Ducati Scrambler - only 600 miles - on Sale in France with US title and plate
 

I bought a Ducati Scrambler Full Throttle in USA in March 2019 and registered and used in USA till September 2019 while leaving there. For work reason I moved to France few months ago and I shipped the bike with me since it’s practically new (600 miles) and still in warranty. Unfortunately Ducati France is telling me that I cannot register it in France because of different ‘homologation’ (US standards quite different than European standards), so I’ll be selling it to the best offer. It’s now in a private parking, still with US plate (I attached also the title with the VIN number). Please feel free to write me back for more details or questions (as well as if you have any suggestions for registering the bike in any EU countries, since I tried to register it in Belgium or Italy as well and it did not work out).

I see that you have DC plates. While I lived in Moscow I kept a bike with DC plates in the EU for several years that I would use for vacations, never had a problem. But I also kept my DC drivers license, etc.

Assuming that you have a work permit in France, presumably you'll need to get a French drivers license, and so register the bike in France?

I have a couple of suggestions for you to at least think about, maybe they won't work, but selling a brand new bike is...sad:
1) When I moved from Moscow to Berlin, I brought a DC-plated, US-spec bike with me. The local BMW dealer also told me that it would be impossible to register the bike in Germany. But it turns out that I knew a guy, who knew a guy, who said it would be no problem. And in fact he did it rather easily, I don't know how. and I got German plates. So you might want to ask around the local biker community, maybe ask on forums, etc.

2) I'm not sure if this would help, but perhaps you could just keep the bike outside of France with DC plates and use it for trips around Europe (outside of France)--not sure if other EU countries would enforce French registration requirements. I kept my bike in Italy and had absolutely no problems, although I was living outside of the EU at the time, being an EU resident might make that more complicated or impossible.

3) You might be able to register the bike in somewhere like Latvia or maybe Estonia:
https://www.a1autotransport.com/latv...ation-process/
I don't know all the details, but it might be an option.

Not sure if any of these options would work, but if you are willing to be a little creative you might find that you can keep the bike.

Also, I would not sell the bike without removing the DC plates, for several reasons. First, as long as you keep the DC plates, you will need to keep DC insurance on the bike, or you will be fined several hundred dollars (DAMHIK) by the DC DMV. You might also have some liability issues if someone has an accident while the bike is registered in your name in DC, although I'm not sure.

Thanks, indeed I tried to register it in other countries, like Belgium or Italy, and in both cases they required a 'certificate of conformity' for European Standards. So I contact 'Panigale', Ducati HQ, to ask their support and details what I should eventually change in my US-standardized bike to make it 'European-standardized'. So far I did not get a straight answer, but rather a generic answer like ‘the Ducati France will help you on that’. Of course this is not happening since a couple of months now.

Thanks for tips, I’ll check the options of other EU countries to see I manage to register there. I also looked for other options for having this certificate of conformity, so far I could not manage to make it.

So I guess that easiest although less economically interesting is to sell it to someone that will eventually use it in USA, perhaps after a trip in Europe. The bike is basically new and I was not at all planning to sell it, so it’s in a great condition.

You're permitted to ride it on foreign plates for 6 months in EU countries. (Maybe more depending on individual country regulations.)
Some consolation to make use of it while you can!

ducati
 

would think change it to the uk plate would not be to much of a problem as there a lot of us cars on british plates . around our area near air base,

I would say your first stop should be a local motorcycle store that sells used Harley-Davidsons. They probably import them from the USA, and have an established procedure to give them an EU type approval certificate. They should be able to process your bike (for a fee, of course).

There are workshops in Germany, Finland, probably other countries that have the right to issue single-vehicle EU type approvals. It's done relatively frequently around here in the Baltics and in Finland (there is a big Harley/hotrod culture, so lots of demand for imports).

A quick google shows me at least one Estonian vehicle importer that actually advertises a full service for EU type approval for your vehicle. 600€ for a motorcycle, apparently. CARS.EE (use Google Translate).