Taking your car to France: the carte grise is manageable, the malus isn't
Within a month your car has to be on French plates, fully digital. The procedure is doable — a free quitus fiscal, an inspection less than six months old, a regional tax of at most € 60 per fiscal horsepower — but unlike in Spain and Portugal there is no relocation exemption for the CO2 levy. So do the sum before the lorry moves, not after.
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Written and checked by Auke on , against the sources at the bottom. Is something no longer right? Report it below and I'll fix it.
Putting your car on French plates is easier than you might expect. The carte grise, the French registration certificate, is arranged entirely digitally, through one counter, while you sit at home. The real cost is the malus: a levy on your car's CO2 emissions at the first French registration.
Dutch lists almost never warn about that levy. Yet it can tip the whole decision: do you take the car with you, or sell it in the Netherlands?
The procedure: one month, one portal
From the arrival of the car you have one month to put it on French plates. That runs entirely online through the ANTS portal, the French government's site for registration certificates. In the file:
- Your Dutch registration certificate and the certificat de conformité (COC) from the manufacturer, the statement that your car meets the European requirements. Request the COC before departure
- The quitus fiscal: a free certificate from the French tax authority that the VAT is in order. You supply the purchase invoice or the sale certificate, the foreign registration certificate and your identity document. On a move you explicitly choose the relocation option in the application. You then show that you have left the Netherlands and that the VAT was once paid there. Otherwise French VAT is levied after all
- A proof of address younger than six months
- A valid inspection: for a car older than four years an inspection less than six months old. An inspection from another EU country is recognised, so your Dutch APK is too
When is a car "new", and what does the carte grise cost?
Service-Public draws the line sharply. A car is new on import if it is less than six months old or has driven less than 6,000 kilometres; then you pay 20% VAT in France. If it is older and has more kilometres, it is second-hand, and then you pay no more VAT in France. That is the situation of almost every mover. Insurance is compulsory from the day the car is in France.
| Item | What applies |
|---|---|
| Quitus fiscal | free, at the tax office of your place of residence |
| VAT | 20%, only if the car is new (younger than 6 months or under 6,000 km) |
| Regional tax (Y1) | your region's rate per fiscal horsepower, legally capped at € 60 per horsepower; on average 2.4% higher in 2026 |
| Île-de-France | a fixed surcharge of € 14 per registration certificate from March 2026; the rate there becomes € 68.95 |
| Inspection | an inspection less than 6 months old for cars older than 4 years |
| CO2 malus | at the first French registration, without a relocation exemption |
For an ordinary car you are talking tens to a few hundred euros for the carte grise. This is not the item that hurts.
The malus: this is where the real money is
France levies a CO2 malus at the first French registration. It applies to used, imported cars too, so to yours as well. Service-Public says so itself, as the closing line on imports from the EU: "certain vehicles may be subject to environmental taxes depending on their CO2 emissions".
And unlike in Spain and Portugal there is no exemption on relocation. The law and the tax authority's doctrine have been checked on this: a mover pays the malus like any other importer. Whoever read online that "import on emigration is tax-free" was reading about VAT — not about the malus.
How high it is depends on three things:
- Your car's CO2 emissions, measured under WLTP, the official test procedure.
- The year of first registration. The scale (the rate table) of that year applies, even if that first registration was Dutch.
- The age of the car. Since March 2025 a fixed discount table applies that rises to 100% at fifteen years.
The two extremes make it concrete. A car first registered before 2015: malus nil, done. A young, thirsty car: thousands of euros are quite possible. The scale for 2026 registrations already starts at 108 grams and runs up to tens of thousands of euros at the top.
The decision, in the right order
Work this out before you decide whether the car comes along: look up the year of manufacture and first registration, add the WLTP emissions, put that year's scale and the discount table beside it. For an older car, taking it is almost free and almost always sensible. For a young SUV the amount can easily exceed what selling in the Netherlands would fetch. Then the decision is made, only the other way round from what you thought. The rest of the move, the household goods without customs, is by comparison free of any clock.
And your driving licence? That is the easiest part: it simply stays valid, needs registering nowhere and is only exchanged when it expires, on loss, or after a points offence.
In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.4: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to France or go straight to step 3.4 in the open roadmap.
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.
- ANTS — registering a foreign vehicle in France for the first time — immatriculation.ants.gouv.fr
- impots.gouv.fr — the quitus fiscal, free and mandatory on EU import — impots.gouv.fr
- Service-Public — the quitus fiscal: the documents and the VAT — service-public.gouv.fr
- Service-Public — a car from the EU: when it is 'new', the inspection of less than six months, and the environmental levy — service-public.gouv.fr
- Service-Public — the cost of the carte grise in 2026: the cheval fiscal per region and the € 60 cap — service-public.gouv.fr
- Légifrance — the malus provisions (CIBS art. L421-58 et seq.), without a relocation exemption — legifrance.gouv.fr
- BOFiP — the malus also applies to imported used vehicles — bofip.impots.gouv.fr
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