Driving in Kosovo, what to know before you set off

Driving in Kosovo sounds more daunting on paper than it is on the road. Distances are short, motorways link the main towns and almost everything you’ll want to see is within two hours of anywhere. What’s different from home is a handful of specific gov.uk warnings worth having straight in your head.

Insurance and paperwork

Leave the green card at home, because Kosovo doesn’t recognise it. Gov.uk tells drivers to sort out Kosovan third-party cover as soon as they can, at the crossing itself or the first town, and to have euros in cash for it. Keep the logbook and proof that the car is yours in the car as well. A UK photocard licence is accepted; holders of the old paper licence may need to update it or carry a 1969 international driving permit, and gov.uk suggests checking whether you need a UK sticker on your own car. Hiring locally instead? See car hire in Kosovo.

What the roads are like

In 2024 the statistics agency (ASK) put the network at 2,434 km, made up of 1,495 km of regional roads, 753 km of national ones and 137.2 km of motorway. Gov.uk describes their standard as fair to poor, worse out in the countryside and whenever the weather turns, with a risk of landslides and flooding, especially in hilly and mountainous areas. It also says fuel quality varies. My reading is simple. Motorways, no problem; mountain roads, slowly and by day.

Filling up is cheap by British standards, with petrol averaging €1.31 and diesel €1.30 a litre across 2024 in ASK’s figures. If you’d like to see how I’d string the legs together, it’s all in my Kosovo road trip.

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Night and the mountains

Gov.uk advises avoiding night travel if possible. With distances like Kosovo’s, which you’ll find in distances in Kosovo, it’s no hardship to plan each leg to arrive in daylight.

Off the tarmac there’s a risk you won’t meet at home. Gov.uk warns that mines and unexploded ordnance left from 1999 are still out there, chiefly close to Albania, near the Dulje Pass and in the uplands along the Albanian and Montenegrin borders. The roads and marked tracks have been cleared, so in those areas I’d stay on them and call the police or KFOR about anything that looks wrong.

Borders, wildfires and photos

Queues build up now and then at the crossings into North Macedonia, Albania and Serbia, worst in summer and over the holidays, and gov.uk’s tip is to keep water and something to eat in the car. From April to October there’s a wildfire risk, so no cigarette ends out of the window and no barbecues outside marked areas. And don’t photograph military or police installations, vehicles or personnel, which gov.uk says can cause trouble. If Serbia’s on your route, read the Kosovo-Serbia border first.

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If something goes wrong

112 covers any emergency. Gov.uk also lists 192 for police from a mobile, 193 for fire and 194 for an ambulance. I’d save them in my phone before setting off, along with the hire company’s number.

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