Car and driving licence in Czechia: no excise duty, but thirty days
Czechia charges no excise duty on a car you bring from another EU country. What there is, is a thirty-day clock to register it, an inspection, and 800 crowns in fees. The driving licence is the easiest part: an EU licence doesn't need exchanging, and if you want to anyway, it costs 200 crowns.
Within the EU the car is usually the step with the surprises. With Czechia it turns out well — bar one clock.
No excise duty
Unlike Poland, Czechia charges no excise duty on a passenger car you bring from another EU country as relocation goods. There is no exemption you have to apply for and no condition about how long the car was yours. You bring it along, and you register it.
The clock: thirty days
You do the registration at the municipal office with extended jurisdiction of your place of residence, and the statutory deadline is thirty days. Whoever goes in person can complete the application on the spot.
You bring:
- proof of your home address in Czechia;
- the Dutch registration certificate, or the manufacturer's COC certificate;
- a technical inspection report no older than thirty days;
- Czech insurance;
- for a new car from another EU country, proof of the VAT paid.
The fee is 800 crowns at the counter and 640 crowns online. A car of an old emission class pays an environmental levy on top on registration; have that checked before departure if your car is older than twenty years or so, because then selling in the Netherlands can be cheaper than bringing it.
The inspection
The technical inspection is the step that takes time. A car that's been on the road less than four years gets by with an identity check and carries its inspection date from the Netherlands. An older car goes through the full inspection, and the result also determines the emission class the environmental levy hangs on.
The driving licence: nothing to exchange
A valid driving licence from an EU country doesn't need exchanging; it simply stays valid in Czechia. If you want to anyway — for instance because it's about to expire and you'd rather renew it in Czechia — that's only possible if you have your normal residence in Czechia. You bring your identity document and your EU licence, pay 200 crowns, and the Czech licence is there within twenty days.
The three-month deadline going round online applies to licences from outside the EU. Not to you.
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.
- Gov.cz — registration of a new or imported vehicle — portal.gov.cz
- Ministry of Transport — exchange of a driving licence from an EU member state — md.gov.cz
- Your Europe — exchanging and recognising a driving licence in Czechia — europa.eu
- Your Europe — registering your car in your new country of residence — europa.eu
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