Buying and registering a MC in Germany
 

I was asked by a fellow from Australia how to go about this. He plans to buy a bike in Germany and travel around Europe for a while. I did some research and this is what I came up with.

You want to avoid all the red tape, which would require you to become a formal resident, get a valid address, a bank account and such. For a tourist, the way to go about this is as follows:

Anybody, citizen or not, can register a vehicle for export. You will get an export plate (Ausfuhr-Kennzeichen), which is valid for 1 year, during which you may use the vehicle in any country.

There is no obligation to actually export the vehicle, you may go abroad and come back, and you may sell it again in Germany if you wish.

Not all insurances will deal with export vehicles, but there are some that will readily insure you and the vehicle. The vehicle registration office can point you to a suitable insurance agency nearby.

If you use the vehicle for less than 3 months, it is road tax free.

If you use it for more than 3 months, you have to pay road tax. Not much, I gues less than 50 Euro. You should announce the export license duration in advance when you register the vehicle. If applicable, the folks at the registration office will prepare the paperwork for tax matters. You need to personally show up with these papers at the tax bureau to settle tax matters, this will cost you a few extra hours. Finally, you need to pay the tax through money transfer. No other payment method will do. If you don't have a German bank account, you can go to any bank, pay the amount in cash plus a small fee and the bank will do the money transfer for you.

Another complication arises if you want to visit one of the countries that require a "Carnet De Passage". This would be countries in the middle east or north Africa, for instance. It is possible to get a carnet for a to-be-exported vehicle, but I won't cover the details here.

Finally, when you buy a bike, make sure its inspection sticker is valid throughout your planned usage period. As a foreigner, you don't want to deal with vehicle inspection (TUV) in Germany. If a dealer offers you a very good price on an uninspected vehicle, ask him to get it inspected before you buy. It should not raise the price of the bike by more than, say, 60 Euro. If he refuses or asks for more, don't buy, there is something wrong with it.

ghorian, thanks for this post, but I am looking at buying an MC in Germany at the moment and have encountered a problem which I wanted to raise in this thread: as far as I can tell it is not possible to enter Russia on these temporary export plates.

When I say "not possible" I am still in the process of determining whether it is not possible at all, or not possible unless you pay customs duties on the bike prior to entering Russia. Best case, it would not be easy...

Anyway, this is obviously not an issue for people not going to Russia, but wanted to point this out here to prevent someone from having a nasty surprise at the Russian border. I will try to post here if I learn more.

Ghorian,

regarding carnet de passage - I'm pretty sure the german automobile association ADAC offers a carnet even for export vehicles. The fee is € 150,- plus the sum for the carnet (which is refunded upon return). Meaning even with export plates you are able to return to Germany.

Sure, that's what I said.

Not only that, you may actually export the bike to the other end of the world. If you get the required customs documents in your destination county, which may require to pay the appropriate import duties there, and present those docs to ADAC, they will refund your carnet deposit. There are a bunch of rules how to go about this, but it sure is a supported procedure.

Thanks for that excellent summary. I'd like to add a few points:

As you pointed out, you need to decide in advance how long you want to register it for. The rego can not be extended.

Apart from Russia there are rumours around about other countries not accepting export plates. One of them is, amazingly, Italy. I think I read this on the ADAC web site.

I also seem to remember reading on an official German site that the vehicle has to be exported from Germany within a fairly short period of time. Perhaps somebody can check up on this and either confirm or deny.

Last, this process includes the official cancellation of the German rego, meaning that if you intend to return the bike to Germany you will face large bureaucratic hurdles in re-registering it, especially if you don't speak German. This will affect the resale value.

Good point about the TUV inspection to avoid buying a dodgy bike. Once you are outside the German speaking countries police are very unlikely to take an interest in it, though.

I think this has nothing to do with export plates. The issue you refer to pertains to a different kettle of fish, namely short term plates (rote nummer). Though red plates are sometimes used to transfer vehicles from Germany to neighboring countries, they are not universally accepted. Especially Italy is clamping down on them.

I glooked up a few references that talk about this:

Nicht mit Kurzzeitkennzeichen nach Italien | Autosieger - Auto-Magazin
Kfz-Kennzeichen (Deutschland) – Wikipedia

Again, this applies to red plates. Export plates, in contrast, may be used for a year anywhere, including Germany. That is what the vehicle reg office told me a week ago. They might not really know about problems with Russia, but I'd trust their advice regarding Germany.

Sounds like a valid point, although, with copies of the original German papers, re-registering a cancelled vehicle should not be too much of a problem for a native.

Yes, a native helper would be a great help with all of this.

ghorian, all this is very helpful, thanks, could you explain what "temporary" (red) plates are, and how they're different from export plates (I can't read your German links...)? I'm wondering if the sources I've seen (or I myself) may be confusing the two.

Also, as part of the explation, are the export plates obviously visibly different from normal German plates (I assume they are, but want to check).

There are Two kinds of short term plates.

1. the "red plate"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Nummer%29.jpg

Usually, dealers stock a few red plates. For a yearly fee, the red plate covers short term registration for any otherwise unregistered vehicle. Red plate use is restricted to vehicle relocation, testing, and a few other things. Use of a red plate for a given vehicle is limited to a few days (I don't know exactly how many). Red plates may or may not be legal in neighboring countries.

2. 5-day short term

Those plates are similar to the red ones, but limited to one-time use. Their usage is similar. Short term plates MUST NOT be used abroad.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ennzeichen.jpg

3. Export plates

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...8Export%29.jpg

Those are the ones this thread is about.

very helpful, thanks.

Thanks for clarifying that. I've been away from Germany for too long, obviously. :blushing: