Importing a new bike from Germany

Jarvis Transport is collecting the bike today or tomorrow (5th/6th May), and I reckon I'll have it within a week.

I have paid the German VAT (19%). I'll pay 23% VAT here and VRT. When I furnish the German dealer with proof that it is registered in Ireland and Irish VAT was paid, they are obliged to refund the German VAT element.

In the beginning I didn't know where I'd be reclaiming the German VAT so I emailed the German Revenue and they put me straight and gave me this info…

https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/buying-and-selling-cars_en

The important bit is…

What if I paid VAT when I bought the car?
If you bought the car from a dealer or other business and you made it clear that your intention was to have the car taken back to your own country and kept there permanently, and satisfied any other necessary conditions, you should not have had to pay VAT (the sale should have been exempt).

Some sellers may require paying VAT upon purchase and refund that amount when they get satisfactory evidence that the car was transported to and registered in another EU country.

This is a bit long-winded, but it may help others in the future.

Because some posters have made comments that clearly relate to used bikes, I want to point out that the title of this thread is “Importing a new bike from Germany”.

My experience, now complete, is solely related to “Importing a new bike from Germany”.

I bought the bike directly from a dealer who had it in stock in a crate. I didn’t set out to save money. I simply couldn’t get the bike here. I’m in my eighth decade, I don’t have time for waiting lists, and besides, the manufacturer, according to dealers here, has stopped taking orders. Under those circumstances, I feel lucky to have bought the bike at all!!

I paid the full German retail price, including German 19% VAT. I clarified to the dealer that I intended to transport the bike to Ireland and register it here. I requested that he not charge me VAT, but he refused and was quite within his rights to do so. He did, however, agree to “look into” refunding the German VAT after I furnished documentation to prove I had paid Irish VAT and registered it in Ireland. That has now happened, and I have received the refund.

During my enquiries, NCTS (VRT dept.) gave me some incorrect information, such as…

1 - I will pay VAT on the “sale price plus transport cost”.

2 - Only companies (dealers) have to manually upload the COC (Certificate of Conformity).

3 – I need the German customs document known as the Single Administrative Document (SAD).

The VRT person in the NCT centre tried to charge me VAT on the gross invoice price (including German VAT). I protested, the mistake was admitted, and it was amended to the nett price. The transport cost was not mentioned or included (#1 above).

My first visit to complete this business wasn’t successful because the NCT’s head office advice regarding uploading the COC was not correct, and the transaction couldn’t be completed (#2 above). I was also told that I needed the German SAD (#3 above). I insisted, without success at that point, that I had imported the bike from within the EU and therefore didn’t need anything from German customs.

I went off to finalise the two remaining items, and I have to say that the method of uploading the COC manually was torture. After two failed attempts, I tried to get the COC in XML format (which would have taken 10 seconds to upload on ros.ie) from the dealer and the importer, but neither could help. During my working life, I developed data gathering applications, and I have to say that I would be highly embarrassed if I had written that application. One major flaw is that you can only save your work and come back to it later if it’s error-free. Unfortunately, the error checking included every field that was required, and if it wasn’t completed, then you couldn’t save your progress!! I had to start from scratch on three occasions.

After an intense two-hour effort, I got an error-free report, so I immediately saved and submitted it. It was accepted by revenue, and they informed the NCT centre that it was complete.

Even though I now had no confidence in the VRT section of NCT, I rang them to try to sort the SAD situation. I explained it to them, and after being on hold for ten minutes, I got the news that the SAD was not required, and they had emailed the person I was dealing with and gave the instruction to “proceed”. Two hours later, my wallet was lighter, I had my registration number, and the document to send to Germany.

In summary…

The only documents I needed from the dealer were the invoice and the COC.

I paid VAT on the nett price of the invoice. VRT was then added to give the total due.

I have received the German VAT refund from the dealer.

Overall, including the cost of the transportation by the fantastic Dominik in Jarvis Transport, I paid €530.00 more than the Irish price of the bike.

Yesterday, a dealer here said he would be delighted to take my few bob and do the first service.

Helpful info here… https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/buying-and-selling-cars_en

I hope this helps someone who intends to do the same thing.

Ok, here it is. Where exactly was I?

Spot on. Here's the blanked out plaque…