Update: Estonia as a place for non-Europeans to buy an EU bike

[AnTyx]

A few years ago, a couple of HUBBers contacted me to help them buy bikes in Estonia with a view of riding into Russia and down to the Silk Road. It worked well back then - they made it safely and had a great trip.

Last week, I helped one of them do it again, this time with a car. (They bought a crappy old minivan for a thousand euros to go camping in Norway.) So we've seen the bureaucracy again, and it turns out to be even simpler than I thought before. I figured it's a worthwhile report to have here on the HUBB.

Here's the way it worked:

0. Ahead of arriving in Estonia, the buyer (who is on a non-EU passport) looked on the websites where all vehicles are advertised. That's auto24.ee for cars, mototehnika.ee for bikes. He chose a few that seemed like good options, I called the owners and talked to them in Estonian, arranged a viewing on the buyer's day of arrival.

1. On that day's evening, we go to see the car. The buyer negotiates with the seller, they reach an agreement. We sign the paper sales document, the buyer writes his passport number instead of the Estonian ID code, and his home address outside the EU. One copy stays with the seller. We get the other copy, and the registration certificate (little green strip of paper).

When the transaction is between two Estonian residents, it's done entirely online (paper-free), but this requires the new owner to have an Estonian ID code. To put the seller's mind at ease, I put my name and ID code on the papers in addition to the buyer. The seller can go online and inform the registration office that they are no longer the owner of the vehicle (võõrandamisteade in Estonian), and leave my details as the person who is now in possession of the vehicle. At that point the seller has no more liability for the vehicle - even if it hasn't been re-registered in the new owner's name.

2. The next morning, me and the buyer go to the vehicle registration office in Tallinn. We give the sales contract and the registration certificate to the official. At this point, there needs to be an Estonian citizen/resident to act as the representative for the buyer. I fill out a basic form saying "yes I am the representative for this person".

Crucially, unlike what we did before when buying bikes, it turns out that I do not need to become the Authorized User of the vehicle. My name does not go on the vehicle's registration certificate. It means I am not liable for the insurance premiums or parking fines or anything else on that vehicle.

3. The new owner shows his non-EU passport that matches what's on the sales document, and pays a 61 euro fee (by card, right there). He gets a new registration certificate, this time with him as the owner. (It is also possible to put your travel companions on the registration as simple users - basically you're allowing them to drive the vehicle, but not sell or export it.)

4. We go around the corner to an insurance broker, and the new owner gets mandatory traffic insurance (including a green card) in his name. In this case, a month's insurance on a generic old minivan was around 22 euros.

....done.

5. When their trip is done, they can bring the car back to Estonia and sell it, or they can scrap it - then send the plates, registration certificate, and certificate of scrapping to the Estonian registration office, and the vehicle will be deleted from registration. But crucially, unlike the previous way we did it, this is no longer my headache, as I am not in any way responsible for the vehicle.

The upshot is that I now feel much more willing to support other non-EU HUBBers who might want to do the same thing. I won't make a business out of it, as the transaction did take half a day of my time, but I might be willing to entertain the occasional help request, and so might other Estonians.

[crisidsto]

Very interesting post and infos.
I wonder if something like this can work even with a EU buyer (Italy)

[AnTyx]

Of course. No obstacles to it.

[Shustrik]

It is also possible to get Estonian Personal Code for a non-EU foreigner. I know about two ways of doing it:


1) to request in person in Estonian Police
In this case you'll have personal code assigned to you, although you won't have any ID issued.


2) to request Estonian e-Residency card through their Embassy, it costs 100+ euros and you need to wait, but you'll get the card which works similar to other Estonian IDs (and personal code will be written on the card).


You supposed to use it as a tool to sign into e-gov services to register a business, but you can also use it for some other services. I assume registering vehicle on your own name would work if you have someone as Estonian resident to be your representative.



I went with option 2 some time ago. I didn't try to register vehicle, but turned out it was very useful in 2021 when I was able to get local EU-approved covid shots in order to get EU vaccination certificate (which has helped me with cross-border mobility at the time very well, when I stuck in Russia with only Sputnik vaccine).

[AnTyx]

Originally Posted by Shustrik

1) to request in person in Estonian Police
In this case you'll have personal code assigned to you, although you won't have any ID issued.

Yes - but without the e-residency ID card, you can't use online services, so it's not really any advantage over just going to the vehicle registration office with a local representative.

2) to request Estonian e-Residency card through their Embassy, it costs 100+ euros and you need to wait, but you'll get the card which works similar to other Estonian IDs (and personal code will be written on the card).


You supposed to use it as a tool to sign into e-gov services to register a business, but you can also use it for some other services. I assume registering vehicle on your own name would work if you have someone as Estonian resident to be your representative.

Indeed - this would work even without a representative. (The most common use case is to register and run an EU-based business, but the e-residency system is agnostic, it's just a consequence of people realizing there was no reason not to issue our e-IDs to people who were willing to pay for them.)

I have spoken about this in another thread, and from what I can see, it should be entirely possible for two non-Estonian citizens, both of whom have this e-residency card, to transfer ownership of a vehicle that is anywhere in the world, entirely online and in ten minutes, for the cost of the state registration fee. Plus whatever it costs to overnight your new registration certificate from Tallinn to Ushuaia.

[Shustrik]

That is awesome news that with e-Res card one should be able to register a vehicle on his own name. I suppose there should be some Estonian address though, even if no need for a representative :-)


I would definitely go with this option having in my mind long round-EU trip in future.

[finitor]

Originally Posted by AnTyx

The new owner shows his non-EU passport that matches what's on the sales document, and pays a 61 euro fee (by card, right there). He gets a new registration certificate, this time with him as the owner.

AnTyx, what is the impact of the Estonian requirement for regular technical inspections? Let's say you want to do a multiyear round-the-world trip. Can the registration certificate be renewed from a remote location, without bringing the vehicle back to Estonia for inspection?

[AnTyx]

No, you need to present the bike to an inspection station.

However, note that this is NOT an equivalent to a road tax (e.g. like there have been reports of Australian police checking the validity of a British bike's road tax). The technical inspection is only that - an inspection that the Estonian government cares about.

In practice, as it has been discussed elsewhere on HUBB, foreign border guards (especially outside the EU) do not care about your expired technical inspection in your home country; worst case scenario, you go to the country's local tech inspection place and have them write you a paper saying the bike meets local requirements.

In my own experience, I've been in a car that was driven up to the Russian border with no inspection. The Estonian border guards just sent us back, saying to go and do an inspection; we did, and came back, and they let us through no problem.

In the letter of the Estonian traffic law, you ARE allowed to operate a motor vehicle that has no valid technical inspection but DOES have valid traffic insurance, for the purposes of 1) getting to the nearest inspection station, or 2) getting to and from a repair shop that will fix whatever failed the inspection.

So under the law, if your inspection expires while you are in Australia, you are perfectly within your right to proceed overland to the nearest Estonian inspection station.

[xNateX]

In the spirit of keeping my options open and potentially buying a motorcycle in Estonia to tour Europe on, I applied for the Estonian e-residency. It turned out to not be a simple matter, and I eventually dismissed the idea and moved on.

In particular, after having submitted the application with the straight-forward answers to the questions there-in, namely that I was applying to make it easier to purchase a vehicle in Estonia as an American citizen. After my submission, I was contacted again with an email stating that my application had deficiencies. I quote...

"In your application, you have indicated that your activity with e-residents digital ID card is to buy a car. According to the law the purpose of e-resident's digital ID is to promote the development of the Estonian economy, science, education or culture by providing access to e-services with the Estonian digital document. Please clarify how your activity will promote the development of the Estonian economy, science, education or culture."

I could not answer that question. Perhaps there is a suitable answer and I simply wasn't aware of it. In any case, I responded by asking to have my application cancelled. This thread gave me reason to believe that e-residency may be helpful but not essential.

Anyways, just a heads up on what to expect for my fellow adventurers considering Estonian e-residency.

[AnTyx]

Indeed - helpful but not essential.

From what I have heard, people have simply put something to the effect of "I am interested in the concept of e-residency and want to try it out", and have been approved. But in the last year or so, they have gotten at least a little strict with the applications, just because there were a lot of people from countries on banking restriction lists using the system to try and get European bank accounts.