Italian Car tax

11/09/2009 - 14:10

I wondered if anyone could explain how to calculate the car tax in Italy, I know it is to do with horse power etc but is there a useful website like our own DVL  site which can allow one to find out how much tax is paid  on say.... a 2008 ford focus 1.8TDci with a radio??

Comment

In reply to by Penny

Well done Penny..I gave it a try -  expensive, quite a lot more than the UK . Berlusconi has his fingers deeper in your wallet than Gordon Brown.  Seriously though Italian drivers have for a long time had the smallest carbon footprint in the EU - largley due to high fuel prices (remember the tourist petrol vouchers of 20 odd years ago)  and high car taxes. Shame, as I quite fancied a slightly bigger motor. Ah well the budget says we'll be running an Ape....or maybe a Piaggo trike!!

We have a Nissan Navara 4WD pickup with a 2.5 litre diesel engine.Last year, Italian road tax was less than €65. The Agenzia delle Entrate calculator says we'll be paying the same next year.I just used the Parker's website Road Tax calculator and it said I'd be paying £405 Road Tax this year if the car was registered in the UK. Next year, the cost will be £435.Of course, if I was running the same car in Britain, I'd also be paying about £250 a year for insurance instead of €1,000 (an amount that seems fixed and never decreases, even though I've never had an accident in Italy).If you're on a budget, I suspect that the cost that may be the main determining factor in what sort of car you run is how much you will pay for insurance, not the Italian road tax, which is really just a token amount.Since it's marginally relevant, I repeat my favourite Italian road tax story. A year after I bought our car, I decided to renew the road tax, so I visited an ACI office to sort this out. It was only at this point that I learned that the car dealer had handed over an untaxed car and I'd been driving without tax for a year. The fine was something like €7 plus interest. That evening, while watching a UK TV channel on satellite, the DVLA advert showing a car being crushed because it was didn't have a valid tax disk was shown. That says something about the two countries, but I'll leave it to you to figure out what.Al

According to the registration documents, our 2.5 litre diesel Navara is rated at 126 kilowatts, which is apparently 196 horsepower.That is indeed a bit more ooomph than that possessed by your typical Ford Focus. Tables on Parker's suggest it could be as much as twice the power (with, of course, the concomitant increases in fuel consumption and exhaust emissions).I have no idea why we're paying less that we would if we had a Fiat Panda diesel. The registration document is far from being as clear as it might be, but I can see nothing obvious on it indicating that the Navara is considered special in some way. But perhaps it is. I dimly recall hearing that they were considered good value in Britain at one point because they weren't considered "normal" cars when it came to calculating Road Tax. Suppose the same might apply here.Whatever the case, I really would not recommend that anyone get a vehicle the size of ours unless they had a definite, practical need for it. We have it because we live on a farm in an area which can get a lot of snow. I don't regret buying the Navara, but it is expensive to run and it can be a a bit hair-raising now and then when driving it around Italian cities.Al 

Yep, I'd keep quiet about your car tax, it seems you're getting a good deal for some reason, try 126kw into the ready reckoner and you'll se what I mean. Not sure what they mean about the "EU classification" and how that relates to the UK car tax categories but there are variations in tax paid from region to region here in Italy. Thinking about buying a car and the UK seems a lot cheaper than Italy but the transfer process looks like a real drag... no rush however. Now, concerning UK car tax dodgers..mostly they will be driving with no MOT or insurance (or license) either hence the draconian penalties I suppose.  Billy

You need to know the exact horse power on your car, the year of fabrication, the type of gas it runs on and the list can go on. There are websites that can help you with that and you can also find the information you need at car dealerships if you want the get a new car. I got my car through IA car dealerships, these are all the details I can give you.

Aside from the KW, certainly if the vehicle is classed as an autocarro the tax is different. However, apart from the insurance on an autocarro being more expensive, I do not think you can insure a 'commercial vehicle' unless you are VAT registered - I'm not even sure if you can register one in your name without a partita IVA. The E classification also has a bearing - this is a European emmissions standard, and the cleaner the car (E4 or E5) then the lower the road tax. Depending (I think this is still the case) on which province you live in, you can use the ACI site to enter your car reg number which will give you the precise cost of the car tax for your particular vehicle, and you can also pay the bollo on line.

yes, in italy we used to pay car-road tax like happens in the rest of europe. then it was announced that it was to be abolished....and it was...after that they promptly introduced the car-property tax on vehicles based on the kw the engine produces.this has generated a number of problems: firstly you no longer have a road tax disk in your window to remind you when and what is due so you "forget" to pay it.this then leads to extravagant bills/fines deliverred to you from the regional government.On the positive side one is not required to demonstrate to the police one has paid it or not (not their business any more).i have a 3.0 litre diesel pick -up but pay only Euro 39. per annum because it is classed as an "autocarro" i don't know how that quite translates but more or less as a commercial vehicle...but for the same reason however i pay an extortionate insurance premium....swings/roundabouts anyone.

Just wondering..if anyone has any recent experience of running a UK registered car in Italy for a substantial amount of time...I understand that after 6 months you're supposed to get it switched...but are the cops in rural areas generally turning a blind eye and not enforcing this still?  Be interested to hear.

Hi  JamesProctor111......... There are LOTS of English plated cars tootling around the country side of Le Marche near where I live. It is all about risk............... 1. It is illegal, 2. I'm not aware of anyone having had (sadly) an accident and been unable to claim, 3. The 'laws' have been enhanced quite dramatically earlier this year which specifically says (along the lines of) foreign registered cars are only to be used by 'tourists', 4. More and more people are re-registering in Italy (for the above and other reasons), Are you feeling lucky !!????? For what it's worth, I bought an Italian car and pay outrageous insurance costs.............but...........have I done the right thing?............I think I have but.......I'm not sure !! S

A very very close friend of ours has been driving a UK reg Car here for at least 6 years, and takes it back to the UK every year to MOT it. The local Police are very aware of it, and don't seem at all bothered, rather take the view that as long as it is maintained,taxed and insured they have better things to look at. It all depends if you are willing to risk it being stopped by an over zealous Caribinere, that knows you are not a tourist....