Car registration in Poland (bought a car from Holland on a temporary license)

Hello,

I am an Indian national with Indian Passport living in Katowice, Poland on work permit and long term visa. I bought a car from Holland with temporary licence plates in my name and would like to register the car in Poland.

Please let me know if i can register the car in Poland in my name and also get insurance. How can i do it, what documents are required and how much will it cost?

Thanks!

Hi,
You can do it if you have everything sorted out. You'll need to visit three gov. offices to finally register your car. Actually four, if you have not registered your address of stay before. The correct order is as follows: You need to check if you are obliged to pay excise tax, then check if you need to pay the VAT and then register the car, once you sort out the tax obligations. The insurance has to have the date not later than the date of registration so do it the same day.

cheers

Thanks Olaf!

from where can i check if I am obliged to pay excise and VAT as I am not Polish?

I'm keen to get some info on this too.

What tax is payable, is there a sliding scale?

Do we need to get a Polish 'MOT' done first?

Hello everyone. I would like to purchase a car in Poland and keep it registered there. I live in Europe two months of the year. If I rent an apartment for a month in Warsaw and I have an American passport, can I register this car under my name?

Thanks, Paul

Simple answer is no. You need a meldunek and a PESEL to register a car; this can be obtained with a passport, but must be updated every three months and needs the landlord's permission. If you are only renting the apartment for a month, no landlord will give you meldunek, and therefore you will not be able to register the car.

Also, without a PESEL you will be unable to get insurance, which is a legal requirement in Poland. The car must be insured constantly, whether it is being driven or not, so you cannot just insure it for the time you are in Poland.

The source is treasury offices - Urzad Skarbowy for VAT and Urzad Celny for excise tax.

Best you can do is to get an agent who would do all that for you, for not big fee. Why bother yourself.


Not really - foreigners should formalize their stay: registering address is just the first step, then there's registration of stay or residence card (for non-EU citizens). Having one of them will allow you to register address for more than 3 months. No need to go there every 3 months.

And you don't need a permission to register address - you should show rights to your rented (owned) apartment - which is e.g. a rental contract and it's done. There are at least two ways to do it.

So he has to apply for a residency permit every year (which takes a fair bit of time) and then has to reregister his car every year. Lots of hassle (even if he can get a karta pobytu, I doubt that 'I want to register a car here' is going to be sufficient reason for them to give him one).


Yes you do need permission: your landlord has to countersign and he also has to prove his right to the property (i.e. the notarial deed from when he purchased it).

Hi Harry;)

To your first comment: Not that much hassle. IF there's a EU citizen then they register their stay and then prolong reg. of address to maximum time and that's all. No need to prolong anything every year.

If not EU citizen, then if visa was necessary then karta pobytu is issued for the same time, it can be longer than a year.

It's more about registered address that matters for the department that registers your car. You can do a lot by writing statements too.
I will give you an example from my experience. Last week I registered my car in a different place than my main registered address. It seems impossible to 4 out of 5 officers that I asked for information before doing so, then I wrote a statement that I live and work in Krakow and therefore I want my car to be registered here, so that I don't have to take days off work and drive very far to my previous department of vehicle registration to do stupid things that could be done over the Internet. I attached this to registration forms and that was all. It took 10 minutes in Krakow office! Sometimes ther is a long waiting line but to save my time and not stand in lines I went there during lunch time. And now I have new KR (something) registration plates. I have to learn my new plate numbers:)

To your second comment:
You are thinking about only one option here. I used the other many times because it doesn't require owners presence and you don't even fill in anything. I meant a registration by youself, and having a proper contract YOU have the rights to the apartment stated in the contract, therefore you can - and should - be registered. I've done it many times actually. There is also on another in which you smartly move the obligation to register from you to local authorities.

Why make it difficult for yourself when there are more simple ways.

Merged: Registration for a second hand car bought from the Netherlands

Hello,

I am planning to buy a second- hand car from the Netherlands( which i will use in Poland, krakow) and would like to know what needs to be done for the registration of the car and where (townhall?) and how much would this cost?

which taxes do I need to pay and how much does it cost?

And what is the price for winter tires if I would get them in Poland?

Thanks!

Registration of a foreign car in Poland and taxes due to that.

How much does it cost to register a car in Poland meaning the taxes and the procedures.

Have a look here. If it's an import ie UK or other right-hand drive car, it may not be straightforward or even possible, apparently.

Hi guys,

can anyone tell me the cost of registering a second hand car, bought from Europe, for the first time in Poland?

I'm asking because i'm planning to buy a car from Germany or Netherlands and I would like to register it in Poland.

I am a European citizen and a legal resident of Poland.

As far as i understood so far, there's 2% or 3% tax if the engine is under 2000 cubic cm, and 19% tax if it's higher. this is from the value of the vehicle but I would like to understand how are they going to asses the value? Based on my sale contract? I heard that because people were stating much lower values in order to pay a lower tax, the gov. institution handling car registrations came up with some list of car value based on model, production year, etc.

Can anyone provide more info on that and eventually some official website on this topic?

Thank you!

Cosmin C.

I have imported multiple vehicles from Netherlands to Poland (im from Netherlands).

Taxation is as you say, i believe 2.2% under 2liter and 18.8% over that (might be off by 0.something% as i think they change every now and then)

For me it went okay with the value on the sales contract most of the times, and once they did not agree on the value (even though i never messed with the contracts, but it was lower as the car had slight rear damage).

Anyways, since the car was a hybrid with very low emission/engine size the difference in taxation they wanted was less than 200zl, not worth the bother to fight it.

Then there's about 260zl of costs to get your license plates and stuff.

I've all but 1 time, used a company that did all the work for me. In total it cost me 350zl for the company and about 150zl for getting the necessary documents officially translated.

I highly recommend using one of these companies unless you want to go super-cheap about it, but as you're not Polish im gonna guess your Polish is not good enough to get through the official instances. They do not speak English, nor are they in my experience lenient towards helping you in English in any way.

The one time i didnt use the company but a Polish speaking friend, it took much, much more time and hassle.

Alex,
As I'm fairly sure some people have already mentioned here, one can scarcely expect from random Polish concerns like those which you describe the commensurate English level which a foreigner could practically take for granted in the Netherlands from any company, great or small.

More to the matter at hand, I know I've brought this up numerous times also, but Poland retains strong traces of her black market past under Communism, therefore will differ markedly from either Holland or Belgium in this respect. My contacts in Amsterdam along with other cities, always comment on the straight forward manner of conducting business, usually in excellent English!

I am aware Lyzko, that was exactly what i was pointing out!

The company that does the work for you though, tend to at least try to communicate with you one way or another, since you are paying them for their services.

That's why i suggested him to use this kind of service. In my opinion its either not getting your car registered, or paying 350zl for a company to do it for you. Easy choice!

p.s. if you're looking in NL, remember that cars post-october 2006 that show a lower export price than normal selling price, you will need to leave a Deposit (usually somewhere between 500 and 1500 euro) which you will get back after you've registered the car in Poland and sent a scan or copy of the papers to the company you bought the car from. It has nothing to do with scamming, but with Tax-return purposes in Netherlands.

The export price can only be given if the car will be registered in another EU country, and a copy of the new registration is send in to the dutch Tax office. Hence this deposit companies ask for.

Obviously then, you folks get a way better deal in the Netherlands than you do in Poland. Oh, I know people say, "Poland is cheap!" in comparison with, say, Paris, Amsterdam, London etc., but I always like to say "Cheap is dear!"

:-)

From my experience the cheapest place to buy cars in eu especially german ones is beglium.. haven't looked too much into Holland though

@Lyzko
What do you mean we get a better deal? If you mean the tax refund - its just a partial refund of the 20-25% "eco tax" we pay on top of the normal price of a new car unfortunately.... and the only good deal is for the foreignera taking the cars away :p

@above here: belgium mainly has great prices on the smaller-engined cars as theyre lighter taxed there. Plus they have, like NL, a great mileage registration system (car-pass its called). Quite safe to buy a car with car pass, trusting it has the right mileage :)

Addendum. Many from your country may well THINK they're getting a good deal registering in Poland, but in fact, they're not. If they think they are, they're deluding themselves:-)

Hello, I'd like to reanimate the discussion. If I own a car already registered in France and move her to Poland (job relocation) with me, shall I pay any taxes/VAT etc ?

Can you advise a couple of names of the companies that can handle the process on my behalf (I do not speak Polish language).
Thx

I am also interested in names of companies who can handle the process on my behalf. I am a spanish national and just purchased a new car in spain, have brought it over to Poland where I am officially residing since August. I have been reading about having to pay 22% VAT? I have already paid VAT in Spain, surely I don't have to pay it twice as an EU national? I need advice please.

@Alexbrz
Do you have the details of the company you used buddy ?

anybody please?

Do you want to register that car in Poland? If so, you need to pay VAT for importing a car.

justlanded.com/english/Poland/Poland-Guide/Travel-Leisure/Renting-and-importing-a-car-in-Poland