I am an American citizen married to a Romanian and we recently moved to Bucharest. I lived and worked in Romania (on USAID projects) between 1995 and 2001 and in 2001 we moved to the USA. Between 2008 and now I was working full-time on USAID projects in the region (in Serbia, Moldova and Bosnia). I am now retired and we plan to make Romania our permanent home. When we came here from Bosnia we drove our vehicles to Romania (2 cars & 2 motorcycles) and we did not go through any export or import formalities with the vehicles. Now that I have my Permis de Sedere we would like to legally import our vehicles and get them registered in Romania. Does anyone have any advice on the steps that we will need to take to get this done? Is there any kind of a company or service that we could hire to handle the formalities for us? What are the taxes and fees that need to be paid to import and register personal vehicles as a resident of Romania? I see on this site that the pollution tax will be eliminated at the end of the month so perhaps it would be prudent to wait until February to go through the registration process. Any advice that anyone can provide would be most appreciated.
Importing personal vehicles into Romania
In which country is your car registered? I assume it's a non-EU country, then you'll need to pay the import duty. But how long has it been inside Romania? Because theorically non Romanian cars can stay 90 days maximum into the country then they have to get Romanian plates..anyway, the best thing to do is to ask some company specialized in the registrations of cars since it's almost impossibile to do by yourself even if you speak fluent Romanian, as the process is very time consuming and there are several offices to visit.
Nemo, Thanks for your comments and suggestions. My vehicles are currently registered in Bosnia and they have been in Romania for more than 90 days at this point. I am aware of the time limitation but this does not seem to be strictly enforced, particularly for cars from other EU countries. I have been working with the moving company that handled our move and it seems they may be able to get most things done for me. I have completed the formalities at the RAR for one of my vehicles and will get the others done once the weather gets better. The main hurdle at this point seems to be getting a "T1" form for the import of the vehicles and I have to do that at an international border post, most likely Galati on the border with Moldova. Regards
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