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Car Registration in France

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 10:52
by Kate
Received by email

Is there an up to date tariff for registering cars in France. Have just had to spend nearly 1500 euros to register my 2 year old diesel landrover freelander. is this correct??

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 11:11
by Sue
Think it goes on age and engine size so tarifs vary!

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 11:19
by Boomshanka
You pay based on CV Fiscal of the car

Just search CV Fiscal online and enter your car details, it will then give you the CV according to France. That's where the name "2CV" comes from.

Each prefecture has different charges per CV, most CV charges are halved if you car etc is over 10 years old and they will also charge you for a first registration as well.

For instance my 2001 Volvo XC70, CV 14 works out to. €22 per CV as it is over 10 years old plus €45 reg fee

14 x €22 = €308 + €45 Total cost €353

Still cheaper than road tax in the UK!!

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 13:27
by martyn94
I'm always mystified by questions which are "received by email". If you can send an email, surely you are savvy enough to come on here and ask the question in your own person. I can understand that Kate wants to be helpful to people who send her emails, but it seems discourteous to me. It's tiresome enough that people who have been members since the year dot only pipe up when they want to sell dodgy furniture.

Re: Car Registration in France

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 13:43
by Boomshanka
These sites will help you

http://www.carte-grise.org/tarifs_cheva ... region.htm - for 66 it is €44 per CV

Use this site to find out your CV (Puisance Fiscal) just enter make model and year.

http://www.lacentrale.fr/fiche-technique-auto.php

Hope this is helpfully but if you get stuck just ask.

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 15:17
by Kate
I don't think everybody feels comfortable on forum, or Facebook, or public media in general. It only takes me a few seconds to copy and paste, and get a quick email off suggesting they follow the thread - quicker than explaining how to register on the forum!! :-)

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 15:42
by martyn94
Kate wrote:I don't think everybody feels comfortable on forum, or Facebook, or public media in general. It only takes me a few seconds to copy and paste, and get a quick email off suggesting they follow the thread - quicker than explaining how to register on the forum!! :-)
I can see how it happens, but it still seems to me to show a basic lack of courtesy (not on your part): those of us who are brave enough to be here in full view (and yes, my surname really is "94") are just here to be milked for answers to (very easy) questions about French bureaucracy.

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 17:05
by Sue
Sorry Martyn94 but that is what the website/forum and the Facebook Group are all about, helping each other and relaying information. Some find it easier to use online technology than others and those that are less capable shouldn't be made to feel they aren't able to ask a question which may seem simple to you or others.

Posted: Fri 15 Apr 2016 18:13
by martyn94
Sue wrote:Sorry Martyn94 but that is what the website/forum and the Facebook Group are all about, helping each other and relaying information. Some find it easier to use online technology than others and those that are less capable shouldn't be made to feel they aren't able to ask a question which may seem simple to you or others.
I don't consciously mock the afflicted. I just tend to assume that people who can move to a foreign country (as I assume they have) and can manage a couple of tonnes of 4x4 can also do other rather easier things, if they could be bothered.

I very much enjoy trying to help people, to the feeble extent I can. But it's nice to think that they might position themselves to do the same for me. At the moment it is necessarily one way traffic.

Posted: Sat 16 Apr 2016 16:54
by Kate
I'll help you out anytime Martyn. Unfortunately you usually know more than I do! :oops: :lol: :lol:

Posted: Sat 16 Apr 2016 19:23
by Allan
Back to the original question, I believe that when you import a car, you have to pay a proportion of the 'Malus' charge that would be levied on the vehicle when new.

A Freelander has quite high CO2 emissions, so there is a substantial sum to pay

Help from Forum

Posted: Sun 17 Apr 2016 16:15
by rainbow
Just read Martyn94 posts which I find quite offensive this Forum I thought was for people looking for help ? whether they travel to the moon or been in the Boy's Scouts. Just because they can use a computer or email does not give them the monopoly of genius!

Posted: Sun 17 Apr 2016 16:26
by Kate
I think you'll find it's not meant to be offensive. It's just the way he comes over on the forum. If you read between the lines, he does give quite a lot of good advice on the forum - and bear in mind that he is a man!!!! :lol: :lol:

Re: Help from Forum

Posted: Sun 17 Apr 2016 16:33
by martyn94
rainbow wrote:Just read Martyn94 posts which I find quite offensive this Forum I thought was for people looking for help ? whether they travel to the moon or been in the Boy's Scouts. Just because they can use a computer or email does not give them the monopoly of genius!
I think you missed my point. Of course the forum is for getting help. And also for giving it. And many of us have given help that the querist could have found more easily and quickly by themselves, given a passing familiarity with Google (and sometimes a minimal knowledge of French). I have done so often, and would have done so on this thread had someone not got in before me.

But if you want to use the forum for help, it seemed to me that it would be courteous for you actually to use it (and perhaps, once you are a member, give someone else some help in due course, when it turns out to be you that knows the answer). God knows, the forum is dying on its feet even as it is.

Posted: Mon 18 Apr 2016 10:28
by Pearsonb
In every forum there are givers and takers. If the givers stop posting, the forum dies. Using emotive words like 'offensive' is quite wrong.

Martyn has a valid point and should be treated with respect.

Pearson

Posted: Mon 18 Apr 2016 10:53
by Boomshanka
Kate

If you would like a complete "How To" guide on importing your UK reg car then let me know and i an happy to create a simple guide for the PO Site.

I've imported lots of different vehicles from cars to buses and been through all of the processes. It is an easy process

"Help at least one person everyday without the need to accept anything in return and you can walk with a smile"

Posted: Mon 18 Apr 2016 10:56
by Sue

Posted: Mon 18 Apr 2016 11:28
by martyn94
But this guide misses Allan's point above that newly-imported secondhand cars with relatively high CO2 emissions have to pay a "malus" against the pollution as well as the normal charge based on CV. There is a ready-reckoner here

https://www.service-public.fr/simulateu ... riculation

You have to choose the first "démarche" (première immatriculation en France), and then the second option below (immatriculation en France après avoir été immatriculé dans un autre pays). To fill out the form which comes up next, you need to know both the car's official CV rating and its official CO2 rating. No doubt Google can come up with both.

Posted: Tue 19 Apr 2016 14:37
by Kate
Yes, well worth adding Sue. I was quite shocked at how expensive this malus can be....but weighed against no road tax (how much is that these days I wonder?) it's still not bad.

Posted: Tue 19 Apr 2016 16:42
by neil mitchell
Thank you Martin, very useful as I'm planning to bring down a replacement car this year. Tried the web link and realised that indeed you are right you need the "Puissance administrative nationale".
Most UK cars are quoted in BHP for power but this doesn't seem to be recognised much in France so you need to convert it.

I put 99 BHP into the box and came up with a tax of Eur 4362.76!!!!

Posted: Tue 19 Apr 2016 20:23
by martyn94
neil mitchell wrote:Thank you Martin, very useful as I'm planning to bring down a replacement car this year. Tried the web link and realised that indeed you are right you need the "Puissance administrative nationale".
Most UK cars are quoted in BHP for power but this doesn't seem to be recognised much in France so you need to convert it.

I put 99 BHP into the box and came up with a tax of Eur 4362.76!!!!
You must immediately forget any idea of "horsepower" in an English sense. CV for French tax purposes is set according to a formula which you don't really need to understand. There is an official CV rating for any model which the makers should be able to tell you.

Posted: Tue 19 Apr 2016 21:28
by martyn94
martyn94 wrote:
neil mitchell wrote:Thank you Martin, very useful as I'm planning to bring down a replacement car this year. Tried the web link and realised that indeed you are right you need the "Puissance administrative nationale".
Most UK cars are quoted in BHP for power but this doesn't seem to be recognised much in France so you need to convert it.

I put 99 BHP into the box and came up with a tax of Eur 4362.76!!!!
You must immediately forget any idea of "horsepower" in an English sense. CV for French tax purposes is set according to a formula which you don't really need to understand. There is an official CV rating for any model which the makers should be able to tell you.
Or on second thoughts, perhaps you do need to understand the formula. If you buy a car in France, the "puissance fiscale" (ie CV) is marked on your registration document. In very very broad terms, it is about one tenth of the peak HP that the makers will be boasting about. I had assumed that there would be an online resource allowing you to find the CV for any particular model, but if it exists, I can't find it. So the formula is here
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheval_fiscal

Posted: Tue 19 Apr 2016 21:53
by Allan
This site gives the puissance fiscale for new cars
http://www.neowebcar.com/puissance-fiscale

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 08:20
by Gus Morris
Is it really worth all the effort? And cost? If the vehicle is RHD it will be very difficult to sell on. A guy I know had to pay 10% of the value of the vehicle just to get the lights changed.

Gus

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 08:32
by Allan
Gus Morris wrote:Is it really worth all the effort? And cost? If the vehicle is lhd it will be very difficult to sell on. A guy I know had to pay 10% of the value of the vehicle just to get the lights changed.

Gus
I presume you mean RHD.

we brought my wife's Jaguar to France and registered it here. When we sold it we got twice as much for it in France as we would have got in England. And it was still cheaper than a comparable lhd car would have been.

Used cars are substantially dearer in France and I'm certainly not saying that you will always get a good price but it is not a foregone conclusion that you will lose out.

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 08:43
by neil mitchell
The thing is that second hand cars in UK are much cheaper but you are right about the lights, they can be fiendishly expensive. I had a good bit of advice years ago when I first did it. It only really works if you are not to bothered about the type of car. Buy the LHD headlights on ebay (UK) then buy the car (in UK) to match. I found Zafira headlights for £20.00, bought a Zafira and put the headlights in then drove it to France and put it through the CT next day.
There are a surprising number of LHD headlights on Ebay. Apparently it's because you can buy a new car in UK and not pay VAT if you take it out of the country within 6 months. The British Army do it a lot: buy a UK car, take it to Germany, put LHD lights on then sell the lights when they are posted back to UK.
I did it with a Zafira a few years ago and I'm now going to replace it with exactly the same model but newer (which are plentiful and cheap in UK) and just swap the headlights onto it.

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 09:06
by russell
The early British system of calculating horsepower for tax purposes was much simpler. Just 2/5 of piston area times number of cylinders.

Russell.

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 09:11
by Allan
Good tip Neil, but it is even easier to buy a car that doesn't need the lights to be replaced.

Most cars with Xenon headlamps convert at the press of a switch and plenty of conventional headlamps have manual levers to alter them.

I haven't bought a car in the last 20 years (in England or France) where the lights didn't change without replacing them.

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 09:16
by Allan
russell wrote:The early British system of calculating horsepower for tax purposes was much simpler. Just 2/5 of piston area times number of cylinders.

Russell.
France used to have the same system, just metric.

French HP was british HP*1.014 which is why the made cars with a long stroke and a small bore

Posted: Wed 20 Apr 2016 09:36
by neil mitchell
Your right Allan and when I move here permanently I will push the boat out and pay the money for something much newer like that or just buy a "proper French car".
For now though we are only 50/50 UK/France and this is a cheap and effective way of doing it.
Perhaps the "Leave" lobby could campaign on the basis that the whole of Europe drive on the wrong side of the road!!