Importing a car from the US as part of a permanent move

[Manon]

I’m trying to help friends who are moving permanently to France from the US and want to bring their car as part of their personal effects. I know they won’t have to pay the usual import taxes but does anyone know what other requirements there will be to register the car here ie Certificate of Conformity etc . Thank you for any help you are able to give.

[Lori]

Not sure if this will be helpful or not.

I did this many years back (year 2000), so I'm quite sure various things have changed, but I doubt the basics have.

In my case, it was a 2000 Toyota Corolla.   Getting it here was simple.  Used a professional car shipping company.  Car arrived at the port of Le Havre.  I took the train up to get it.  Taxi to the port location.  I had all the paperwork the shipper told me to have.  Really no problems getting it.  I did have to provide the paperwork for my household goods move as the two are combined in order to avoid paying customs fees on the car.

Getting the car here and picking it up were easy.  The rest was a nightmare.  You have to get the Certificate of Conformity from the car maker in France.  In our case Toyota France.  So, first and foremost the car in question must have a manufacture location in France.  You will have to contact that manufacture, explain to them what you are doing and they will tell you who/where to contact. 

From there, you will be given a small book of paperwork to complete.  All of this, the phone calls, letters and forms will be in French (naturally).  If was a bit of a challenge for me to figure out all the mechanical terms as these were not in my, newly arrived, French vocabulary. 

If memory serves, I believe I had to have a local Toyota garage sign off on the paperwork, which I did.  Then, off it all went back to the car manufacture office to wait for the certificate.  After a while, I got back a request for more details.  Sent those.  More waiting, then got a document to take to the DRIRE.

Made appointment at the DRIRE locally, took all paperwork.  Not sufficient.  They wanted more technical details.  Said what the car manufacturer provided was not complete.  So, back to car manufacturer with details from DRIRE.  More waiting (I'm talking weeks between steps). 

Finally between the main Toyota office in France and the local Toyota garage, I got all the paperwork the DRIRE wanted and submitted my request for tags.  I'd say this took about 6 months.

I would never do it again.

If you don't speak really good French, you'd better find someone who can assist who does as this will take some really good conversing with a variety of people/organizations.

 

 

[Manon]

Thank you Lori - this is very helpful.