Vehicle import tax

I was with some friends today trying to sort out the import and "matriculación" of their car onto Spanish plates.  All is done, no problem, but the import tax is 800€. 

I was given to understand that taxing products that have been imported from other EC member countries (where all taxes were paid) was illegal under EC regulations.

The British Consulate were unable to give any advice at all.

Are we back with the problem of the EC - "mucho ruido, poco nueces" = "lots of noise but not many nuts".

Can anyone please advise?

What's this tax called in Spanish? Are you sure it's not matriculation rather than import?

Hi Roberto

Long time, no talk.  Delighted you're still posting and giving sensible advice on many issues.

Yes, it is matriculación.  It comes off the valuation tables that you referred to in another thread regarding import from Florida.

The issue is, this is a tax - you can call it what you like (used to be "purchase tax" in the '60s), VAT, IVA, Registration tax, carbon tax.  Having a poncy car tax.  At the end of the day, does a Spaniard who imports his SEAT into the UK pay tax over and above standard DVLA fees?

If I buy a deep freezer in France and bring it to Spain (with a receipt) then Spain can't say "excuse me, you owe us 16% IVA" because it was paid in an EU member state.

Am I missing something here?

The point is, it is not IVA / VAT, nor purchase tax, nor import duty, but a first registration fee. If you buy a new car in Spain, you pay it. if you bring a car from another country and want to register it in Spain, you pay it. Your Spaniard importing his SEAT into the UK goes through the same sh*t. You call it "standard DVLA fees". A friend of mine recently returned to the UK to live, taking his 8 year old Kangoo with him. It cost him (apart from a lot of time, stress and hassle) £1000 to get it fully registered and legal in the UK. (info on importing to UK here)

Poncy car tax is about right. Welcome to the new Europe.

£1000 pounds?  Good Lord, that must have needed some pretty extensive modifications.

I imported a car from Cyprus (luckily, they drive on the left there) which was a Nissan Primera made in Japan.  It cost me 50 quid to register the car and, as I had had the car over 3 years, there was no import tax or duty to pay (Cyprus was not in the EU then).  In addition, just the normal MOT and that was it.  I imagine the extra was for lights to be changed to dip to the left etc

Importing a car to UK from another EU state (duty paid) imposes no fees at all except the initial registration fee which is now £55.  Bit of a difference to the amount charged in Spain.  If that initial registration fee (matriculation?) is €800 then that might explain why cars are so expensive in Spain.

Oh, and no hassle at all.  Even though I'd purchased the car duty free in Cyprus, if it had been new I would have had to pay 10% of the value of the car (as it was then outside the EU).  Simply sent the MOT cert and the fifty quid to Swansea and got the V5 in a couple of days.

Not just the lights - the speedo too, which means the dash has to come out. Yes, most of the expense was for modifications I imagine, and yes, the hefty mat tax may be why cars are expensive in Spain.

Hi Max,

As mentioned it is not import duty it is a first registration tax.  However, if you've owned the car for longer than six months and you're doing it within the right time frame then you should not be paying this tax at all.

We used this FAQ when registering ours and we did not pay any first registration tax!

URL: tinyurl.com/qkea6w

We did however have to pay for new headlights and tail light and someone to fit them.

Hope this helps.

Thankyou delza.

The problem is that they are outside of this time frame, and there is proof (e.g. padron) that they have been here a while.

I posted a reply this morning, but it seems to have got lost in the system. 

Basically, what Roberto said about Welcome to the new Europe" = EXACTLY.

We should all decide whether we are going to be a group of trading nations with zero tariffs, or we are going to be one big happy country, i.e. the United States of Europe.  At the moment, it is all just a total mess, health, social services, transport and vehicle registration.  Why haven-t all of these things been sorted out?  Lord knows we pay the MEPs enough.