If you’re moving to Spain permanently and becoming a Spanish resident, you will need to register your vehicle in the country. From that moment on, you have six months in which to register your car with the authorities. The procedure for this changes depending on whether it is a new or used car bought from a Spanish car dealer or imported from abroad.
Registering an imported vehicle
When bringing in a car or motorcycle from outside Spain, you must register it within six months by going to the Local Traffic Office (jefatura provincial de Tráfico) and presenting the following documents:
- All the original documents pertaining to the vehicle
- A Certificate of Conformity with EU regulations, issued by the Technical Vehicle Inspection service (Inspección Técnica de Vehículos or ITV)
- The purchase agreement with a certified translation and proof of payment of the Property Transfer Tax (Impuesto de Transmisiones Patrimoniales or ITP), only if you bought the vehicle from a private owner.
- An invoice with the VAT number clearly stated and proof of payment of the VAT via the form modelo 309 or 300 from the State Tax Agency (Agencia Estatal Tributaria), only if you bought the vehicle from a car dealer in another EU country.
Registering a Spanish vehicle
Often, when you buy a new car in Spain, the seller will offer to sort out the registration fees (gastos de matriculación) for you, but may charge as much as 500 euro. You can actually do this yourself though for less money and with fairly little fuss in just five simple steps:
- You need the documents for the car, the ‘tríptico’. This is like the car’s ID and it contains all the important details like CO2 emissions, which is useful for working out the registration tax you’ll have to pay.
- You can get an NRC code (Número Referencia Completo) from your bank to fill in the ‘modelo 576’ form online on the Hacienda’s tax website to work out how much to pay, and then pay it.
- There is another driving tax (Impuesto de Circulación) to pay the local government, and the amount will depend on the stipulations of the municipality.
- Present all the above documentation in the Local Traffic Office (jefatura provincial de Tráfico), along with your ID, passport or residency permit. They’ll give you your licence plate number and the final documentation and you’ll have to pay 94 euro.
- Take all your documents to a specialist and have them make up the number plates for you using your new number. It will cost between 6 and 50 euro. Then put the plates on the car and away you go!