What changes with a car from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania.
These countries follow the usual EU procedure, but each registration document is different, so we review the actual document before you buy or move the car.
What to be clear about
- Sweden issues the certificate in two parts, like Germany or Belgium: make sure you get both.
- In the other countries the number of documents and their format depend on the country; we confirm it when reviewing the document.
- If the purchase is by contract (no company invoice), transfer tax (ITP) must be paid.
- New vehicle: a vehicle is treated as new if it has under 6,000 km or under 6 months since first registration. In that case VAT is due instead of ITP.
- If you buy from a company, its invoice must be verifiable in the EU VIES system: check the seller VAT number before paying.
Frequent mistakes
- In Sweden, receiving only one of the two parts of the certificate.
- Paying before checking that a company invoice verifies in VIES.
- Assuming the car has European type approval. Check box K of the registration document: it shows the type-approval number (like e1*2007/46*...). If it is empty or dashed, the car has no European type approval and cannot be registered as it is: an individual vehicle approval (homologación unitaria) is needed. We offer it: €1,500 plus VAT.
Real timing
With complete documents, green plates can be ready in 24 hours; once the vehicle has a valid ITV (roadworthiness test), the process takes another 24 hours. If something is missing or there is an incident, timing is confirmed case by case.