jamesmc
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2007
- Messages
- 310
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- Location
- Algarve, Portugal.
- Your Mercedes
- W208 CLK230K Cabriolet
I have written this because often first hand information is hard to find on this kind of thing and so, in the hope that it may be of use to someone in the Forum, here are a few pointers on bringing your UK (or EU) registered car to Portugal and re-registering it onto local plates.
It also covers a few other pointers on what you need to carry in your vehicle whilst this process is under way.
This post is based on my recent experience re-registering (UK to Portuguese plates) a left hand drive UK plated 1999 CLK230K (W208 - Automatic) cabriolet here in the Algarve, Portugal.
Re-registering an EU sourced car in Portugal is not quite as simple/cheap as it might be in other EU countries. The paperwork is also a pain, so unless you speak and write Portuguese you will be better off using a local Portuguese agent to process your vehicle matriculation. As you can imagine there are plenty English speaking agents around that do just that and, in most instances, for a reasonable fee.
Firstly let’s try and drop the term 'import' because my understanding is that the word no longer applies to vehicles that are already EU registered. You used to have to ‘import’ an EU registered vehicle into Portugal and pay the required ‘import duty’ but now that is no longer possible the authorities here had to come up with another revenue generating scheme, hence the introduction of the 'CO2 tax’ imposed when bringing the car in to be registered on Portuguese plates.
If you wish to bring a car into Portugal and re-register (matriculate) then it is of prime importance that the vehicle has, included in it's documentation, an ‘EU certificate of conformity’. The reason for this is to do with vehicle emissions (CO2 output) and how the Portuguese authorities ‘process’ the matriculation of your vehicle.
Without that cert you will need to jump though a whole heap of hoops to end up with a Portuguese plate on your car.
As an aside, it is my understanding that these certificates were required to be issued in the EU with new vehicles before 2000 but, until that point, it was not a requirement for the CO2 value to be added. In general you will only find the CO2 emission value stated in the cert on post 2000 vehicles.
My car is a 1999 CLK230K. It had a box for the CO2 value to be added but it had no value added. MB had not completed that section in the certificate of conformity at the time of manufacture.
First off the vehicle will need the standard Portuguese equivalent of an MOT. The test centre needs to be approved to carry out pre-matriculation roads tests on ‘foreign’ vehicles. The one for the Algarve is in Loule near Faro.
A booking will need to be made for the test. Prior to that, your agent will need to complete a bunch of paperwork so see them before you do anything.
For the vehicle test:
Take along your agent, a passport, registration docs and the EU certificate of conformity which (must[/u]) state the CO2 Value (output in grams per kilometre) of the engine.
Make sure there is a reflective triangle in the boot.
Make sure there is an EU approved reflective safety vest in the boot.
Without a stated CO2 value the car will need to be tested in addition to the MOT for CO2 output (on a rolling road) at an approved test centre here in Portugal. This will incur extra costs/time. Unfortunately, for some vehicles, they have a rolling road/emission system that can test manual cars but not automatics. At the time of their (rolling roads) installation it seems that the Portuguese government felt that Automatics would not factor in future tests so they opted for the (no doubt cheaper) manual only options.
If the car you wish to matriculate is automatic plus does not have the CO2 value stated in it's certificate of conformity you will be looking at a hefty ‘CO2 registration tax' for want of a better expression. Because the rolling roads they have will not produce the correct results you could be faced with up to double the CO2 tax to pay.
Typically, on a car with a CO2 emission output of 240gms/KM, the (one off) CO2 ‘tax’ will be in the region of Euro €3500.00 so, before you bring that bargain car of yours into the country, please bear that in mind. If the car is Automatic and does not have the CO2 value stated in it’s EU certificate of conformity then you could be looking at a bill of around Euro €7000.00 for the same vehicle! I came up against that problem but managed to get around it in the end. I still had to pay around €3500 though.
Once they have the CO2 figure the Portuguese customs don’t simply apply the tax at a value per gm/km instead they take the value (off the certificate of conformity or based on the rolling road test) and apply it to a cooked up mathematical formulae that had my local MB dealership and MB in Lisbon baffled as to where the formulae came from. From what I can deduce they have created a formulae to substitute the loss of ‘import duty’ in favour of a newer greaner sounding 'CO2 emissions tax'.
It will also pay you to make sure that the registration documents match exactly the information marked on your vehicle. This includes the engine number and the VIN chassis number in full.
In my case the UK DVLA missed the last digit off the VIN when the car was re-registered in the UK after the first owner brought it into the country from Germany in 2001. This caused a few admin problems and resulted in me having to take the car back to the local test centre once again just to get the VIN checked to confirm that it matched the EU certificated of conformity.
I also needed to get the local MB dealer to issue a letter confirming that the Engine number was as stated in the cert as well.
On top of the above you will of course have to pay for the Vehicle Road worthiness test (MOT) and other associated admin costs. None of which cost anything near the cost of the so called CO2 emissions tax.
Road tax is now on a sliding scale here as in other EU countries. The smaller the engine/lower CO2 output the less you pay.
MOT
No matter how long the process takes you have a couple of options on the insurance/MOT front. Get the Portuguese MOT completed before your UK MOT expires. That will keep your car legal from that standpoint whilst the matriculation process is under way.
Insurance
On the insurance front it is possible to get temporary insurance (TP only) whilst the process is ongoing. It's more expensive that normal insurance which you can obtain once you have your Portuguese registration number.
Road Fund Licence
Bearing mind you are still driving a UK registered car there is a chance your UK road tax will run out during the re-registration process (which can take time). That is not a worry. As long as you have docs in your vehicle showing that your car is under the matriculation process (your agent will give you certified copies to carry) you will not be able to obtain road tax. This is accepted as normal practice here. Do yourself a favour though. Remove an expired road tax disk from the window entirely. If the car is parked up unattended and the local police check the car they will note that it has UK plates but no UK road tax however they will also see the recently issued Portuguese MOT cert in the window and will most likely leave it at that as they will guess what it going on.
It is a legal requirement that you carry all docs in your car when you are driving in Portugal. You can be fined if you cannot produce the docs at the roadside. This includes photo ID and a driving licence.
You used to have to carry your passport but if you have an EU licence with Photo ID included the that seems to be OK. The Portuguese EU licence is one part only. The pink plastic credit card which looks very much like the UK licence. There is no second part as in the UK so if ask you only need to produce/carry the pink card as that is all they expect around here.
Finally. Car prices in Portugal seem to be way above the EU norm for some reason and I guess that is why people bring cars in and go though all this. If all you need is a cheap run around or a family type saloon car then you will save yourself a lot of grief if you simply sell your existing car in the UK and buy a car here that is already on Portuguese plates. If however, you have a prized MB that you have nurtured for years or can't bear to part with it then the matriculation route may be the way to go.
On the maintenance front costs are generally cheaper and rust (here in the south) is a non starter.. rest easy in the knowledge that once your prize wheels are settled into the Algarve rust will not feature in it's future.
It also covers a few other pointers on what you need to carry in your vehicle whilst this process is under way.
This post is based on my recent experience re-registering (UK to Portuguese plates) a left hand drive UK plated 1999 CLK230K (W208 - Automatic) cabriolet here in the Algarve, Portugal.
Re-registering an EU sourced car in Portugal is not quite as simple/cheap as it might be in other EU countries. The paperwork is also a pain, so unless you speak and write Portuguese you will be better off using a local Portuguese agent to process your vehicle matriculation. As you can imagine there are plenty English speaking agents around that do just that and, in most instances, for a reasonable fee.
Firstly let’s try and drop the term 'import' because my understanding is that the word no longer applies to vehicles that are already EU registered. You used to have to ‘import’ an EU registered vehicle into Portugal and pay the required ‘import duty’ but now that is no longer possible the authorities here had to come up with another revenue generating scheme, hence the introduction of the 'CO2 tax’ imposed when bringing the car in to be registered on Portuguese plates.
If you wish to bring a car into Portugal and re-register (matriculate) then it is of prime importance that the vehicle has, included in it's documentation, an ‘EU certificate of conformity’. The reason for this is to do with vehicle emissions (CO2 output) and how the Portuguese authorities ‘process’ the matriculation of your vehicle.
Without that cert you will need to jump though a whole heap of hoops to end up with a Portuguese plate on your car.
As an aside, it is my understanding that these certificates were required to be issued in the EU with new vehicles before 2000 but, until that point, it was not a requirement for the CO2 value to be added. In general you will only find the CO2 emission value stated in the cert on post 2000 vehicles.
My car is a 1999 CLK230K. It had a box for the CO2 value to be added but it had no value added. MB had not completed that section in the certificate of conformity at the time of manufacture.
First off the vehicle will need the standard Portuguese equivalent of an MOT. The test centre needs to be approved to carry out pre-matriculation roads tests on ‘foreign’ vehicles. The one for the Algarve is in Loule near Faro.
A booking will need to be made for the test. Prior to that, your agent will need to complete a bunch of paperwork so see them before you do anything.
For the vehicle test:
Take along your agent, a passport, registration docs and the EU certificate of conformity which (must[/u]) state the CO2 Value (output in grams per kilometre) of the engine.
Make sure there is a reflective triangle in the boot.
Make sure there is an EU approved reflective safety vest in the boot.
Without a stated CO2 value the car will need to be tested in addition to the MOT for CO2 output (on a rolling road) at an approved test centre here in Portugal. This will incur extra costs/time. Unfortunately, for some vehicles, they have a rolling road/emission system that can test manual cars but not automatics. At the time of their (rolling roads) installation it seems that the Portuguese government felt that Automatics would not factor in future tests so they opted for the (no doubt cheaper) manual only options.
If the car you wish to matriculate is automatic plus does not have the CO2 value stated in it's certificate of conformity you will be looking at a hefty ‘CO2 registration tax' for want of a better expression. Because the rolling roads they have will not produce the correct results you could be faced with up to double the CO2 tax to pay.
Typically, on a car with a CO2 emission output of 240gms/KM, the (one off) CO2 ‘tax’ will be in the region of Euro €3500.00 so, before you bring that bargain car of yours into the country, please bear that in mind. If the car is Automatic and does not have the CO2 value stated in it’s EU certificate of conformity then you could be looking at a bill of around Euro €7000.00 for the same vehicle! I came up against that problem but managed to get around it in the end. I still had to pay around €3500 though.
Once they have the CO2 figure the Portuguese customs don’t simply apply the tax at a value per gm/km instead they take the value (off the certificate of conformity or based on the rolling road test) and apply it to a cooked up mathematical formulae that had my local MB dealership and MB in Lisbon baffled as to where the formulae came from. From what I can deduce they have created a formulae to substitute the loss of ‘import duty’ in favour of a newer greaner sounding 'CO2 emissions tax'.
It will also pay you to make sure that the registration documents match exactly the information marked on your vehicle. This includes the engine number and the VIN chassis number in full.
In my case the UK DVLA missed the last digit off the VIN when the car was re-registered in the UK after the first owner brought it into the country from Germany in 2001. This caused a few admin problems and resulted in me having to take the car back to the local test centre once again just to get the VIN checked to confirm that it matched the EU certificated of conformity.
I also needed to get the local MB dealer to issue a letter confirming that the Engine number was as stated in the cert as well.
On top of the above you will of course have to pay for the Vehicle Road worthiness test (MOT) and other associated admin costs. None of which cost anything near the cost of the so called CO2 emissions tax.
Road tax is now on a sliding scale here as in other EU countries. The smaller the engine/lower CO2 output the less you pay.
MOT
No matter how long the process takes you have a couple of options on the insurance/MOT front. Get the Portuguese MOT completed before your UK MOT expires. That will keep your car legal from that standpoint whilst the matriculation process is under way.
Insurance
On the insurance front it is possible to get temporary insurance (TP only) whilst the process is ongoing. It's more expensive that normal insurance which you can obtain once you have your Portuguese registration number.
Road Fund Licence
Bearing mind you are still driving a UK registered car there is a chance your UK road tax will run out during the re-registration process (which can take time). That is not a worry. As long as you have docs in your vehicle showing that your car is under the matriculation process (your agent will give you certified copies to carry) you will not be able to obtain road tax. This is accepted as normal practice here. Do yourself a favour though. Remove an expired road tax disk from the window entirely. If the car is parked up unattended and the local police check the car they will note that it has UK plates but no UK road tax however they will also see the recently issued Portuguese MOT cert in the window and will most likely leave it at that as they will guess what it going on.
It is a legal requirement that you carry all docs in your car when you are driving in Portugal. You can be fined if you cannot produce the docs at the roadside. This includes photo ID and a driving licence.
You used to have to carry your passport but if you have an EU licence with Photo ID included the that seems to be OK. The Portuguese EU licence is one part only. The pink plastic credit card which looks very much like the UK licence. There is no second part as in the UK so if ask you only need to produce/carry the pink card as that is all they expect around here.
Finally. Car prices in Portugal seem to be way above the EU norm for some reason and I guess that is why people bring cars in and go though all this. If all you need is a cheap run around or a family type saloon car then you will save yourself a lot of grief if you simply sell your existing car in the UK and buy a car here that is already on Portuguese plates. If however, you have a prized MB that you have nurtured for years or can't bear to part with it then the matriculation route may be the way to go.
On the maintenance front costs are generally cheaper and rust (here in the south) is a non starter.. rest easy in the knowledge that once your prize wheels are settled into the Algarve rust will not feature in it's future.
