Taking your car to Germany: re-registering, the HU — and money back from the Netherlands

If you move to Germany, your car has to go on German plates. Re-registering it is very doable, and on the Dutch side there is even something to be gained from it.

Unlike with England or Australia, taking your car to Germany is not a sum with a surprising outcome:

• You drive there yourself.
• There is no import tax.
• Your Dutch driving licence simply stays valid until it expires.

And the costs are modest:

• The Zulassung, the registration of your car, costs from € 34.70 in Berlin.
• The road tax is a fraction of the Dutch one for an average petrol car.
• The bpm refund on export outweighs all of that, as long as you make the thirteen weeks.

When does it have to happen?

German law doesn't hang it on a number of weeks. It turns on the concept of regelmäßiger Standort, your car's regular location. Driving on a foreign registration is only allowed as long as that permanent base is not in Germany. The moment you emigrate, it is there by definition. So the car belongs on German plates.

The FZV, the German regulation on vehicle registration, does name a limit of "temporary": one year from crossing the border. That is for visitors, not for whoever registers as a resident. On top of that, the Kraftfahrzeugsteuergesetz, the German road tax act, makes a foreign vehicle liable to tax too, as long as it is in Germany.

So don't stretch it. Your Meldebestätigung, the proof of your registration with the municipality, tells every police officer exactly since when you have lived there.

The German side: four things, in this order

1. Insurance first. A German car insurer gives you an eVB number: the electronic insurance confirmation. The Zulassungsstelle (the German vehicle registration office) wants to see it before anything at all is registered.
2. The HU inspection (the "TÜV", officially Hauptuntersuchung). A valid German inspection is needed for registration; the Dutch APK doesn't fulfil that role. Berlin itself names one exception: if the car is so young that the first inspection isn't due yet, the HU is waived. For a passenger car that is three years from first registration. If your car has no European type approval, an expert report of at most eighteen months old is required, and that includes the inspection.
3. The Zulassungsstelle. You bring:
   • your proof of identity plus a Meldebescheinigung, a separate proof of registration that you request at the Bürgeramt; ask the Zulassungsstelle whether the Meldebestätigung from your Anmeldung is also accepted (so the Anmeldung comes before the car)
   • the Dutch registration certificate and the old plates
   • the manufacturer's CoC document
   • the eVB number
   • the inspection certificate
   • a SEPA direct debit mandate for the road tax

No bank account for that mandate, no Zulassung. The registration itself costs € 34.70 in Berlin in the cheapest case; the plates you have made separately. 4. The Umweltplakette. This is the environmental sticker you need in almost every German city centre. It is linked to the registration, so after re-registering you buy a new one.