Your car to Estonia: the 2025 tax the old guides don't know about
Until 2025 Estonia was the only EU country without a car tax. That is over: there is now a one-off registration fee and an annual motor vehicle tax, both built up from a base amount, CO₂ and weight. Against that stands the Dutch BPM refund — and that sum often comes out in your favour, provided you do it beforehand.
Whoever read before 2025 that Estonia was "the only EU country without a car tax" read the truth — of that time. On 1 January 2025 the Motor Vehicle Tax Act came into force, and since then the arithmetic consists of two parts. Almost every Dutch guide is older than that law.
The two amounts
The registration fee you pay once, on the first registration of the car in Estonia — so also if you bring your own car. For passenger cars it consists of a base part of € 150 plus a CO₂ part and a weight part. For an economical small car it stays manageable; for a heavy SUV it runs into thousands of euros.
The annual motor vehicle tax has the same structure and is collected by the tax authority EMTA — the assessment appears by itself in your e-portal. Electric cars have no CO₂ part and are therefore the cheapest.
You work out both amounts in advance with the official calculator of Transpordiamet. Do that before you decide whether the car comes along — not afterwards.
The deadline: five working days
A car you put into use in Estonia must be registered within five working days. That is the tightest deadline of the entire Estonian process: first the technical inspection before registration, then the registration itself at Transpordiamet. So plan the inspection in your first week, not "when it suits".
The Dutch side: BPM back
On export of your car within the EEA, the Netherlands refunds the remaining BPM (the Dutch car purchase tax), in proportion to the depreciation. For a car a few years old that is a serious amount — often more than the Estonian registration fee. Report the export to the RDW, apply for the refund, and put both amounts side by side. The outcome differs per car: a young economical car you almost always take with you, an old heavy one you sell in the Netherlands.
What this rests on
The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change — when in doubt the source is leading, not this article.
- Transpordiamet — the motor vehicle tax and the calculator — transpordiamet.ee
- EMTA — motor vehicle tax (annual) and registration fee — emta.ee
- Transpordiamet — vehicle registration within five working days — transpordiamet.ee
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