Matriculation

[Lesley Jean]

I know this has been discussed several times on here but I have a slightly different question to as.

We might possibly have a car to bring into the country from Germany, having looked at the details about Matriculation on AFPOP I am now confused (not hard at my age!) the car is not in our name yet and I know we can keep it in Portugal for 6 months before we HAVE to get it matriculated but how do we stand as we are not residents I have a fiscal number but we don't live there permanently yet, also it seemed from the wording in the AFPOP blurb that the car would need to be in our name for 12 months before we brought it over, this can't be right surely?

Can anyone help to throw some light on how we go about this please Thanks...
..

[steve]

I think it depends on what you mean by matriculation. If you are talking about matriculation on a change of residence concession whch avoids the payment of taxes you do have to be a resident here and to have had the car in your possession for 12 months prior. I believe also that you have to start the procession within a fixed time of talking up residence. I presume that there would be no problem if you simply wanted to import the car and matriculate it with payment of the appropriate taxes.

[Lesley Jean]

Thanks Steve, we just want to have a car in Portugal for us or the girls to use, so really just need it on Portuguese plates rather than German ones. So is this pretty easy to do then??

[Aitch]

As it stands at the moment you will have to pay an importation tax based on engine size /emissions / age, of the vehicle, which can be prohibitively expensive. This is a tax applied by the portuguese government and apparently contravenes EU Regulations.

HOWEVER, it has been reported on this forum and in the press that this tax is to be, or has been recently, abolished, but I have been unable to substantiate this.

This link will give you an idea of the costs

http://www.e-financas.gov.pt/de/jsp-dga ... SV2011.jsp

[EMM]

Given the depth of the crisis there is no way that Portgal will reduce the costs of importation,
If you are not resident then you will have to pay the full charges and concessions only apply to those taking up full time residence in Portugal.
Better to sell your german plated car and buy one in Portugal,

[steve]

I guess it all depends upon the purchase price of the German car as to whether the exercise makes economic sense. I Imported my BMW many years ago on a change of residence concession and out of interest I ran the car details through the Finanças calculation sheet. This showed tax payable as €6570. I could pick up a good example of my car in the UK at the moment for less than €4000 and so adding the tax would produce a cost €10570 plus matriculation charges. My car's insurance value is currently €14000 so if it were written off at this value you would be in profit. I do not know what the resale value is as it is RHD. The only drawback is that as I understand it IUC on a car so imported is charged on the C02 levels irrespective of age whereas my car and any "native " PT version of the same age pays only approx €56 pa.

A German origin car being LHD would be worth more here and this is certainly a route which was popular here a few years ago with some locals as secondhand car prices in Germany were low.

[Polli62]

Off topic I know but just as a matter of interest. 10yrs ago we bought a Merc CLK direct from the German Factory (think it was Bremen) with UK Spec, (Saving £10,000 on UK price) it came unregistered and brought to the UK on low loader transport to our home. It was then registered with the DVLA on UK plates. The V5 did say that it had been brought from overseas and it did reflect on the price on resale but we still made a profit when selling. Wondered whether this happens in Portugal, is it legal. Has anyone tried this method.

[steve]

I did the same thing ten years ago buying a BMW through a Belgium dealer. Sadly I paid £500 extra to get a RHD build and then moved to Portugal about 18 months later! The exchange rate made this sort of tranaction a worthwhile proposition at that time but the trade quickly died out as the GBP sunk lower.

If you want to check the position as regards importing a new vehicle from outside Portugal use the Finanças ready reckoner. There is a big difference between UK list prices and Portuguese list prices but I am sure that the Govt here will protect their trade by the imposition of a discouraging level of tax irrespective of whther this complies with EU regulations

[keela]

As it stands at the moment you will have to pay an importation tax based on engine size /emissions / age, of the vehicle, which can be prohibitively expensive. This is a tax applied by the portuguese government and apparently contravenes EU Regulations.

HOWEVER, it has been reported on this forum and in the press that this tax is to be, or has been recently, abolished, but I have been unable to substantiate this.

This link will give you an idea of the costs

http://www.e-financas.gov.pt/de/jsp-dga ... SV2011.jsp

Sorry to say you seem to have your facts a little tied up. The facts for matriculation of a car are: you have to have owned it in the UK for 12 months. You can matriculate the car even if you are not a resident. Residency means that you can matriculate one car without payment of import duty. Even if you are Portuguese and buy a car in Spain, you still have to pay the importation duty. What was contravening EU regulations was the fact that Portugal was charging IVA on the importation tax effectively charging a tax on a tax which is illegal. It is perfectly legal for them to charge the matriculation fees which are charged now. There has not been any abolition of the import tax and as far as I am aware there are no plans to do so.

[Aitch]

Keela if you are correct I apologise, but the tax payable on my car, when I matriculated in in 2006 would have been over €30,000. Thats an awful lot of IVA. Obviously I didn't pay that as I matriculated it when I took out my residencia (and I still have the paperwork to prove it).