Importing from the UK - definitive guide (Q&A)

bazz26

It's 6 months old from date of entering the country to my knowledge otherwise people would be bringing in brand new cars and parking them on their driveways for 6 months.

michellie

bazz26 wrote: »

It's 6 months old from date of entering the country to my knowledge otherwise people would be bringing in brand new cars and parking them on their driveways for 6 months.

No its 6 months from date of registration

michellie

skyblueflyer wrote: »

I'm looking to purchase a car from the UK this week, the car was first registered the end of January 2019. Can I bring it in straight away and leave it till the end of July to clear it and avoid having to pay the vat? Can the car be used in the meantime?

Just be careful if you leave it close to the end of the 30 days depending on the make and model it may have to be valued by revenue and this can take a few days(possibly upto 2 weeks) then incurring penalties.

Its 6 months from the date of first registration and over 6000km . Once it's over both of those no VAT will be applied

bazz26

michellie wrote: »

No its 6 months from date of registration

Genuine question. If the ferry ticket and invoice are within the VRT 30 day rule but the dates on both show the car was brought in before the 6 months old/6000km VAT rule, what happens?

melon_collie

Hi everyone. I posted on here back in February regarding an issue we had when we purchased a car in the UK. The dealer refused to give us the V5c on the day of purchase due to "Data Protection Reasons". Anyway we came home with the car but with no V5c. Hindsight is a great thing. They attempted to register the car in my wife's name at the dealership address but no luck.

Anyway to cut a long story short the company director came over about 5 weeks ago, collected the car from my workplace, gave us a courtesy car, brought it back to the UK to be re-resgistered. They got the V5c last week and returned the car to us today.

Hopefully now there will be no problem with revenue on Thursday when we are getting it registered here.

Marcusm

bazz26 wrote: »

Genuine question. If the ferry ticket and invoice are within the VRT 30 day rule but the dates on both show the car was brought in before the 6 months old/6000km VAT rule, what happens?

Then you have to pay the VAT. The VAT arises at the point of importation. It’s just collected at the same time as VRT. If you bring it in less than 6 months for private use and then try to reexport it after the 6 months date, you won’t be entitled to a refund either. (Technical position, practice might be different if you run screaming to the port!)

michellie

bazz26 wrote: »

Genuine question. If the ferry ticket and invoice are within the VRT 30 day rule but the dates on both show the car was brought in before the 6 months old/6000km VAT rule, what happens?

There won't be VAT charged at the NCT centre, because as soon as it reaches those figures it doesn't charge it.

But, the VRT admin can pass on any information to Revenue if they feel it's not genuine or that someone is trying to pull a fast one. But when you're talking about the space of the car being in within 30 days it wouldn't seem suspicious, 6 months maybe, but 30 days is ok.

michellie

Marcusm wrote: »

Then you have to pay the VAT. The VAT arises at the point of importation. It’s just collected at the same time as VRT. If you bring it in less than 6 months for private use and then try to reexport it after the 6 months date, you won’t be entitled to a refund either. (Technical position, practice might be different if you run screaming to the port!)

That's wrong. As soon as the 6 month (from date of registration/6000km mark has passed no VAT charged. It doesn't go by the date of import.

michellie

melon_collie wrote: »

Hi everyone. I posted on here back in February regarding an issue we had when we purchased a car in the UK. The dealer refused to give us the V5c on the day of purchase due to "Data Protection Reasons". Anyway we came home with the car but with no V5c. Hindsight is a great thing. They attempted to register the car in my wife's name at the dealership address but no luck.

Anyway to cut a long story short the company director came over about 5 weeks ago, collected the car from my workplace, gave us a courtesy car, brought it back to the UK to be re-resgistered. They got the V5c last week and returned the car to us today.

Hopefully now there will be no problem with revenue on Thursday when we are getting it registered here.

Just make sure your purchase receipts date is modified by the dealer and you have the most recent ferry documents from when it re-entered the country.

YMCA

I have just purchased a car from NI through an auction. It came without a V5 as it had structural damage. I have booked an appointment with NCTS for next week however as I have no V5 can I get it registered? I rang auction house and they have informed me that I can not get a V5 off them due to the damage and only way to do is register it in UK address, repair car and get MOT. None of which are a viable option.

Do I have any wriggle room with NCTS or way around this. TIA.

Marcusm

michellie wrote: »

That's wrong. As soon as the 6 month (from date of registration/6000km mark has passed no VAT charged. It doesn't go by the date of import.

That might be how NCTS operate but it is not (technically) correct. The tax point for VAT is the point of importation and if it satisfies the definition of “new means of transport” when it rolls off the boat or across the border then Irish VAT would be charged. I’m not surprised, however, that the procedure is deficient. They should actually require evidence at point of purchase (invoice) and use that as it is the point at which the car is acquired.

Marcusm

YMCA wrote: »

I have just purchased a car from NI through an auction. It came without a V5 as it had structural damage. I have booked an appointment with NCTS for next week however as I have no V5 can I get it registered? I rang auction house and they have informed me that I can not get a V5 off them due to the damage and only way to do is register it in UK address, repair car and get MOT. None of which are a viable option.

Do I have any wriggle room with NCTS or way around this. TIA.

What class of damage? This sounds as if it has been deemed unsafe for road use meaning it has needs to be tested before use on road. If that’s the case they should not have allowed you to drive it away. Without the V5 you have close to zero chance of getting it registered.

bazz26

YMCA wrote: »

I have just purchased a car from NI through an auction. It came without a V5 as it had structural damage. I have booked an appointment with NCTS for next week however as I have no V5 can I get it registered? I rang auction house and they have informed me that I can not get a V5 off them due to the damage and only way to do is register it in UK address, repair car and get MOT. None of which are a viable option.

Do I have any wriggle room with NCTS or way around this. TIA.

Don't think so. NCTS need either the V5C or Certificate of Permanent Export to register the car on Irish plates and the DVLA are no longer issuing Certificate of Permanent Export.

michellie

Marcusm wrote: »

That might be how NCTS operate but it is not (technically) correct. The tax point for VAT is the point of importation and if it satisfies the definition of “new means of transport” when it rolls off the boat or across the border then Irish VAT would be charged. I’m not surprised, however, that the procedure is deficient. They should actually require evidence at point of purchase (invoice) and use that as it is the point at which the car is acquired.

It's how revenue operate. The NCT use their system, they dont make up their own rules.

Marcusm

michellie wrote: »

It's how revenue operate. The NCT use their system, they dont make up their own rules.

Section 3 VAT Consolidation Act 2010 makes it clear that the taxing point is the importation of the car (goods) if personally brought into the State. As I said earlier, the practice may be disregard the gap where it is presented later but this is technically incorrect and, given the potential exposure, it would be unwise to rely on it where it can be avoided.

PaulKK

I've noticed quite a few dealers are charging fees these days for documentation etc, and typically the fee for export customers is extortionate, 599 pounds in some cases when typically a UK buyer pays 99-199 pounds.

Any risk in registering a car in your own name to a UK relatives address and have them forward the V5?

Saving a few hundred isn't to be sniffed at and would cover the ferry.

Helpneeded86

Hi. Planning to buy off a Jaguar Main dealer in the UK.

Car will be around 8 months old and just over 6k on the clock.

I plan on using currency fair to transfer.

Would there be anything hidden that I am forgetting?

The car was a courtesy car would that be an issue for anyone?

Marcusm

What is it? You’ll need to assume, like a rental, that it has had the arse ridden on it. Perhaps less of an issue for an automatic.

Make sure you read the thread properly and make sure you get the full V5; if not then don’t deal with them.

Andrewf20

Folks, what way does it work if I import a 2008 car from the UK - will the tax be based on the engine size or on emissions?

PaulKK

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Folks, what way does it work if I import a 2008 car from the UK - will the tax be based on the engine size or on emissions?

Emissions

acronym Chilli

Might end up creating a thread for this Q, but I'll try here first!


I might be moving to London for a year or two in the next while.

I've a serviceable enough 2004 diesel A6 on the road at the moment, 185k miles on it, but I'm thinking it could be worth while to buy a car while I'm in the UK (rather than importing my own old car to UK,and then potentially having it develop faults over there). I picked it as I was doing big miles, the 1.9TDI AWX engine is robust, and the example was clean and cheap (€1k))


What I'm wondering is where the sweet spots are at the moment in terms of value for money in family size cars in UK? (e.g. I know that old large-engined cars are oddly cheap in ROI due to our tax setup, so clearly some cars don't make sense to buy in UK).


To give some sort of direction, I could be looking for an estate car (midsize and up) with good bit of space (think holidays w/2 kids, or ikea trips), though not a people carrier. Budget maybe EUR10k (flexible perhaps), I would prefer to get a solid platform than to get all the toys, open minded on fuel, and more focused on total cost of ownership than details like road-tax).
Ideally it'd be a car that I'd use low-mileage in UK, then bring back and run for several years (possibly high mileage again). I don't change cars for novelty!

kindalen

Would there be any/much vrt rebate on your present car if you brought it over?

Debub

acronym Chilli wrote: »

Might end up creating a thread for this Q, but I'll try here first!


I might be moving to London for a year or two in the next while.

I've a serviceable enough 2004 diesel A6 on the road at the moment, 185k miles on it, but I'm thinking it could be worth while to buy a car while I'm in the UK (rather than importing my own old car to UK,and then potentially having it develop faults over there). I picked it as I was doing big miles, the 1.9TDI AWX engine is robust, and the example was clean and cheap (€1k))


What I'm wondering is where the sweet spots are at the moment in terms of value for money in family size cars in UK? (e.g. I know that old large-engined cars are oddly cheap in ROI due to our tax setup, so clearly some cars don't make sense to buy in UK).


To give some sort of direction, I could be looking for an estate car (midsize and up) with good bit of space (think holidays w/2 kids, or ikea trips), though not a people carrier. Budget maybe EUR10k (flexible perhaps), I would prefer to get a solid platform than to get all the toys, open minded on fuel, and more focused on total cost of ownership than details like road-tax).
Ideally it'd be a car that I'd use low-mileage in UK, then bring back and run for several years (possibly high mileage again). I don't change cars for novelty!

I would look at the Skoda Superb estate or the 5 Series estate (or if you want a looker - my fav is the Mazda 6 estate and as a bonus it drives really well)

Kitty6277

Perhaps a stupid question (I apologise if so), but I’m looking at cars in the UK but the speedometer is in mph instead of kph. Would this be a problem if it came to importing, is there a legal obligation to have a kph speedometer here or does it matter hugely?

bazz26

No otherwise nobody would be importing used cars here.

plodder

Kitty6277 wrote: »

Perhaps a stupid question (I apologise if so), but I’m looking at cars in the UK but the speedometer is in mph instead of kph. Would this be a problem if it came to importing, is there a legal obligation to have a kph speedometer here or does it matter hugely?

Don't they usually have it in km/h as well, albeit smaller and a bit harder to see?

Also, if the car has a digital display that can often be setup to show speed in km/h. Both the above applied with my import, but I'd be interested to know what the legal situation is..

Debub

Kitty6277 wrote: »

Perhaps a stupid question (I apologise if so), but I’m looking at cars in the UK but the speedometer is in mph instead of kph. Would this be a problem if it came to importing, is there a legal obligation to have a kph speedometer here or does it matter hugely?

Not sure about the law, but he UK cars that I have seen have both (main) in MPH and also KMPH, haven't seen only mph cars. And a few folks that I know who have imported recently have had no issues with the dual speedos. Most of the digital speedos will have switchable between KMPH and MPH. Does your car (you are looking at) have ONLY MPH rating?

Kitty6277

Debub wrote: »

Not sure about the law, but he UK cars that I have seen have both (main) in MPH and also KMPH, haven't seen only mph cars. And a few folks that I know who have imported recently have had no issues with the dual speedos. Most of the digital speedos will have switchable between KMPH and MPH. Does your car (you are looking at) have ONLY MPH rating?

Only MPH, yeah. Although I had a look on DoneDeal for the same car here and the speedos of them are in MPH as well, so it must just be the model of the car itself rather than the fact that mine would be a UK import.

Debub

Only MPH should not be a problem in Ireland - as far as I have been able to find out, you can get NCT on an only MPH car. But if you do vice versa - importing to the UK, only KMPH car, its not allowed.

http://www.backroads.ie/forums/showthread.php?25896-MPH-Only-Speedo-from-UK

or you can always buy this :-)

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/SPEEDO-OVERLAY-CONVERSION-KIT-STICKERS-MPH-or-KPH-WHITE-SPEEDOMETER-DIALS-/183768199598?hash=item2ac97031ae

Debub

Found this :