Your car to Estonia: the 2025 tax the old guides don't know about

Q: Take it or sell it?

Do the sum before you drive, not after. Put the registration fee from the calculator, the inspection and the plates next to the BPM refund and next to what the car still fetches in the Netherlands. The outcome differs per car: a young, economical car you almost always take, an old heavy one you sell in the Netherlands — the BPM is already out of it and the Estonian levy weighs on weight. The journey itself is about 2,100 kilometres: two days' driving with one overnight stop, or a shorter drive plus a night ferry across the Baltic. Whoever takes the car combines that drive with the move and saves the flight. Whoever sells buys in Estonia only once the bank account is running, and with your ID card that often opens the same week.

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.

5 min read

Written and checked by Auke on 25 September 2026, against the sources at the bottom. Is something no longer right? Report it below and I'll fix it.

Yes, your car can come to Estonia. Within the EU that works without customs and without import duty. But since 1 January 2025 you pay, on first registration, a levy almost no Dutch guide knows about yet, and it has no relocation exemption.

What it costs depends on the CO₂, weight and age of the car. For an economical ten-year-old it stays at a few hundred euros, for a recent family car it runs into thousands.

The pitfall is not the amount but the order:

The car must be registered within five working days of being put into use.
The Dutch BPM refund (part of the Dutch purchase tax on the car comes back) makes up the sum, but requires that Estonian registration to be complete within thirteen weeks.

Whoever does the sum only once the car is already parked in Tallinn has already made the choice.

What changed in 2025?

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. Since then the arithmetic consists of two parts: a one-off registration fee and an annual tax.

Both have the same structure: a base part, a CO₂ part and a weight part. You work both out in advance with the official calculator of Transpordiamet, the Estonian agency for vehicles and traffic. Do that before you decide whether the car comes along, not afterwards.

What does the registration fee cost, and who is exempt?

At the source, two rules stand out, and they work against each other.

The unfavourable rule. The statutory exemptions from the levy are listed exhaustively (emergency services, diplomats), and a relocation is not among them. Unlike in Spain or Portugal, an emigrant here simply pays along.
The windfall that appears almost nowhere. The ordinary registration charge of € 150 is waived for passenger cars. You pay only the levy itself, the inspection and € 65 for number plates.

Item	When	Structure or amount
Registration fee (one-off)	on first registration in Estonia	base € 150 + CO₂ part (lowest band € 5 per gram) + weight part, with a discount that grows with the age of the car
Number plates	at registration	€ 65
Technical inspection before registration	in your first week	inspection tariff
Annual motor vehicle tax	every year, assessment via EMTA	same structure: base + CO₂ + weight
BPM refund (Netherlands)	after the Estonian registration	the part of the BPM still in the car according to the depreciation table

The cost indication for Estonia reckons with a band of roughly € 300 to € 1,900 for taking the car, before deducting the BPM refund. An electric car has no CO₂ part and therefore comes out lowest in both levies.

When must the car be registered?

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. It is shorter than the fourteen days for your residence and the month for your ID card.

The route works like this:

First the pre-registration inspection. Transpordiamet does it itself, at one of its service bureaus.
Then the registration at Transpordiamet, where you also pay the one-off fee.

So plan the inspection in your first week, not "when it suits". From that moment the annual tax runs via EMTA, the Estonian tax authority. The assessment appears by itself in your e-portal, once you can log in with your ID card.

What does the Netherlands give 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. The conditions are strict:

The car received a Dutch registration on or after 16 October 2006.
It is not a write-off.
It gets the status 'Export' at the RDW.
It must be durably registered in Estonia within thirteen weeks of that status.

Those thirteen weeks are the only Dutch clock in this story. With the Estonian five working days it is easily met, provided you don't leave the inspection lying. For a car a few years old the refund is a serious amount, often more than the Estonian registration fee.

Clock	Deadline	Runs from
Registration in Estonia	5 working days	putting the car into use in Estonia
BPM refund: car must be registered elsewhere	13 weeks	the day the RDW records the status 'Export'

Don't forget to finish the Dutch side: export notification at the RDW, refund application at the Belastingdienst, and cancelling the car insurance with a statement of your claim-free years in English.

Take it or sell it?

Do the sum before you drive, not after. Put the registration fee from the calculator, the inspection and the plates next to the BPM refund and next to what the car still fetches in the Netherlands. The outcome differs per car: a young, economical car you almost always take, an old heavy one you sell in the Netherlands — the BPM is already out of it and the Estonian levy weighs on weight.

The journey itself is about 2,100 kilometres: two days' driving with one overnight stop, or a shorter drive plus a night ferry across the Baltic. Whoever takes the car combines that drive with the move and saves the flight. Whoever sells buys in Estonia only once the bank account is running, and with your ID card that often opens the same week.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.2: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Estonia or go straight to step 3.2 in the open plan.

What this rests on

The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change. When in doubt, go by the source, 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
Transpordiamet — the pre-registration inspection, at a service bureau — transpordiamet.ee
Belastingdienst — BPM refund on export of a used motor vehicle (thirteen weeks) — belastingdienst.nl

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