Do we need to register our Italian car?

MrNoFruit · Post by **MrNoFruit** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:22 pm

Hi everybody,

we're moving in September to Helsinki and are planning to bring our Italian car with us (a small Fiat 1997).
I have read many of the posts about cars here, but would like to have more (specific)
information regarding what we would need to do to keep our car there and also the costs.

We'll be in Helsinki for two years. My girlfriend, who is the car owner, is coming along
and will look for a job there, but in the mean time, she's not changing her official residence
from Italy to Finland. The questions are:

1) Are we forced to register the car in Finland?
2) Will we have to change to Finnish plates?
3) We are aware the car may not work perfectly in the very cold season. But beyond that, is there a Finnish
mechanical revision (additionally to the italian one,,, every two years) that we will have to get, so that our
car have permit to drive there?
4) If 1, 2 and 3 are a YES,,, does any one have a rude idea about the costs,,,, particularly of registering it?

We're looking forward to move there. Thanks a lot.

**Sponsor:**

AldenG · Post by **AldenG** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:40 pm

I'm sorry to be the first responder and not offer specific answers for you.

Just couldn't resist saying that if you're looking for rude ideas, you are quite likely to get some here.

rinso · Post by **rinso** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:50 pm

well, a rude indication:
- you are allowed to drive a car with foreign plates for 6 months, after that it has to leave the country.
- if you want to keep it longer, you have to import it, change plates, get a Finnish insurance. You have to do this when the car arrives, not after 6 months.
- you are right that the car might have problems in winter. You might consider installing an engine heater. A set of winter tires is also necessary.
- Finnish cars have a technical inspection every year.
- The main cost is the import tax. Since it is a used car, the customs will estimate the value. But it (and also the tax) will be much higher than you expect.

If you become a resident in Finland there is a possibility to import a car free of tax.
But in that case you cannot keep your official residence in Italy.

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:31 am

Italian cars are like in ALIEN movie... there is a scream and the die in a pool of phlegma...

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:15 pm

... deleted

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:12 pm

rinso wrote:well, a rude indication:
- you are allowed to drive a car with foreign plates for 6 months, after that it has to leave the country.
- if you want to keep it longer, you have to import it, change plates, get a Finnish insurance. You have to do this when the car arrives, not after 6 months.

Those are not quite the rules as I remember them.

- you are allowed to drive a car with foreign plates for 6 months in a 12 month period - like you are allowed to reside here for up to half a year in a 12 month period and retain your residence elsewhere.
- if you have proof of when the car was brought to Finland, then practically you can declare it for tax purposes whenever you want in the first 6 months. What if you had brought the car here temporarily and then changed your mind and decided to keep it here? This was the approach I used with customs and they did not bat an eyelid.

There are rigid rules for locals importing a car, but for workers moving from other EU countries, there is some flexibility, it does not seem to be a case of you are moving here, the first thing you must do is register your car.

If the car is registered straight away, it will need an EU CoC, documentation to show that tax has been paid (or more likely that it is free of tax) and to pass a registration inspection in Finland to get Finnish licence plates. Even if there is no tax, the CoC on older cars can cost €100, registration inspection and plates is another €200-€250 IIRC.

If the OP is not intending to use the car every day, and is willing to use public transport on the very coldest days, then a car for a person based in Helsinki will probably not need an engine block heater for just 2 winters. After all it's an 11 year old car, how much engine wear will be prevented now? I'd say that's not a good investment... unless the OP really wants to use the car every day during winter, when it will be easier to start. The cabin heater can make life more comfortable, is easier to fit and can be sold afterwards.

rinso wrote:- The main cost is the import tax. Since it is a used car, the customs will estimate the value. But it (and also the tax) will be much higher than you expect.
If you become a resident in Finland there is a possibility to import a car free of tax. But in that case you cannot keep your official residence in Italy.

If the car is not officially imported / registered, there is no import tax, though they may have to remove their car from Finland at some stage. If they bring it in as a removal vehicle (there is a time limit for this ... IIRC it is 1 year), so long as they have owned the car for 6 months prior to moving to Finland, and have been resident outside of Finland for 12 months before moving here, then there is still no import tax.

Irrespective of how high the import tax might be for others, it is unlikely that they will have to pay anything. Though as I wrote, they may have to remove their car from Finland at some stage.

MrNoFruit · Post by **MrNoFruit** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:00 pm

Thanks a lot to everyone for all the "rude" (it seems to me a perfect spell checker hasn't been invented) and useful ideas. Thanks in particular to sinikala. This is the clearest explanation I have got so far. I will start looking for the things we need to do by following your advice.

Also, sorry for not replying before. Time flies away... As an up to date report for those of you curious about what happened to that old Italian car,,,,, well,,, it's already in Helsinki. We took a on a very nice trip from Turin to Helsinki crossing Poland and the Baltic republics, a 3012 km drive in 4 and a half days, with the little seicento as full of things as we could fit it, us included.

After going to maestratti we have got the city parking permit, which I guess will force us to register the car at some point. I will post my experience here.

Thanks a lot

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:01 pm

You should go to the TULLI and say you want to import the car - then they give you a lot of bollox for not doing this when you arrived. Then you go to the KATSASTUS (any) and get the guys say mamma mia and maybe you need to change a few things... then you get eventually a paper from TULLI stating the restrictions and you then get Finnish plates. (I say mamma mia the seicento made it, but hey, I drove a 133 I inherited from my sister for my first car, and passed it to my nephew) Not a big problem, people do it all the time, but remember always - right papers right office right order.

riku2 · Post by **riku2** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:16 pm

there is also a rule that finnish residents cannot drive foreign registered cars unless you have declared the car as an import at the time of bringing it into finland - this would affect you if you come to finland, become a resident, and your girlfriend visits with her car. you cannot then drive it (unless she registers it for tax when she brings it in), if she comes here on holiday with the car with the intention of leaving with it and not paying the finnish tax then she and the car can stay for six months but you cannot drive it (perhaps you can if she is in the car, but i'm not sure of that point).

tunkkari · Post by **tunkkari** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 2:28 pm

something to think about if you do decide to put it through the finnish system, when we brought our car we had to show proof of the purchase price, when it was purchased and also that my husband (owner) had been working and paying tax when the car was purchased in the uk......not sure why this was needed however, we didnt have to pay any import tax since we had owned the car in the uk for over a year before moving here and importing it.

maxxfi · Post by **maxxfi** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 7:17 pm

riku2 wrote:there is also a rule that finnish residents cannot drive foreign registered cars unless you have declared the car as an import at the time of bringing it into finland

Would be good to find the source for this rule. Tulli, perhaps?

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:19 pm

source for al laws is www.finlex.fi

h1_hsr · Post by **h1_hsr** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:25 pm

hi, this may seem like a silly question. From what I can understand after 6 months you have to remove the car from finland or get it registered in Finland.

What if someone was to in the 5th month take the car to sweden for the weekend? Does your 6 months start again, so you dont have to get the car registered for the following 6 months?

Just a question, because I plan to bring my car from the uk and would rather not have to get the plates changed on it.

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:31 pm

Theres a bit on the extension of the "tourist car" thing, but after that it can't be dealt with as a removal any more.

h1_hsr · Post by **h1_hsr** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:10 am

even if the car leaves Finland before the 6th month? or is that becuase the insurance is from a finnish company?

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