The myth that there are no duties within the EU

This article is dated as shown. Laws, fees and prices have changed since then. Check the figures before you rely on them.

A discussion of the costs of registering a car in Spain, first published on 13.04.2015.

Hello to our dear customers and to the visitors of our website destacar.de. We often deal with cars that are exported to other EU countries. People frequently ask us, or are even convinced, that within the EU the buyer of a car does not have to pay anything to the state. They are very much mistaken. Below I would like to give a few examples from different countries of how much you have to pay, and for what, when buying a car from another EU country.

Let us start, of course, with Germany, since I live here and have dealt with this myself.

When a car is moved between EU countries, no customs duty is charged. VAT and national registration taxes are checked separately. For VAT purposes a car counts as new if it has no more than 6,000 km on the clock or is delivered within six months of its first registration. For a used car, both conditions must be the reverse. These guidelines apply to a private buyer; a purchase on behalf of a company is assessed separately. The example Belgium → Germany does not create a combined charge of “19% plus 10%”.

Polish excise duty should be calculated under the current conditions for the specific engine and drive type. The two rates from the 2015 article do not cover all cars, hybrids in particular.

Before buying a car for Spain, check the registration and emissions class requirements for the vehicle you have chosen. National taxes are considered separately from customs duty.

The rate and CO2 range are given in the article of 13.04.2015 as an example of the Spanish calculation; this is not a confirmed current scale. From the article of 13.04.2015: “If CO2 is below 120 g/km, the multiplier is 0”

From the article of 13.04.2015: “from 120 : 160g/km 4.5 %”

From the article of 13.04.2015: “from 160 : 200g/km 9,75 %”

From the article of 13.04.2015: “above 200g/km 14,75% of the purchase price”

I have given a few examples from different countries. In the video below you will see a buyer himself explaining how much they have to pay for a car in Spain.

An account of the costs in Spain from the 2015 article.

A customer's account of the costs in Portugal from the 2015 article.