queue.
Years since this implementation you still see roadblocks and they’ll still ask you for a driver’s licence. If this system is so good why can’t our IC number suffice to tell them if the person is licensed or not? It all goes into a database and the IC number is there on the driving licence also what. Just update the central database and add la B2, D or whatever class the person is legally permitted to drive. And display that on the IC. Takkan la JPN and JPJ can’t talk to each other? It’s not like in Malaysia we use a separate drivers licence number for anything right? All syok sendiri talk about digitalisation la centralisation but in the end gomen make more work for us. Ptui.
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