Non-Canadian can registrate a car in Ontario

[pickypalla]

Hello guys,

i´m a german guy heading to canada ontario next week and my plan is to buy a car there for travelling around.

Does anybody know if i can registrate the car in my name in ontario (toronto).


Thanks for your answers

[Tony LEE]

Don't know about that province but it seems as if every Canadian vehicle owned by foreigners in S America is registered in British Columbia. Problem comes at the other end because transferring BC registration is said to be very difficult unless both parties are in BC

[pickypalla]

i will be in Ontario, so it has nothing to do with south america. But i also regocgnized the fact with travellers and BC...

The transfer shouldn´t be a problem only the registration im worried about.

I thought may here are some canadian people from ontario with experience

[PanEuropean]

You can register a motor vehicle in Ontario no matter where you live as long as you provide a legitimate address for service of documents. This could be, for example, the address of a friend. So far as registration of ownership of a vehicle is concerned, Ontario doesn't care who the person is - you don't need to be a citizen.

But, that alone is of little comfort to you. The big problem you will face is putting a licence plate on the vehicle, insuring the vehicle, and driving the vehicle.

Automobile insurance is mandatory in Ontario, and the penalties for operating a vehicle without insurance are very severe: the first offence has a fine of $10,000 and possible jail term. Ontario has a very sophisticated system of making sure that vehicles are insured before issuing a licence plate (which is not the same as issuing a certificate of registration of ownership) for a vehicle. You have to provide proof of insurance in order to get a licence plate, and the government licence plate issuing computer is tied into an insurance company database, which means that the insurance certificate you provide must be 100% legitimate and valid in order to get the licence plate.

Additionally, many police cars in Ontario are equipped with licence plate scanners which read the licence plate and immediately check it against the same insurance company database to make sure that the car is currently insured. This means that you cannot, for example, cancel or fail to renew an insurance policy after you have obtained the licence plate. If you try that, you will get caught very quickly.

In order to obtain insurance, you will need to provide an abstract of your driving record (presumably, in your case, from Germany) to the insurance company. Without being able to prove that you are a competent and properly licensed (in your home country) driver, you will not be able to obtain insurance.

Be aware that insurance is expensive in Ontario. For example, I am retired, 45 years driving experience, no tickets or accidents in the last 25 years, and I pay about $2,000 a year to insure a VW Golf.

Once you do obtain insurance (on the strength of your European driver licence and providing a record of your European driving history, including a letter from your European insurance company attesting to your driving and claims record), you now face one final hurdle: You will have to exchange your European driver licence for an Ontario driver licence.

This is because you will have claimed an Ontario address to register and plate the vehicle, and you will have claimed an Ontario address to obtain insurance. Ontario law states that anyone who moves to Ontario (which is what you will have effectively said you have done by these two actions) must obtain an Ontario driver licence within 60 days of moving to the province.

If you have more than 2 years of driving experience, it will be quite simple to obtain an Ontario driver licence - you just swap your German one for the Ontario one. But, be aware that you can only do this 'swap based on experience' for an automobile driver licence - there is no provision in the treaty between Germany and Ontario for swapping motorcycle driver licences. If you want an Ontario motorcycle licence, you have to go through the whole process as if you had never operated a motorcycle before, and this is a long, expensive, and restrictive process.

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I wish I could have provided you with a 'happier' answer, but the rules here are the rules, and they are very diligently enforced.

A possible alternative for you - I'm not absolutely certain of this, but it is all I can think of - would be to have a friend of yours who is an Ontario resident with an Ontario driver licence buy the car for you and insure it for you. You could then drive it using your German driver licence as long as you are a bona-fide tourist (meaning, you have not established a residence in Canada). It would be wise for you to have an international driving permit (IDP) that provides a translation of your German-language driver licence, unless by chance your German licence is bilingual German-English or German-French.

Insurance in Canada covers the vehicle, not the operator. This means that anyone who operates an insured vehicle is covered by the policy on the vehicle, provided that they are operating it with the permission of the owner (in other words, they have not stolen it).

Michael

[PanEuropean]

Here are links to two websites that will give you further information about the processes involved:

For registering a vehicle in Ontario: How to register a vehicle in Ontario (this is the official provincial government website)

To obtain a driver licence if you already have one from a foreign country: I have a driver's licence from another country. How do I get an Ontario driver's licence? (This is not a government website, but it is the organization the government funds to assist immigrants to Canada)

Hope this helps you.

Michael

[pickypalla]

Hello Michael,

thanks for the imformations, i didn´t expect such good infos thx thx thx

i will do it like you advice me in the last sentences. a friend of main from canada shall buy the car insure and registrate it for me, thats the most easiest way!

a international driverlicense i have already.

Again thanks for the information!