How to import a second hand car from Europe
Discussion
Can anyone give me a idea of what you have to go through to do this?
If you wanted to import say, a 1996 993 from germany, how do you do it?
Starting from driving the car off the german forecourt, what do you have to pay (taxes, registation fees), to make it legal & registered in the U.K?
If you wanted to import say, a 1996 993 from germany, how do you do it?
Starting from driving the car off the german forecourt, what do you have to pay (taxes, registation fees), to make it legal & registered in the U.K?
I imported a 993 from Germany. It wasn't too difficult:
1. Get export plates - the dealer in Germany will do this for you.
2. Get the logbook - it is called a Fahrzeugbrief. Again the dealer will give this to you when he sells the car (just like the V5 in England)
3. From memory the export plates come with a temporary insurance certificate (3rd party only). I drove using this, as my insurer wouldn't insure on a chassis no only until I hit British soil
4. Drive the car home. No probs through customs etc
5. I had to apply for a Type Approval certificate from the Vehicle Certification Agency in Bristol. Basically this says that the car is one that is "reocgnised" in the UK (in my case, it means that Porsche originally sold the 993RS in UK, so it doesn't need an SVA test)
6. Get an MOT on the chassis no (you haven't got UK plates yet)
7. Go to the local DVLA office armed with MOT and Cert of Conformity (no 5 above) and insurance certificate, and they will organise a V5
I learned most of this from the DVLA and VCA web sites - search on google and I'm sure you'll find them.
Hopefully this helps
Zubin
1. Get export plates - the dealer in Germany will do this for you.
2. Get the logbook - it is called a Fahrzeugbrief. Again the dealer will give this to you when he sells the car (just like the V5 in England)
3. From memory the export plates come with a temporary insurance certificate (3rd party only). I drove using this, as my insurer wouldn't insure on a chassis no only until I hit British soil
4. Drive the car home. No probs through customs etc
5. I had to apply for a Type Approval certificate from the Vehicle Certification Agency in Bristol. Basically this says that the car is one that is "reocgnised" in the UK (in my case, it means that Porsche originally sold the 993RS in UK, so it doesn't need an SVA test)
6. Get an MOT on the chassis no (you haven't got UK plates yet)
7. Go to the local DVLA office armed with MOT and Cert of Conformity (no 5 above) and insurance certificate, and they will organise a V5
I learned most of this from the DVLA and VCA web sites - search on google and I'm sure you'll find them.
Hopefully this helps
Zubin
I agree with Zubin, and like to add:
The Fahrzeugbrief is proof of being the legitimate owner of the car, so take care of it!
Only reputable dealers like a Porsche Zentrum or well established used car dealers will be honest with the actual costs of the export plate - it's valid for six months, and insurance isn't cheap. A full TÜV (like MoT) check is obligatory to obtain such plate.
Check the used car search engine on the official Porsche web site or http://uk.mobile.de for offers.
The Fahrzeugbrief is proof of being the legitimate owner of the car, so take care of it!
Only reputable dealers like a Porsche Zentrum or well established used car dealers will be honest with the actual costs of the export plate - it's valid for six months, and insurance isn't cheap. A full TÜV (like MoT) check is obligatory to obtain such plate.
Check the used car search engine on the official Porsche web site or http://uk.mobile.de for offers.
I think this has been covered recently, but unless you have already got a specific car in mind the game is more or less on hold for the moment....
The value of the Euro currency is much stronger now than it was a few years ago.
When it was weaker people were bringing lhd European cars over to england.As there were real comparative bargains to be had.
Now that there is an established stock of lhd porsche in england, you can actually find these cars are cheaper than the ones you see in europe.Before the cost of importing.
My own lhd wagon was bought in by somebody else in 1998,so it has 5 years of uk history.
The comparative advantage of a uk ready registered car
makes sense to me, someone else has done the registering & importing hassle, it should have some uk history and work out to be cheaper.
Please ignore the above if you are bringing in a really special porsche such as 993 GT2 lhd.
The value of the Euro currency is much stronger now than it was a few years ago.
When it was weaker people were bringing lhd European cars over to england.As there were real comparative bargains to be had.
Now that there is an established stock of lhd porsche in england, you can actually find these cars are cheaper than the ones you see in europe.Before the cost of importing.
My own lhd wagon was bought in by somebody else in 1998,so it has 5 years of uk history.
The comparative advantage of a uk ready registered car
makes sense to me, someone else has done the registering & importing hassle, it should have some uk history and work out to be cheaper.
Please ignore the above if you are bringing in a really special porsche such as 993 GT2 lhd.
Cheers for the replies guy's.
The car i'm interested in is pretty hard to find over here. The price of a German one still holds quite a saving. I am just trying to find out if there are any large costs involved after the purchase of the car. What is the law with the VAT then? How old must the car be to exempt?
The car i'm interested in is pretty hard to find over here. The price of a German one still holds quite a saving. I am just trying to find out if there are any large costs involved after the purchase of the car. What is the law with the VAT then? How old must the car be to exempt?
Dom, I didn't know that the age of the car in any way affected the question of VAT. As long as VAT has been paid on the car when bought new in a European state, I'm pretty sure that there is no additional VAT to pay. That's one of the reasons why it pays to orfer your new car from a European state with the lowest VAT rate (ISTR Gemany's was/is slightly lower than the UK's?)
What about importing from the US - the Dollar is drifting like crazy at the moment
What about importing from the US - the Dollar is drifting like crazy at the moment
US cars are a nightmare,they have raised ride heights and are further federalised...If you go on to www.rennlist.com most of the posts are discussing mods to return the cars to european or ROW (rest of the world spec).
rubystone said:
Dom, I didn't know that the age of the car in any way affected the question of VAT. As long as VAT has been paid on the car when bought new in a European state, I'm pretty sure that there is no additional VAT to pay. That's one of the reasons why it pays to orfer your new car from a European state with the lowest VAT rate (ISTR Gemany's was/is slightly lower than the UK's?)
What about importing from the US - the Dollar is drifting like crazy at the moment
IIRC, if it is less than 6 months old, Customs class it as a new vehicle if purchased second hand, and you pay UK VAT. Obviously if you buy new then the original duty is payable, not VAT. I may be wrong, naturellement.
There was also a 3 year/30k mile limit when I was importing stuff a while back, but this was for 'personal imports' ie you could avoid type approval, import taxes and all sorts of bureacracy if the car was older than this.
It's all changed now, I'm sure, but if the vehicle is ovwer 10 years old then I'm sure there won't be any problem re VAT etc.
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