Menu
Expat.com

Buying a car in Italy

Last activity 15 March 2023 by Paul Daniel40

Post new topic

Leo18

Hi
Has anyone bought a car over in Italy yet?  We now want to buy one out here as we feel it will be better and more cost effective than hiring.
We have our own house in Tuscany and spend 7 months  of the year in it and 3 months at our home in the UK (Not consecutively) we are roughly 6/8 weeks in the Tuscan house then go back to see family in the UK for 2 weeks. We have permesso di soggiorno in our province.  Can anyone give any advice re how to go about buying a car over here and advice on insurance / license etc??

Here’s hoping

Lynn

Modicasa

If you are UK nationals you dont have a permesso di soggiorno. Yet.  Do you meanyou have residence?  You cannot buy a car in Italy withouot being resident.   You dont say if you are looking for a new car or second hand.  For second hand try subito.it, facebook vendo compro pages near you or autoscout.it.   Insurance is costly, and depends whether you can bring your UK no claims with you - whcih is time limited.

Leo18

Thank you we must have residence then we applied to the commune and we got a certificate

Andy-Wilson1963

Hi Lynn

You can't buy a car here until you have residency. The only way round it is to set up a company and have the company buy the car. That's what we did before we had our residency.

Hope that helps. Whereabouts in Tuscany are you?

Best wishes

Andy

Leo18

Hi
Thanks for replying - we have got residency.
So dies that make it pretty straightforward to buy then? What about insurance ?
We are 20 mins from Volterra. Where are you?

Andy-Wilson1963

Hi there, we're in Palaia about 45 minutes from Volterra. Regarding car purchase you should be able to buy a car no problem if you have your residenza. If you haven't already done so make sure you get your Italian driving licence sorted by the end of the year though. At the moment you can get one automatically but after January 1st you may need to take an Italian driving test, so we were told earlier this year. As for insurance, it's really expensive compared with the UK because you go right back to zero no claims bonus and it also takes about 12 years to reach maximum no claims bonus as the steps are much smaller than in the UK. If I remember rightly in the UK you reach maximum after about four years. Also the insurance goes up steeply the bigger your engine size, which is why everyone drives 1 liter Pandas :-)

Do you live here permanently?

Bye for now

Andy

Modicasa

You can transfer your no claims from the Uk if you so so within a year of it expiring in the UK.  More than a year and you're back at classe 16.  You will need your no claims in Itlaian which your UK insurer should provide you with. 

With residency it is very straightforward.  Remember that you as the buyer will pay the passaggio di proprieta which varies according to fiscal horsepower - around 500 euros usually.   It needs to be done either by the dealer if you buy through one, or if you buy privately you need to go either to the ACI/Motorizzazione or a disbriga pratiche who will make you sign all the appropriate forms.  Pay with an assegno circolare from your bank if its over 1000 euros.

Modicasa

You can transfer your no claims from the Uk if you so so within a year of it expiring in the UK.  More than a year and you're back at classe 16.  You will need your no claims in Itlaian which your UK insurer should provide you with. 

With residency it is very straightforward.  Remember that you as the buyer will pay the passaggio di proprieta which varies according to fiscal horsepower - around 500 euros usually.   It needs to be done either by the dealer if you buy through one, or if you buy privately you need to go either to the ACI/Motorizzazione or a disbriga pratiche who will make you sign all the appropriate forms.  Pay with an assegno circolare from your bank if its over 1000 euros.

Leo18

Hi
Thanks for that info. How do you go about applying for an Italian driving license - is it straight forward?
It makes sense why there are so many 1 litre pandas.
We spend about 8 months a year here ( not consecutively) we here atrium 6/8 weeks then go back to England to see family for about 2/4 weeks.
Obviously we were here for a straight 4 months during lockdown .
At the weekend it will be time to harvest our olives in readiness to take them to our booked slot at the raffineria d’olio on Wednesday next.

Palaia nice  - I think we may have looked at a house there .

Ciao
Lynn

Andy-Wilson1963

For the driving licence you need to go to the ACI and they'll tell you what to do. Bizarrely we had to have two medicals, one at the doctor which was basically ticking about 10 boxes and then charging us €60 each. Then we had to have another 'medical' at the ACI which was reading letters on a chart like when you have an eye test plus a few more box ticking type questions. It wasn't complicated but it did take a while because they had to seek clarification whether the UK was in or out of the EU for the purposes of converting a UK driving licence...

Leo18

We have been told that we just need our residency and identity cards in order to buy a car

Umbrian Phil

Yes, that's right, and you'll probably need an Italian bank account to pay for it.
You do realize you can't have two driving licenses. If you swap to an Italian one, you'll have to surrender your original one

Leo18

We havean Italian bank account

Leo18

The whole driving license thing is under review atm

michellefaul

Greetings,
Go to www.leaseplan.com and at the bottom of the page choose Italy.
Also, individual carmakers, Fiat, Lancia etc., have their own lease plans found online at their websites.
Best of luck, Michelle

Leo18

Hi Michelle
Sorry what do you mean by go to link under review
Regards

michellefaul

I was responding to the original question about how to lease a car in Italy.

Leo18

Aaah thanks Michelle

Paul Daniel40

Hello Guys,Go to annuncici.it , its a classifieds site where you can find a lot of car models, at good prices, you can negotiate and you have direct contact with the ownersHope this helps, Daniel

Articles to help you in your expat project in Tuscany

  • How to get a driver's license in Italy
    How to get a driver's license in Italy

    If you have decided to take advantage of your stay in Italy to take your driving test, this article gives you the ...

  • Driving in Italy
    Driving in Italy

    Driving is an excellent way to discover the cities, but also and especially the Italian countryside, the sea and ...

  • Buying property in Rome
    Buying property in Rome

    Rome has a complex real estate market, as is the case throughout Italy, and it is not always easy to find a ...

  • Buying property in Milan
    Buying property in Milan

    The decision to buy a flat or a house in Milan, a city with the highest prices in Italy, is a challenging one, ...

  • Student life in Milan
    Student life in Milan

    Milan is not only the Italian capital of fashion, finance and technology, but it is also the city of expatriates, ...

  • Leisure in Italy
    Leisure in Italy

    Living in Italy also means benefiting from a multitude of leisure activities. Between museums, art cities, ...

  • Starting a business in Italy
    Starting a business in Italy

    Are you interested in moving to Italy and setting up a business here? Italy's reputation for bureaucracy and ...

  • Long-term visas for Italy
    Long-term visas for Italy

    If you have decided to move to Italy, the question of a residence permit arises first. Depending on your ...

All of Tuscany's guide articles