HOWTO No. 3 - Importing A Car Into Corfu

Disclaimer. The information contained within this document is offered without any guarantees of accuracy. Should you choose to act upon information contained herein, you are advised to confirm it with the relative authorities before taking any action.

I guess that technically this guide should be entitled, "How WE Imported a Car into Corfu"! This worked for us and I have no reason to believe that it won't work for others.

Note! You must have owned the car for more than one year. If you have not, don't bother reading any further and don't take your car for more than six months!

However, there will be at least one other warning within the guide that I will make very plain at the appropriate point! We would urge that you read the whole guide before deciding whether this is something you wish to undertake.

In the first instance, I intend giving the bare bones account of what you will need to do and secondly an account of our ACTUAL experiences which put the former into some perspective!

Do You Really Want To Do This?
Why did we decide to import our car you might ask? A good question. If you have read our first HOWTO guide to moving from the UK to Corfu, you will realise that we had decided that we were going to ship some of our personal effects. Having spoken at length to the forwarding company, I discovered that the cost of shipping the car was £750 + VAT but that I could also fill the car with whatever goods I could get in it leaving just enough room to drive it!

This seemed quite inviting as we were concerned for the safety of quite a few breakable items ..... not to mention my computer equipment! An added reason for us importing our car was that although 16 years old, it was in good condition and has very low mileage. (We bought it less than two years ago when it had only done 9,000 miles!) From enquiries through friends in Corfu we found that it would cost us at least £2,000 to £3,000 to buy a second-hand car in Corfu. We decided that we would stick with the devil we knew!

Before you make the same decision, think seriously about it. You may wish to make enquiries as to how much registration duty the Greek Customs will charge for the privilege of importing your car. The discounts as at the time of writing are shown here. Note that the age of your car has a direct bearing upon this.

I am grateful for the following information from Yannis Natsinas who responded to my query, posted via the Internet on the alt.travel.greece newsgroup. (Recommended!)

Scale of Discount for Vehicle Registration Duty

This is that warning that I mentioned earlier on!
If you take your car to Corfu without first having obtained an import licence with all the attached supporting documentation, it can cost a small fortune! A friend was quoted £6,000 for a 6 year old car! Taking the trouble to obtain the necessary documentation BEFORE you travel to Greece will save lots and I mean LOTS of money! In my case the tax required was reduced by over 60% merely because I had spent a morning at the Greek Embassy in London and had satisfied their requirements for supporting documentation. I paid €540 tax. We considered it worthwhile. You may not.

The Process - The short version
1) Get an import licence from the Greek embassy before you leave the UK.
2) Get an export licence from the DVLA before you leave the UK.
3) You may require an EC Type Approval Certificate for your car, obtainable from the manufacturer. We did not.
3) Make sure that you have sufficient insurance from your UK insurers to cover you for two or three months.
4) Make sure that you have a receipt for the car.
5) Get a spare set of UK number plates! Yes really! Read on.
6) Transport the vehicle to Corfu
7) Employ an import agent to do the work for you. (I suggest that unless you are a fluent Greek speaker, versed in Greek legalese, that you really should consider employing the services of an import agent).
8) Within one month of arriving start the process of importing the vehicle with the Greek customs.
9) Have the vehicle inspected by the customs. (NB Do make sure that the engine and chassis numbers in the documentation for the car are correct!)
10) Pay import tax, import agents fee and stamp duty.
11) You still need to get your vehicle tested at the government testing station. (KTEO) The import agent will arrange an appointment at the testing station
12) Register the vehicle and pay tax for registering it. (Yes on top of the import tax). Oh yes, I almost forgot. You also have to pay the road tax to get the tax disc to stick on your windscreen!
13) Insure your car.
14) Enjoy motoring in Greece!
 
The process - Reality!!
These are the facts about how we imported our UK registered vehicle into Corfu base upon our Personal experience.

1) Obtain An Import Certificate From The Greek Embassy In London
Personally visit the Greek Embassy in London between 9.30am and 1pm, Monday to Friday (Greek hours!) and take with you:
The vehicle registration document.
The current MoT test certificate relating to that vehicle.
EC Type approval certificate (if required).
Your last three council tax receipts (No, I'm not kidding!).
Your last 3 Inland Revenue Forms P60 (I'm still not kidding!)
Your Inland Revenue form P45 (Yes, really).
Your own and spouse/partner's passport.
In addition to the above, you should know the date which you wish to import the vehicle.

Get there early!! Before the doors open if possible. You have been warned!

The more astute may already begin to recognise some problems with the list of requirements already! In my case, my employers, the Metropolitan Police Service, in line with some other 'Government' employers did not issue P60's or P45's. They issued a substitute form.

THE GREEK EMBASSY WILL ACCEPT THESE. At least they did in my case. Of course, if like me, you are still employed at the time of making your application, you won't have a P45 from your employer. It is only issued when you leave. I can see some difficulties here for some people, depending upon what their circumstances are. In my case, I was retiring on a pension, on a given date and had documentation that stated this. The embassy was happy to accept this in my case.

What happens if you cannot find your last three Council tax receipts? Well, in my own case, I couldn't! However, I did have a few older ones plus the last two, so I took these and explained the circumstances. This was accepted.

In short, be honest and open. If you foresee a problem, telephone first and persist until you get through to the correct department. This can be a chore! The lady who dealt with my application, Mrs Siori, was extremely helpful and advised me before I visited. However, I visited on the clear understanding that she would examine what documentation I had and make a decision based upon my individual case. I cannot guarantee that any advice here will apply in different circumstances.

Assuming that all goes well, all that remains is for you to pay the fee (£12-50) for the import licence and all those stamps that appear on most Greek legal documents. Then there was a short visit to the Consul who signed the documentation and before you know it (about one and a half hours in my case) you are the proud possessor of a Greek import licence!

This is Important!
One last thing relating to the import licence. It will have copies of the supporting documentation attached with stamps between the joins making it obvious if anything is added or removed. DO NOT feel the urge to separate the bundle or the document will probably become void.

2) Get an export licence from the DVLA
Get an export licence from the DVLA by returning the registration document, correctly filled in indicating that you wish to PERMANENTLY export the vehicle. If you wish to visit a local office of the DVLA, you may, but not more than 14 days before the vehicle is to be exported. (I did this). If you are sending it to the DVLA in Swansea, they advise doing it in plenty of time! Their website has full information on the process.

You will need to know the date of export, the port from which it will be leaving and any countries through which it will be travelling. I guess that this is the case if you are driving the vehicle. As I was shipping it by lorry, they accepted the port of exit and the port of entry into Corfu. I argued that I had no knowledge of the route to be taken by the forwarding company.

The DVLA will retain the registration document and issue you with an export certificate. This was a painless process and was completed very quickly. (I don't praise government departments lightly!)

3) Insurance
Make sure that you have sufficient insurance from your UK insurers to cover you for two or preferably three months. We were advised that Greek insurers would not cover you unless the car is Greek registered or the driver holds a Greek Driving license. My insurers, AXA, actually provided up to 93 days European coverage.

4) Ship the vehicle.
In our case, this involved packing the car with such goods as we could get in it, driving it to the forwarding Agent where it was left ready for loading. On the same day, they sent a lorry to collect the other 58 boxes of effects. Oh yes, pay the forwarding company in advance or make sure that, if you don't, that you have sufficient cash to pay at the other end! Also ensure that they advise the Corfu end that you have paid in full if that is the case.

5) Employ an import agent to do the work for you.
I suggest that unless you are a fluent Greek speaker, versed in Greek legalese, that you really should consider employing the services of an import agent. Again upon advice, we employed Mr Andreas Doukakis of Doukakis Travel, Av. Ethnikis Antistasis, Corfu, Greece. 49100, Tel: 0661 039710 / 039585, Fax: 0661 039939. We were satisfied with his service and he had the added advantage of an office immediately opposite the Customs offices. He knew everyone there by name! This helped.

To give an idea of time span, we started the process with the import agent on 25th April and had the car registered on Greek plates, Tested, taxed and insured on 6th June. The Greek Easter intervened.

The time table went like this:
On 25th April we asked Mr Doukakis to take the job on. We were sent to the Customs to present our papers. Unfortunately, although both Tricia's and my passports had the details of the import licence, together with the number clearly recorded, the embassy had omitted to put the number on the actual licence! Problems!

There followed several attempts for the Greek Customs to try and contact their own embassy in London. Yes you guessed it, they encountered the dreaded recorded messages inviting them to "Press 1 if ....., 2 if .....!" It was all that we could do to stop ourselves laughing. If ever there was a case of "Gotcha!"

To their credit, they persevered, and eventually contacted Mrs Siori at the embassy who confirmed that the omission was their fault and that it was all right for the Customs officers to insert the correct number.

Upon return to the import agent's office, phone calls were made and an approximate figure for the tax bill was arrived at. It seemed that as we had all the necessary documentation and that it had passed initial inspection by the Customs, that we had suddenly become great chums of Mr Doukakis! I suspect that he realised that his task was not going to be too onerous!

We returned to Mr Doukakis' office on 15 May. Note that the Greek Easter had fallen between the two visits and like the UK at Christmas, everything grinds to a halt! Between ourselves and several members of staff from the import agent, we checked that the chassis and engine numbers were both visible and matched those on the export and import licences. Then the Customs officer attended and did the same thing! We were then told, very forcefully, that we must produce a receipt for the car. Now, if I mention that the vendor was in a different country and dead, the more astute amongst you may recognise the difficulties that this could have caused! Suffice to say, I found the receipt but have never, to this day, been asked to produce it! The papers were then forwarded to Athens.

After a couple of telephone calls we ascertained that the papers were back from Athens on 3rd June and so we again attended the import agents office where I was relieved of the tax which was only slightly over the estimate. There was just one slight problem, there was one document that only the 'Director' of the Customs could sign and he was nowhere to be found! I would have to collect it later. Our passports had a note added by the Customs confirming that import tax had been paid.

I also had to hand over our number plates. Remember that spare set I mentioned earlier. (Grin!) To be honest, I am not sure of the legality, but my attitude was that until the vehicle was registered in Greece, I still had UK insurance and tax paid, together with a current MoT certificate and so therefore I assume that it (and I) were 'legal'. The more I think about it, I must admit to being unsure on this point!

WARNING!
All I will say is that driving around with number plates and corresponding documentation is less likely to get you stopped and prosecuted than driving around with no number plates and trying to explain why! Do not say I told you that it is OK if you choose to go down this road. (No pun intended!) It is your decision.

Import agents fees paid, all that remained was to register the car, or so I thought! It needed to be tested; similar to the Mot in the UK I was informed. An appointment was made for the 5th June and I was asked to collect the missing form then. There is only one KTEO testing station on Corfu and it is government run. It is situated in the road immediately to the right of Aqua Land Water Park in Agios Ioannis as you face it. Should you have to make an appointment for the KTEO, their telephone number is 06610 52001

Now I am not going to cast aspersions on the effectiveness of the testing! All I will say is that it was a very quick process. Once you have paid the €23.50 fee the test is over before you know it! The test 'certificate' is valid for two years unlike the UK test certificate. You are now in a position to consider registering your car!

Registering your Vehicle In Corfu
This is, in reality, a two-fold process! First there is the vehicle registration process and somewhere in the midst of this are various visits to the Nomarkia to pay different taxes!

Three things you need to be aware of are:
a. The office, situated in Velisariou, just up from the old port, is closed all day Wednesdays and opens on all other weekdays from 10am until 1pm.
b. You must take your residence permit as well as the documentation from the customs office and valid test certificate.
c. You must take a photocopy of your test certificate. It is probably advisable to take a copy of your residence permit as well. Unlike UK government buildings, they are not running alive with photocopiers and if they were, they won't copy documents for you! There are a number of commercial places in Corfu Town that will copy for you. I paid 12 cents for two A4 copies.

If, as I was, you were totally unaware of the process it can be frustrating! Take our advice. Maintain your composure AND sense of humour and above all be polite and thankful for any assistance! If you do, you will come through unscathed, slightly poorer but with your cherished red number plates!

Again, I will explain the procedure based upon our experience!

Having first attempted to register the car on a Wednesday, I returned bright and early the next day clutching my documents. Tricia and I wandered into the building and I guess it must have been our totally bemused expressions that caused a really helpful employee to come to see what we wanted. His English was impeccable, much to our shame. He checked our papers and said, "Where are your Residents Permits"? True to form they were at home in our filing box! Back home we went to collect them. (34 mile round trip!) We knew that the office shut at 1pm and I was determined that I wasn't going to be beaten by bureaucracy!

Slightly flustered but unbeaten, we got back in record time and the same helpful man said, "Sorry, but you don't appear to have paid the tax for registering the car"! He also told us that we needed a photocopy of the test certificate. We then had to race around to the nomarkia, where I had to find the correct office and pay the tax (75 euros). We obtained photocopies of the test certificate on the way. Back we went to the registration office and saw the same nice man who appeared satisfied and invited us to sit in his office. The papers went off to another member of staff who reappeared after a short while when the nice man announced, "Now you have to go back to the Nomarkia and pay the car tax"! I told him that I thought I had paid it. "Oh no", says he, "This is for your tax disc"!

By this time it was 12.50pm! I pointed out the time and he said, "No problem, we'll still be here". I wasn't going to be put off this time and so I said, "Well, if that's the case, you won't mind if I leave my wife here as I will be quicker on my own"! You should have seen Tricia's mouth drop! Anyway, I got back to the Nomarkia to the same office where I had previously paid the tax and saw the same girl. 135 euros later, a visit to the cashiers and back to the girl and I was presented with my tax disc!

I raced back to the registration office which I found locked .... with Tricia still inside! She unlocked the door for me! (What a team!) Lo and behold, 30 minutes and a little more bureaucracy later and I was presented with my new number plates - red on white as opposed to black on white, signifying that the car has been imported.

Despite my tongue in cheek humour about the bureaucracy of the process, I would like to say, for the record, that we are indebted for the help provided at the vehicle registration office, without which we would still be trying to work out what to do.

Insurance
Remember! Unlike the UK, the insurance applies to the car and not the driver, although when I asked why they wanted to know how much 'no claims' bonus I was entitled to if it was the car that affected the insurance costs, nobody could give me an answer! I was also told that the older the car, the more expensive the insurance. Further, that owners over 65 years of age attracted higher premiums! Ageist or what? We would welcome hearing of other peoples experiences in respect of insuring cars. 

Having found an insurance company and sorted out the car's insurance, the car was then, to our mind at least, 100% legal - after a little nifty work with screwdriver and drill to fit the plates.

Did we sleep well that night? You bet!

Where We Went Wrong Plus a Little More Info!
First we should have visited the nomarkia in Corfu Town. You should go to the first floor and find office number 10. Present your documentation to the staff and explain that you wish to pay the tax for registering the car. You then have to take an invoice to the cash desk, which is on the same floor but on the opposite side of the building. You will then part with your cash and be given a receipt, which you return to office number 10 with.

The papers are then marked up and you need to take them to the Vehicle Registration Office situated in Velasariou Street. You will return to office no. 10 at the nomarkia to obtain your tax disc later.

The reason for you having to return, as explained to us, is that you cannot be issued with a tax disc until the registration office has been advised of the registration number allocated to your vehicle from Athens. This cannot be issued (apparently) until you have paid the tax for registering the car! Got it?

Conclusion
If you have struggled your way through this guide and decide to import your car. Well done! If you decide that this is not for you, then I hope our experiences have provided you with a few laughs at our expense. I suggest that the major obstacle could be cost. That really is something that you must decide for yourself. The bureaucracy is something that you will quickly become accustomed to.

We hope that this rather lengthy epistle proves of value. We will happily respond to emails, so please   We welcome hearing of others experiences so that we can provide the best information possible.