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

After the gloomy car stories of Denmark and Finland, Italy is a breath of fresh air: no registration tax, no CO2 table, no market-value appraisal. Taking the car with you is usually simply a good idea here — as long as you start two clocks in the right order.

The Italian clock: three months after your residenza

Since 2022 article 93-bis of the road traffic code says: whoever establishes their residenza in Italy must put a car with foreign plates on Italian plates within three months. The sixty-day rule from 2018 that still circulates on many sites has been replaced by it — but the enforcement has remained: driving outside the deadline costs € 400 to € 1,600, and the car can be taken off the road. The period starts not on arrival but on your registration as a resident — the drive down and the months of searching therefore do not count.

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

The whole procedure — immatricolazione at the Motorizzazione and entry in the vehicle register PRA — runs via one STA desk: at an ACI office, the Motorizzazione itself, or an agenzia pratiche auto that takes it off your hands for one or two hundred euros. An EU car with European type approval usually does not need an inspection; the service checks the papers (registration certificate, COC). Count on € 500 to 700 in total. The biggest item is the IPT, the provincial registration tax: a base rate by engine power, on top of which almost every large province adds the maximum surcharge of thirty percent — for an average family car you end up around € 340. After that comes the annual bollo (regional road tax, in the order of € 200 for a family car) — put it in your diary, because a payment slip does not exist here.

The Dutch clock: thirteen weeks after the export notification

On export the Netherlands refunds the remaining BPM — provided the registration dates from after 16 October 2006, the car is not a write-off, and the foreign registration is completed within thirteen weeks of the RDW export status. And that is where the pitfall in the order lies: whoever neatly deregisters the car in the Netherlands well in advance and only then starts the Italian process sees the thirteen weeks lapse while the residenza application is still running. Do it the other way round. 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 are better off selling it

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 more expensive than Dutch. Selling in the Netherlands and buying something back locally is then a decent outcome — Italian used cars are no more expensive than Dutch ones. And what you must not do under any circumstances: keep driving around on Dutch plates. Besides the fine, your Dutch insurance and MOT (APK) also run aground on the address requirement.

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