How to bring your car to Greece

The import of your car is always topical, and on reading the forums seems to change almost daily.  So to give you the latest info I finished the process and received my Greek plates.
The whole process in Greece cost me 386 Euro, including the work of the importer I used but excluding the annual road tax.
For those interested the procedure I followed was:-
Greek Embassy in Holland Park, London presented them with:-
UK documents
- Council tax bills for the last 3 years
- Electricity, water bills for the last 3 years
- P45 & P60's for last three years
- UK Passport
- UK driving licence
- V5 for the car I intend to import into Greece
   Note: you must have owned this car for a minimum of 6 months
The paperwork was completed and posted to me within the week.

Get an import / export expert to prepare the paperwork.....this cost me 200 Euros, you just can not do this yourself…….even if you can read Greek and understand the forms….
They will require all the documents from the Greek Embassy and
- Deeds of purchase of your Greek plot of land or house
- Greek tax number document
- Greek address details

You have to within 30 days (very important) present this to Greek Customs (on this definitely do it within 20 days as time is critical), the importer will do all this for you but you have to be present.
Providing you meet these criteria there is NO import duty to pay.  I paid Customs 61 Euro...including the 31 Euro to the man who looked under the bonnet and showed the Customs Officer where the VIN Plate was !!!!!! (Jobs for the boys)
Then off to the ministry for vehicles with the Customs papers (technical dept) to obtain more paper.
They then issue even more paper....which you take to KTEO for the (MOT) test of compliance. Cost here 50 Euro.

Back to the ministry with this document, more paper issued and 75 Euro paid for the plates. (This you have to pay direct in a bank to their account .
The office will then issue the green vehicle "log book" which has to be taken to the tax office and the year's road tax paid. Returning this proof of payment to the ministry office I got my Red Plates !!!!
The time all this took was painful, 4 hours two days running in customs and each visit to other offices about an hour a piece. Fantastic service at KTEO though.  Was it worth it……..yes, my car in the UK would be worth 4500 pounds.  Here the same aged vehicle would cost me 8000 Euro.

I can not guarantee all locations in Greece will be the same, but I found by being patient, putting up with the frustrating length of time things took to be checked and double checked in good humour pays off…..every one I came across were helpful.    (Just take a good book to read whilst you wait)

Hi Grocer,
Can you recommend an import/export agent in Greece? I'm moving to Kalymnos later this year and planning on driving my car over from the UK. I'm actually changing cars this summer and buying a used estate car. Not sure how I'll get round the 6 month ownership rule. I may try to reregister in Greece before the end of the 6 months period of grace.

Cheers,
Patrick.

Hi there,

Unfortunately I'm not in Greece at present  but it is not difficult to do yourself if you have time and follow the instructions I posted.  If you do need help there is a guy who's office is in the side street directly opposite the Tax Offices in Kalamata....can't recall his name though.

Kalimera,

We will have the same to do, but is this 6-month-thing really a must?
We have one car bought two month ago and a trailer for the move 2 weeks ago.

Hope there is a chance to do it.

Greetings

Talked with the custom office in Heraklion and they told me that I have 6 month to do this after move to Greece. So no problem.

@Mhuni
Hi again....Yes you are probably correct about the annual road circulation fee. I had the same on a 2005 Citroen Picasso ( 2 litre)...crazy a 1.8 BMW was cheaper !!!

Hello, i have a Ford Ranger of 2017, its a euro 6, i would like to import it to Greece for ever, do you know if it would be possible?, i dont mind the cost to much.

@ Grocer and responses to the post - fantastic information, thank you. I'm looking to register my Sprinter campervan in Greece, it's Euro 5, 2011, 313CDI.

I have a Greek residency card so will I need to hand all the UK utility bills to the Greek Embassy in London?

Should I find the import/export person in Greece or UK? You mentioned that the customs office helped you find someone, did you just go in person to the customs office and ask?

Any further information or assistance much appreciated.

For anyone trying to import a car into greeve you need to be prepared for a complicated and very frustrating journey - the grocer was correct a few years ago but things have changed a lot now - both due to Brexit and in part due to new laws in greece that are not always fair now or even sometimes in line with eu laws (don't ask why)

I am Greek Brit going through  the same process - speak and read Greeks and have made many enquiries already

it's very simple - you have two choices

if your car is small, modern and cheap go for 1 - if it's larger, older and not euro 5 or euro 6 - go for 2

1. Import your own car and face a lot of hassle - if you don't find an agent to do this you will be screwed (many times)
2. simply buy a car in greece once you have your Greek tax if ie afm tax id

We're going through this process too- to import a Euro 5 campervan ( German built so LHD) and would appreciate any help in finding an import agent in the Kalamata area who could help. We have booked an appointment at the Greek Embassy in May for the Household

Effects certificate.TIA

Road between main tax office and

@sandiedawn With main tax office behind you look at the cafe opposite and the road to the left of the cafe.....Round the corner there is a guy in offices there that I used for my caravan

@The Grocer thank you!

Hi guys,

If I want to use my EU number plate car in Greece up to 6 months, do I need to report it to the Greek authorities or I just come then leave with my car? I have Austrian tax residency, but I have a temporary residence card in Greece due to owning a house, where now I want to spend few months to see how life is in Greece .

Later I might want to move to Greece bringing my car with me. If I understand correctly even if it's my own car I still need to pay registration tax. It is a euro5, but plug-in hybrid, so i am a little confused with costs, plug in hybrid has 75% discount for registration tax (below 50g CO2 emissions), but it has euro diesel 5 engine. I guess the 1000 euro environmental fee still need to be paid. Can someone confirm that? I tried to talk with Athens customs on the phone (since i am in Austria), but they wanted me to talk to a broker. I couldn't find a reliable one, got contradictory information so far.

I appreciate any help and recommendation for a good custom broker or a helpful English speaking custom officer. Generally I think customs should be able to answer these questions, but I was not able to speak English with them.

@PhilIpZ20201 thanks, that's very clear a.d helpful. My campervan is euro 5 and I'm quite attached to it since I have converted it myself. However, I will do more research and in the end it may be that option 2 is what I will go for. I know that finding a similarly good campervan in Greece can be tricky.

Go4it and good luck !

Do you know how long it takes from vehicle inspection to getting Greek plates issued.  I have a company doing my import from UK to Greece but is taking forever!!!

I don't know if this information will be helpful, as we shipped our car from Canada. On the day we picked up the car from Pireaus, it took about 4 hours for the broker to get all the paperwork and insurance sorted. The broker did all the paperwork to apply for "green" tourist plates for us, which will allow us to drive the car for up to 6 months per year.  We visited the local customs office closest to our home to pay the fees and waited an additional 3 weeks before the plates were ready to pick up.

When we picked up the car, we were told there would be an inspection. I didn't get a clear answer re: who would do the inspection and what would they be looking for. However, I did not see anything like an inspection take place. Once the paperwork was completed, we were driven into the secure area at the port to collect our car & we drove away.

@gemmeroni may I ask you some questions since you came from Canada?  I am working on figuring out how to move to Greece from Canada.  At this point I would love to speak with others who have done the same, but to stay on topic...

What is a tourist permit vs a regular permit?

I assume you have property in Greece since you would go so far as move your vehicle there but do you happen to know how residency differs from tourist?

I am trying to decide if I aim towards the gold visa or if I just buy cheeper property and be ok with the limit of 90 days per year.

@gemmeroni

thank you but our has been permanently imported into Greece.  So the paperwork took a month then we had vehicle inspection where we surrender the plates and now wait for the Greek ones.  It's been another 2 weeks and therefore we haven't got a car to drive!

@Turnip 72 I am sorry it's taking so long for you. Since we didn't have to surrender our plates, we were able to drive around until the tourist plates came through, so that was certainly a plus for us. Having no car and no indication of how long that last must be very frustrating.

@Deda May

What is a tourist permit vs a regular permit?

The tourist plate allows us to drive our car for up to 6 months per year. When we arrive, we call the port authority and someone from the office will "unlock" the car. We need to do the same just prior to leaving. Before we received the tourist plates, we arranged Greek insurance on our Canadian plates. The insurance fee was substantially lower once we switched to the tourist plates.

I assume you have property in Greece since you would go so far as move your vehicle there but do you happen to know how residency differs from tourist?

We do have property in Greece. My husband is Greek and I was born in an EU country, so we are able to stay longer than the 90 days allowed for Canadian travellers.

I am trying to decide if I aim towards the gold visa or if I just buy cheeper property and be ok with the limit of 90 days per year.

I guess it depends on what will work best for you!

@gemmeroni it certainly is!

@The Grocer one of the most important aspects is the emissions rating of your vehicle aka eurocap earring as due to Brexit the uk is greyed much worse than the rest of the EU ie if it's Eurocap 5 or worse forget it

As I understand it, a penalty of €3000 euro is payable on a Euro 4 vehicle, and €1000 for Euro 5. Anything older will not be accepted. Has that changed?

Update.  My car now has its plates and we're all legal to drive in Greece!!

@sandiedawn you cannot import eurocap 4 or 5 from the uk to greece - period

@PhilIpZ20201 please can you substantiate this as its not what I've been told by an import agent (who first checked with Ministry of Transport)? Maybe it's because our vehicle is originally from Germany and the Certificate of Conformity is in German?

@sandiedawn because I tried with my uk car - if it's German you are lucky

@gemmeroni Thank you for the information. We would appreciate it if you could answer one question regarding the process to get the green plates (tourist plates).

For years in Greece there is an absurd condition/requirement in order to complete the paper work for a car to get green plates and be used as a tourist/vacation car by the owner

The customs office requires that a Greek resident with property ownership (someone other than the owner or their spouse) to sign a statement that the car will not be stolen while it is locked in Greece and the owner is out of the country. This is a order from the Minister of Transportation in addition to the other legal requirements to obtain green plates.

This is the reason we have not done it yet, because it is very difficult to find someone in Greece to sign and take responsibility that the car will not be stolen!

Can you please let us know if this was a requirement for your car? If it was not, then we can assume that they have removed that requirement.

Thank you again

never heard of this but could be correct