Here are my comments and experiences of importing a car from Germany in early 2015. As background I had leased a BMW 5 series (520d) in Finland and considered buying it at the end of the 3 year lease but the leasing company would not sell it (the lease had been extended to 4 years and they would not shorten it back to 3 years when my job ended). They wanted 40k euro for the car at 3 years old 30k km.
Choice of car
I started to check cars in Germany at mobile.de, BMW themselves had a used car selection but all the cars there also appeared on mobile.de. I looked for certain must have features (manual transmission, folding rear seat) and you can directly search for some of these features (like transmission, fuel type) but less major features were only described on the car’s details page. Sometimes the cars were filed with the wrong information, cars with automatic transmission would be marked as manual even though the pictures clearly showed the car was automatic. Sometimes there were no pictures at all or just generic pictures, not of the particular car on sale.
At first I looked at cars no older than two years old and less than 30k km, but then I started to widen the search since the cost came down dramatically if you looked at cars older than 3 years and with higher km. Considering the build quality of BMWs I didn’t mind a 3 year old car with 100k km (especially diesel). There was a good selection although from time to time really highly specified cars came up with extras that are almost unknown in Finland (heads up display, blind spot radar for example).
I looked for a few weeks before deciding to go to Germany to check out individual cars and test drive them before negotiating the deal. At first I only considered BMW dealers but there were also non franchised dealers with a good selection of BMW’s. I did not consider private sales and the photos also revealed a bit about the dealer (is the car photographed in a big lot or what looks like a lay by on the side of the road). One car in particular in Dresden seemed interested and I emailed the dealer to confirm a test drive. There were not a BMW dealer but had about 100 used BMW’s for sale and spoke good English.
When going to Germany the biggest worry was that the dealer would sell the car just before I arrived (I would have bought the flight tickets a few days before) so I had a backup plan of other suitable cars ready although they were not my first choice. In the end the car I went to see looked great and was ok during a small test drive. One nice thing about BMW is that there are several websites where you can enter the car’s VIN and the full list of options are shown both in English and German. This helped check all the features were as described.
The dealer wanted just under 24k euro for the car and as I’ve read here and elsewhere there was not much room for negotiation but I did get a good price on a second set of used alloy wheels and winter tires (friction tires).
The dealer offered to do all the paperwork for me and get the export number plates (ones with a red stripe) for a little over 200e. dealers varied in how much they would assist in this. Mine did all the work and I just signed the contract. Some offered to “help” with the forms but leave me to visit the registration office in Germany. The 200e included export plates and liability insurance but I arranged in Finland the full insurance to start from the day I picked up the car. The company (pohjola) could do this based on the VIN rather than registration number although not all insurance companies would do this for new customers (for some you must be an existing customer of theirs for VIN based insurance (although not necessarily an existing customer of CAR insurance).
The paperwork needed from the dealer is as described at the start of this post: The foreign registration, sales contract, certificate of conformity (this is specific to the individual car). Also the HU/AU certificate which is the german equivalent of the katsastus test (more on this later) and you’ll need that in Germany if the car is over a certain age although almost all cars on sale seemed to have one (if their age demanded it).
Tires
The tires were one of the trickier points of buying a car from Germany since used cars there seldom come with a second set of wheels even though most people in Germany do use winter tires in the winter. Since I was buying in January I would have to bring the car back during the winter and so it would be a bit risky driving on summer tires through Germany (in Germany winter tires are mandatory depending on the weather, not particular dates during the year). I would eventually need studded winter tires (since I live in the countryside in Finland) but they are illegal in Germany so this further complicated the situation (no having studded tires delivered to germany to drive home with them).
At first I thought of bringing it home on summer tires and buying a second set of wheels and the tires in Finland. Then I considered buying the new alloy wheels in Germany. But one dealer said I should check e-bay in Germany since used winter tires and wheels are common there. This is true and one option would be buy them on ebay and have them shipped to the dealer selling the car who then fits them ready for you to drive home. But in the end the dealer offered a set of BMW alloy wheels with Michelin friction winter tires for only 200e. Tires and wheels were both used but the condition of both was really good and over 8mm of tread left.
Collecting the car
After test driving the car I flew back to Finland for a few weeks which allowed time to transfer the money, the dealer to do the agreed full service and fix a broken front bumper panel. Then I went back to Germany and turned up at the dealer at 9am, I handed over my passport and the dealer sent somebody to the registration place to register the car and get the plates made. I then did some shopping and went back to the dealer at lunchtime. One small problem was that the registration office doesn’t like to register cars to a different country to the issued passport and they would not have liked my finnish address and UK passport. So I gave a relatives UK address (although since you register the car almost immediately in Finland to your real address it hardly makes much difference).
By lunchtime the car had red export plates and I drove off. The whole system of car number plates is different in Germany to other countries. There the plate is linked to the owner and not the car. so when cars are sold the plate is taken off and car de-registered. The new owner registers the car and gets a new number plate (and new number). In most other countries the car gets the same registration plate for its whole life.
The route back
I considered driving through Denmark and Sweden and then overnight on the ferry but that didn’t save much time compared to taking the ferry direct from travemunde to Helsinki. Sitting on the ferry for 30 hours would be boring but more relaxing than 20 hours driving (plus a night in a hotel, possible bad winter weather and a night on the ferry anyway from Sweden). At this time of year the ferry prices were reasonable and I think I paid 450euro for me, the car and a cabin (with window). When checking the prices be sure to check finnlines English, german and finnish pages. They had offer codes listed only on the finnish version of their site and this saved me some money. The ferry times are quite convenient. You can start boarding at 11pm, the boat leaves around 3am (you are anyway in bed by this time). You then have a whole day at sea and then another night before arriving after 9am in Vuosaari. There is not much to do on the boat and the public area is tiny compared to a Helsinki-stockholm boat but take something to watch or read and the hours will soon go past.
I noticed on the boat many other export cars with yellow plates as well as red ones and I think the yellow ones are also valid in Finland since I’ve seen them from time to time on ring 3 (no doubt fresh off the ferry). I had thought that only the red plates were valid outside Germany but this is probably not the case.
You can use any spare time you have in Germany to do some shopping and fill the car with goodies. Most of my fellow travellers had crates of beer. I had a microwave oven and garden hosepipe.
Arrival in Finland and paperwork
This is now a little different to what is mentioned at the start of this thread. Probably so many people personally import cars, that the procedure has been streamlined a little.
First the links, most information is in English and finnish but the finnish pages are a bit more detailed. Most forms are in English as well as finnish but one crucial form (form 27 where you declare the kind of car, km, condition, options etc) is ONLY IN FINNISH.
http://www.tulli.fi/fi/yksityisille/aut ... /index.jsp
http://www.tulli.fi/en/persons/car_tax/index.jsp
http://www.tulli.fi/en/businesses/eServ ... /index.jsp
http://www.tulli.fi/fi/yrityksille/sahk ... /index.jsp
the import procedure seems well explained here
http://www.tulli.fi/en/persons/car_tax/ ... /index.jsp
Assuming you follow the same method as me (registered in Germany with export plates) then you just have to file an
electronic pre-declaration BEFORE you arrive in Finland with the car. You immediately (automatically) get a pdf to download which is your proof to import and drive the car in Finland for the NEXT FIVE DAYS. This five days is rather short though (it’s counted from the time you apply online, not from when you arrive in Finland), in this five days you need to visit katsastus for some checks/paperwork (more on that later) and have your full car tax forms sent to Tulli. I decided to apply for this pre-declaration at the port in Germany. Don’t leave it to late since there is no mobile access once at sea. But do it too early (eg before you leave for Germany) and much of your five days is used up travelling to Germany and getting the car home!
With the pre-declaration done you just drive off the ferry in Helsinki and no visits to the customs office are needed. I didn’t even show my passport when arriving in Helsinki and exchanged a few words at the customs gate and then straight onto ring 3. Nothing could have been easier.
First visit to katstastus
As mentioned before once you fill in the pre-declaration you have only five days to get your filled in forms to customs. You don’t have to visit katsastus by then but might as well try to get their paperwork done and send all the forms to tulli in one go.
At katsastus they do the so called “registration katsastus” and they want to see the german registration, certificate of conformity and HU/AU (german katsastus test) if you have one. The great thing about the HU/AU is that the german certificate is valid in Finland so the car doesn’t have to be re-inspected, your car gets a finnish katsastus approval based on the german certificate. My car (first registered july 2011) would under finnish rules need a katsastus in July 2014 and then July 2016. Because of the German HU/AU test (done in July 2014) I didn’t need a katsastus technical inspection and the first one in Finland will be July 2016.
At the katsastus centre they gave me temporary stickers which you display in the front/back of the car and take off the german registration plates. Total cost for this visit was about 140euro.
Sending the forms to Tulli
Having been to katsastus I sent all the required forms to Tulli as described on their web page. Most of the forms are available in English except (for some reason) form 27 which is where you describe the age of the vehicle, options fitted etc.
For some reason the summary of the forms needed is not mentioned on their English pages but is described here
http://www.tulli.fi/fi/yksityisille/aut ... /index.jsp
This is: form 72 (available in English), Form 27 (only available in Finnish), sales contract from the german dealer, copy of foreign registration (Katsastus will have kept the original when you visited them the first time), copy of the certificate of conformity, the document from katsastus when they checked over your car earlier (you get this document whether a full technical inspection was needed or they skipped that part due to your german HU/AU certificate).
How much will the car tax be?
There are two ways to estimate what the bill will be.
Check values to cars already imported: there are various pdf and xls documents on the tulli site where you can see previously imported cars and how much their car tax was. You can try to find the similar model/age/km as your car and see the amount. If you are importing a BMW or Mercedes you will find plenty of examples since thousands of those are imported every year. Take note of the change in car tax mentioned below.
Use the custom’s MAHTI system and calculate the car tax. MAHTI does not tell you the car tax amount but tells you what a used car in Finland normally sells for. The car tax is based on this notional value (customs don’t care how much YOU paid for the car, only what a similar car is sold for in Finland). Lookup the model and age/km of the kind of car you are importing and it will give two prices. The asking price and sales price (myyntihinta). The system works on the principle that dealers ask for a higher price and the eventual sales price (myyntihinta) is the important one. Apply the tax % due to the value you find for myyntihinta.
The tax % due can be found in some pdf’s on the tulli site. It’s based on the CO2 emissions of your car (which you’ll find on the certificate of conformity).The forms are a model of unclarity though with column headings a bit of a mess
Change in car tax Dec 2014
There was quite a big change in the way import car tax was calculated in Dec 2014. Prior to that you paid import tax on a used car based on the tax rates currently applied to new cars. After Dec 2014 you pay car tax based on the finnish car tax rates in place at the TIME YOUR CAR WAS FIRST REGISTERED. Eg if your car was registered July 2011 in Germany then importing it in Feb 2015 means you pay car tax on the regime in place in Finland in July 2011, not based on how car tax is calculated in 2015. This cut down the car tax I had to pay by about 5% since current (2015) tax is a bit higher for bigger engine cars than it was in 2011. Take note of this if you check the pdf’s for cars imported in 2014, since those people paid tax under the old system. Importing the same car now would cost less tax.
Tax demand
After many weeks you will receive the tax appraisal in the post and a bill to pay WITHIN 15 DAYS. They include many pages saying how they calculated the tax but if you did your homework you will have estimated this already and if it’s similar to what you expected then there is nothing to worry about here. I calculated 6500e myself and their request was for 6800e so I was happy with their figure.
The main thing to be aware of at this stage is that from the date of the letter
you only have 15 days to pay the tax, wait a couple of days and visit katsastus for your finnish registration plates (you should visit the same place you went to the first time, since they have them ready for you). If you are on holiday or a work trip at this time then you can be in trouble. Since you have no idea how long the tax demand takes (in my case they took 5 weeks) then this can be quite annoying. I came back from a holiday to find I had 5 days to pay the tax and get the new plates. The 15 days to pay not only applies to the payment but also affects your temporary stickers (which will have been on the car since the first katsastus visit). Those are invalid at the end of this 15 days period (even if they are notionally valid for 3 months when you first get them). In the worst case you could be on holiday for 3 weeks and get home to find your car cannot be driven. And if you parked it at the airport you wouldn’t even know this before you drove it home (illegally!!) and looked in your post box.
Second katstatus visit
Once you have paid the car tax, wait a couple of days and then visit the same katsastus place again. Show them the forms about car tax and they will check that the payment has been received (this is why you wait a couple of days), they will give you the final registration documents and your finnish licence plate (this is where you find out the finnish registration number). Rather stupidly you must use these plates immediately – are you supposed to take a screwdriver with you to fit them? They said it would be ok to drive home with them displayed in the front/rear of the car.
The issue of number plates caused a bit of trouble since german plates are wider (about 10cm) and less high (about 8mm) than finnish ones. So finnish plates don’t fit the same holder. It wasn’t that hard to replace the rear plate (I had to drill new holes in the boot lid) but my car had a german bracket on the front bumper and if I removed that then there would be four holes in the front bumper, still visible even with the finnish plate in place. I eventually found a licence plate holder from a VW Beetle was the right width to cover these holes and I fixed the finnish plate onto that.
With the number plates on that was the end of all paper work. Note that at no point did I visit customs at all, in Finland only two visits to katsastus were needed. I read poor reviews about the chain a-katsastus so went to
http://www.juvanmalminkatsastus.fi/ in espoo and they were really good with excellent service in English.
Some other small things
Insurance: this was arranged at first based on the VIN and once I got the finnish registration plates I told the insurance company the new number plate and they updated the policy accordingly.
Engine block heater: cars in Germany don’t have these although many have a fuel fired heater (standheizung in german). My car didn’t have this so I had the engine block heater fitted later. It cost 550e at
http://www.evacar.fi/ in Vantaa, this was close to half the price the BMW dealer themselves wanted and they even washed the car as well. This included a power socket inside the car for separate electric fan heater.
Winter tires: I bought studded winter tires online from
http://www.rengas-online.com/ they delivered them to a small garage in Vantaa who then fitted them. This was cheaper than using a major company like vianor or euromaster. They still cost over 800e for a set though. they took off my german friction tires and fitted the studded tires onto those alloy wheels.
Since my german friction tires were in remarkably good shape (still over 8mm tread on them) I bought another (third set) of alloy wheels from ebay in Germany and had those shipped to Finland. Wheels and shipping only came to 250e and I had the friction tires mounted on those wheels. This means I have three sets of wheels for summer, autumn/spring and height of winter.
Conclusion
All in all I saved quite a bit of money and got a fantastically specified car as well. I only wonder why I didn’t do it earlier. The cost of the car came to about 31k euro and the closest thing I’ve seen to my car was a three year old model at 50k euro. The equipment levels in Finland are dramatically lower than in Germany and plenty of 5 series don’t even have navigation, so finding ones with the heads up display, memory seats, blind spot radar and other gadgets like mine would be almost impossible. I tried to calculate the price of a new car similar to mine on the BMW Finland website and their "build your own BMW" page would just crash halfway through since I was adding so many extras.
