primary residence?

[zakrit]

Does it make a difference to the import of a vehicle into France if we declare our French house as Primary or Secondary residence? The forwarding agent needs to know - or claims they do.We are not really sure as yet if we will move full time to France.  We have a house in UK but have lived as expats outside of the EU for 20 years.

 

Are there import implications here?  The car is a 10 year old Discovery coming from outside the EU.

 

Zakrit.

[Mpprh]

Hi

You need to get advice from the Douaniers on this.

In general :

A used car previously owned by you (and registered) in another EU state can be imported without any TVA charge.

From outside the EU it becomes more tricky. Firstly there may be duty as well as TVA. Secondly your "tax residence" may impact the treatment. There may be exemptions for temporary imports by non residents, etc.

Depending on the treatment of the import (permanent or temporary) there may be different requirements for the certificate of conformity and obtaining a carte grise.

Cars originally supplied to an EU country (and preferably also available in France) are relatively easy to register, even in the case of RHD. However vehicles originally supplied outside EU can be more difficult. EU, US & Japanese standards of conformity can be very different, particularly in respect to emissions. You may need to have the car tested on an individual basis by the DDE.

You need to talk to Land Rover France about this.

The tax implication won't be significant on a 10 year old discovery, but meeting conformity could be expensive.

Bonne chance

Peter