Bringing a car to Ireland

gordont

We have bought a holiday home in West Cork and plan on bringing a car from Scotland that we have owned for 4 years to leave at the new house. Can anyone tell me what kind of import tax we will need to pay if any because we will remain UK residents for the near future.
Hope someone can help.Thanks in advance

dudara

Moved to the Motors forum - probably the best place for this kind of question.

dudara

OldmanMondeo

You should be able to get the car VRT'd FOC. Other than that, the usual road tax and insurance. You might save money long term by leaving the car as a UK reg and only bringing it over when you come across, other wish your taxing it for every time you need to come across or taxing for the year.

colm_mcm

OldmanMondeo wrote: »

You should be able to get the car VRT'd FOC. Other than that, the usual road tax and insurance. You might save money long term by leaving the car as a UK reg and only bringing it over when you come across, other wish your taxing it for every time you need to come across or taxing for the year.

Wouldn't you have to be moving to Ireland to avail of this?

gordont

Thanks for the advice so far. We don't plan to move permanently for 2/3 years but hope to spend a total of approx 3 months a year between now and then in Ireland.
Bringing the car across each time we visit will be very costly both timewise and financially so it will be easier to do the drive just once and leave the car.

Marcusm

gordont wrote: »

We have bought a holiday home in West Cork and plan on bringing a car from Scotland that we have owned for 4 years to leave at the new house. Can anyone tell me what kind of import tax we will need to pay if any because we will remain UK residents for the near future.
Hope someone can help.Thanks in advance

You fall between two stools; permanent exemption from VRT (vehicle registration tax) is unavailable (as you are not yet changing your country of residence) and the temporary exemption will run out quite quickly in your longer term scenario.

I have a similar issue in that I spend 1/4 of the year (spread out across all months) in Ireland and otherwise live in London. If you will be there for 3 consecutive months, I'd drive over and back as (1) it's an easier way of transporting what you need and frankly avoids the hassle of airports, drop offs and pick ups particularly and (2) you'll find it difficult to obtain effective insurance in the position you describe - Irish companies won't like you as you're non resident with a foreign reg'd car and not present for 9 months of the year (greater risk) and with a UK company you will eventually hit an issue answering the ubiquitous "where is the car usually kept overnight?" question plus you'll find unself unable to MOT it (if relevant).

CiniO

gordont wrote: »

Thanks for the advice so far. We don't plan to move permanently for 2/3 years but hope to spend a total of approx 3 months a year between now and then in Ireland.
Bringing the car across each time we visit will be very costly both timewise and financially so it will be easier to do the drive just once and leave the car.

Bringing a car and leaving might sound easier, but looks like it's impossible.

You can't legally register a car in Ireland in your name, if you are not resident in Ireland (and considering you will be spending here only 3 months a year you won't be resident here).

Even if you managed to register it in Ireland (which wouldn't be legal, but I assume they might not really check if you are really resident), then you wouldn't be able to get insurance for that car, as all Irish insurers require you to be resident in Ireland to be able to insure you.

Then other option of having your UK car here on UK number plates is a no go as well, as you can't keep a foreign car here for longer than 12 months, even if you never become resident here.

So only options are to rent a car for time you are here, or just bring the UK car with you every time you are coming.

DubTony

If you re-register the car and you can get cover, you're going to pay the bones of €400 a year for insurance and probably the same again for motor tax. And it will need to be NCT'd every couple of years. So it could easily cost a grand a year to leave it sitting here.
I can't see that you'd spend that much on a ferry and petrol, unless you intend to make multiple trips back and forth each year. Economically it makes sense to bring the car with you each time.