Your car to Italy: three months, two clocks and no registration tax

The re-registration: one counter, and the IPT as the biggest item

The whole procedure runs through a single STA counter, the digital car desk. There you arrange in one go:

• the immatricolazione (registration) at the Motorizzazione, the Italian vehicle authority;
• the entry in the PRA vehicle register, which records who owns the car.

You find such a counter at an ACI office, at the Motorizzazione itself, or at an agenzia pratiche auto. That is an agency that takes it off your hands for a hundred or two hundred euros.

The ministry describes the route:

• The application (istanza unificata) is signed digitally at the STA.
• The STA issues a registration document that is also the ownership document.
• There you pay the stamp duty, the Motorizzazione fees, the PRA costs and the IPT, the provincial registration tax.

An EU car with European type approval usually needs no inspection. The office checks the papers: the registration certificate and the COC, the European certificate of conformity.

Item	Amount	Source
Motorizzazione fees (tariff N054)	€ 10.20	national fee schedule
Stamp duty on the application (tariff N054)	€ 64.00	national fee schedule
Number plates, rectangular type A	€ 41.78	national fee schedule
IPT, provincial registration tax	by engine power, with a surcharge that almost every large province sets at the maximum of thirty percent — around € 340 for an average family car	ACI
Agenzia pratiche auto, if you outsource it	a hundred or two hundred euros	market price
Total	count on € 500 to 700

After that you pay the bollo every year, the regional road tax: in the order of € 200 for a family car. Put it in your diary, because a giro slip does not exist here.

The Dutch clock: thirteen weeks after the export notification

The Netherlands refunds the remaining BPM on export, the purchase tax still contained in the car. That only happens if:

• the registration dates from after 16 October 2006;
• the car is not a salvage vehicle;
• documents show that the car was registered abroad within thirteen weeks of the RDW status 'Export'.

The export notification itself you make at an RDW inspection station, an RDW desk or an approved export company. You then receive the export certificate (registration certificate part II) and a discharge certificate. You need those documents in Italy. If you have lost your registration certificate, re-apply for it before the export; afterwards it is no longer possible.

Start the Dutch clock last. Whoever neatly deregisters the car in the Netherlands well in advance and only then starts the Italian procedure sees the thirteen weeks run out while the residenza application is still pending. Drive to Italy on your Dutch plates, arrange your residenza first, start the re-registration — and only make the RDW export notification once the Italian file is under way. Both clocks then fit comfortably.

When you're better off selling

For a young car the sum is almost always positive: the BPM refund exceeds the re-registration costs.

For an old car with little remaining BPM the picture shifts. The re-registration costs the same, the refund approaches zero, and Italian car insurance is on average dearer than Dutch. Selling in the Netherlands and buying something locally is then a tidy outcome. Italian used cars are no dearer than Dutch ones.

What you must not do in any case: keep driving around on Dutch plates. Besides the fine, your Dutch insurance and MOT also founder on the address requirement. Your driving licence meanwhile needs nothing: it stays valid until its expiry date.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but on your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Italy.