Minimum Driving Age by Country 2024

Establishing and enforcing a minimum driving age is an important part of maintaining ongoing road and traffic safety. Generally speaking, people are eligible to apply for driving privileges fairly young, but the minimum driving age is still much younger in some countries than others.

Here’s a closer look at how the minimum driving age differs from country to country, as well as some different factors that can influence a country to set a lower or higher minimum age than others.

Countries With the Youngest Minimum Driving Ages

As of 2023, the youngest minimum driving age worldwide is 16 years of age. This is also the case for several countries, including but not limited to the following:

American Samoa

Isle of Man

Guam

Seventeen is also a common minimum driving age for various countries, as with the following examples:

Cayman Islands

Countries where the minimum age is older than 17 include New Zealand and Niger, where the minimum ages are 17.5 and 23, respectively. It’s also worth noting that in some areas of Canada and the U.S., teens can start driving as young as 14 with the supervision of a parent.

Influences That Can Impact National Minimum Driving Ages

The following factors can all potentially contribute to a particular country’s set minimum driving age.

Concern for Public Safety

Younger, less experienced drivers are statistically more prone to accidents than older drivers. That said, the primary reason for establishing and enforcing a minimum driving age is concern for public safety.

Minimum ages help ensure drivers are mature enough and skilled enough to handle driving privileges responsibly. Various countries may have differing ideas about the age at which people reach that level of maturity.

Driver Education

Driver education and testing programs are more robust in some countries than others. In countries where this is indeed the case, authorities frequently allow people to start driving at younger minimum ages.

Transportation Norms

In countries where it’s more common for people to utilize public transportation for their daily commutes, people are less dependent on having vehicles of their own. Some countries where this is the case may set older minimum driving ages, as the ability to drive is less of a necessity.

Generally speaking, most countries seek to balance key issues like public safety with the ability of their young people to be functionally mobile.