UK temporary vehicle import
 

Hi. Im wanting to ship my bike from Australia to the UK. Use it for travelling purposes over there then ship it home after 6 months. Has anyone had any experience with the Temporary vehicle import procedure where you dont have to pay import duty and stuff?

Does this allow you to ride with Australian registration plates and an insurance policy issued from australia for use in europe?

Any conformation would be appreciated.

Hi
As far as I'm aware you're allowed to take the bike into the UK for upto 6 months without any documentation (Anyone correct me if I'm wrong) I'm leaving for the UK myself in three weeks and although I have a carnet it doesn't include the UK.
I remember filling in a form for Get routed which had the information on it, which was from the British customs.

Hope this helps

Steve

Just looked at the post again.
I had to get a green card (Knopf tours provided one) and I keep the Aussie plates on. When I get the carnet they send me an AU sticker for the back I think.

Good luck
Steve

Thanks. Good to hear other people are doing this.

We leave India for Pakistan in a few days so have started to do the green card insurance work. Looks like we will purchase the green cards through Knopfs tours as well. Have e mailed a lot of English insurance companies and they seem to not want to know us as we have australian registration. We have carnets but do not need them for UK. Only thing is that I recall reading somewhere that the 6 months that you can stay in the UK also includes the time that you spent in the EU. Anyone out there confirm this???? Am having trouble getting an easy answer to an easy (well we think easy)question. It also seems that if you are going to spend a full 6 months in the UK and can give them a local address PERHAPS you can get local insurance.

It wouldn't surprise me if the EU has unified visa things a little. On the other hand, yiou may not even get an entry stamp at Greek or Italian immigration. If you do just leave the EU before the 6 months are up and re-enter.

I don't think yoiu'll be allowed to stay in the UK longer than 6 months without going through the whole immigration rigmarole. This would definitely involve getting your bike registered in the UK.

As far as the GC is concerned you should be able to get it cheaply from the Turkish AA or at the border, but I'm going to ask an acquaintance about this. I got it from the AA in Izmir in '89 for a whole year. Theoretically, they should require this at the Turkish border but nobody did, so I rode around TR without. Not recommended. In theory it's also obligatory in Iran.

A "normal" insurance co. will not cover a foreign registered bike anywhere in Europe, it seems.

For what it's worth we took an NZ registered bike into Europe in '89 and stayed two years with it. It stayed in Germany in the end...

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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.