Car - Import from another country

Registration of a car imported from another country

  1. In Portugal you pay taxes, and the tax for emissions can be, for example, 50% of the value of the car. If you decide to register an EV, you do not pay the emissions tax and only pay the registration fees.
  2. Be prepared for the fact that the registration of your vehicle may take a month or more.
  3. You have to go through several steps through MOT visits, offices, filling out forms online and paying for services.
  4. I highly recommend hiring a 3rd party for this process. The Portuguese themselves have a problem with registering a car from abroad (e.g. from Spain, France or Germany due to the lower purchase price).
  5. If you decide to do it "on your own", here is a manual and a small guide to what awaits you and how to proceed:

The first thing you need to do is deregister the car in the country where it is currently registered and get registration plates for a limited time, so that you can then go through the registration process with the car on your own axis or deregister the car, do not ask for registration plates and tow the car on the undercarriage.

Once the car is checked out, you will have the registration plates and all the documents for registration (technical license and plates), ask the manufacturer for a CoC sheet (Certificate of Conformity), as they will ask you for it everywhere.

If you have the documents for the car and the CoC sheet, feel free to go to the technical inspection station (Centros de Inspeção Técnica de Veículos - CITV). Here, your car will go through a complete import technical inspection, as you know from your country, and if everything is OK with your vehicle, they will issue you 2 documents: one green (Inspeção tecnica periodicidad) and one yellow (Certificado de Inspecção Técnica para Matrícula). Don't lose a single one, store well and prepare the yellow one for next use. Even before the start of the technical inspection, you will have to fill out a form (IMT Model 9) where you indicate who is requesting the technical inspection (natural person/legal entity), address and contact. The rest will be filled in by CITV employees. You will pay up to €100 on average for the whole process.

After successfully passing the technical inspection, you must fill out an online form on the IMT website to register the vehicle homologation.

The procedure is as follows:

  1. Load the page www.imtonline.pt
  2. Click on the Outros Serviços (Other Services) link in the top right menu.
  3. On the other services page, click on the section: Consulta de Registos de Homologação (Viewing approval records).
  4. And here find the paragraph beginning: Como posso requerer? Aceda aqui,.. (How can I log in? Click here,..) and to aqui (here) click. You will be redirected to fill out your first online form.
  5. The advantage is that the given form also has an English translation, so you can choose a language mutation if you do not know Portuguese.
  6. Enter the necessary data about you or the vehicle, upload your yellow document that you received from the technical inspection station and also the CoC sheet and send the form.
  7. Subsequently, you will receive an e-mail in your e-mail box from IMT (the carrier) that they have registered your application and will inform you about the progress of the homologation registration.
  8. Usually the next day (within two working days max), if you have filled in everything correctly, you will receive an email from IMT that your approval process has been granted the registration number you will need. You can find this document in the attachment and you will also read it in the next steps, so it is ideal to download it to disk immediately.
  9. Log in now to the government online portal (www.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt) and apply for the so-called DAV (Declaração Aduaneira de Veículo). Here you will have to fill in all the information about the vehicle, such as when you checked the car out of your country, when you arrived in Portugal by car, how you arrived, whether by your own axis or transport, how much you bought the car for, in what currency , if you have an invoice, you must attach it, as VAT will be assessed on the basis of the invoice, and ISV will be assessed according to the emissions (emissions tax - EV does not apply). You will need to upload all your documents that you have received, so: the yellow document from the technical inspection station (CITV), the CoC sheet, the IMT Model 9 completed form, the form sent to you by IMT in the homologation registration e-mail, the technical license of the vehicle ( both sides), which you received when checking out, an invoice (if you have one, if not, you will be charged VAT on the normal price of the vehicle in question) and an ID card.
  10. If you fill out the entire form correctly, upload all relevant documents, within 3 working days you will receive a DAV certificate with the allocation of your license number (number plate number) to your e-mail address.
  11. Now arrange (online or at a branch) vehicle insurance according to the purpose for which it will be used.
  12. Again, prepare all the documents you uploaded as part of the DAV certificate application, but this time in physical (printed) form and deliver to the IMT central branch (e.g. for the Algarve it is only in Faro). Here you submit all your documents, incl. DAV certificate, vehicle insurance policy and apply for registration stating that you have completed the entire process and are applying for license plates. If everything is in order at the IMT office, within 2-3 weeks of submitting the application, license plates (number plates) will arrive at your mailing address, which you will be able to "pin" on your vehicle and officially start driving. Until the tags arrive, you cannot travel with the car outside the borders of Portugal as part of the approval process!!!

The process described above applies to private individuals and EV registration. If you intend to register an internal combustion vehicle or a hybrid, after approval of the DAV certificate, you will first have to pay the ISV (emission tax) of the vehicle (there are discounts for hybrids), which can be as much as 50% of the vehicle's value. If you decide to register a 4.0l diesel V8, your ISV tax can easily be €10,000!

If you are going to register the car for a company (e.g. so that you don't have to pay VAT, or if it will be used as part of your business), the process is more complicated.

  1. The first 8 points are identical.
  2. Log in now to the government online portal (www.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt) with your company NIF number and access password. Here you must first register the so-called authorized person who will manage the car as part of company activities (most often it will be you, i.e. your private NIF). Go to the Gestão Utilizadores Externos (External User Management) section, then click on Adesão - Gerir a sua adesão aos sistemas aduaneiros (Membership - Manage your membership in customs systems). Here at the very bottom, select EDIT and add a new request to "Sistemas", where it will be a vehicle and what relationship the given user will have to the vehicle. Next, enter the option WEB - channel Webforms and confirm.
  3. Next, add Sub-Utilizadores (under the user) who will manage the car. Here, most often within the company, you enter your private NIF and set a user access password as part of the process.
  4. Save the changes and if everything is fine you will see a green confirmation that everything is OK.
  5. Now log out and log in with the transaction number that was generated for you when you registered as a user (you enter it in the NIF field) and the password that you set for this user during registration.
  6. Here, go to the DAV section (enter DAV in the search box) and complete the registration process identical to that of a private person from point 9, except that you are now required to provide proof of the vehicle invoice, in order to assess VAT.

The process described above is very brief and cannot be generalized or published in any general way within the video or photos. It differs from vehicle to vehicle, private ownership from company, state from state (e.g. within the EU or import from the USA, where again there are many other conditions), and therefore I recommend 2 procedures for this entire process:

  1. Hire a 3rd party for this who already has contacts at IMT, knows how to proceed step by step, and can complete the registration process as quickly as possible with the lowest possible obstructions.
  2. In the case of dealing "on your own", try to be very nice/friendly to the officials. It will be a coincidence if you come across an official who will communicate with you in English, but most often count on Portuguese (at least here in Faro). Try to explain to him that you are new here, that you do not understand things and that you wish to help. Use a translator and try to be as prepared as possible when you go there for the first time. That is, to have all documents both physically in printed form and electronically on a disk in a PC. I 100% recommend taking your laptop with you and trying to go through the process of filling out the forms together with the official, if you're lucky.