Importing Cars from Germany within EU as a business

Importing Cars from Germany within EU as a business

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Discussion

AemAei

Original Poster:

4 posts

50 months

Thursday 13th February 2020
quotequote all
Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forums so I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this.

Does anyone have any experience in importing cars from Germany to sell them in other EU countries such as Belgium or Austria etc? I know that cars are very expensive in Austria and Belgium compared to Germany, and I've heard people talking about importing cars to these countries and selling them on and making decent amounts of profit per car as the same cars sell for considerably more.

I've done some research and the German car market for personal cars is definitely very active with around 3 million sales a year compared to e.g. Belgium and Austria which is in the 200k to 300k range, so not too sure about that and whether the cars would sell? Of course Germany is much bigger but German cars are cheaper in Germany.

I've been trying to research import taxes and other fees too, but I've been seeing different information on different websites, but one thing I read is that if you have a registered address in Belgium then no tax applies on the vehicle that is being imported, and I'm not sure if that would be beneficial to this type of a business or negative because on one hand it would obviously eliminate the fees for business but on the other hand wouldn't people just cross the border themselves to get the cars at a cheaper premium? Or would the hassle still put people off and thus create an opportunity?

I was wondering if anyone has done this/doing it or knows anyone that has and could give some input on this and if this is something that can still be done or are people just crossing borders themselves to buy cars for a cheaper premium?