What the carte grise on an imported car really costs
There is no single figure. The total is an addition of separate charges printed on the same document, and two of them can come to more than the car is worth.
The six lines on the certificate, five of which you pay
The document is officially the certificat d'immatriculation. Nobody in France calls it that, so you will come across the term carte grise at the garage, at the tax office and on every form.
What it costs is not one figure but a column of coded lines, Y1 to Y6. Five of them are charges you actually pay on a passenger car; Y2 only ever appears on a van or a lorry. Here they are, one by one, at 2026 rates.
| Line | Charge | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Y1 | Regional tax | 60 EUR per cheval fiscal |
| Y2 | Vocational training tax | Vans and lorries only |
| Y3 | CO2 malus, the emissions penalty tax | 0 to 80,000 EUR |
| Y4 | Weight malus | From 1,500 kg |
| Y5 | Fixed charge | 11 EUR |
| Y6 | Delivery fee | 2.76 EUR |
Y5 and Y6 are identical for every vehicle in the country, 13.76 EUR between them, and they are the only part of the bill that never moves. Everything that makes an import expensive, or reassuringly cheap, sits in Y1, Y3 and Y4.
The regional tax, and why your own address sets it
Y1 is the vehicle's puissance fiscale, its administrative rating expressed in chevaux fiscaux, multiplied by the rate per cheval fiscal set by the region where the registered keeper lives. In Centre-Val de Loire that rate is 60 EUR in 2026, and the region has reached the statutory ceiling, so the rate cannot rise any further. An 11 CV car therefore attracts 660 EUR of regional tax, and a 47 CV supercar attracts 2,820 EUR.
Buying in Stuttgart or in Chartres makes no difference to this line; moving house between regions does. What counts is the address that will be printed on the certificate on the day the application is filed.
Two reductions exist. The rate is halved for a vehicle more than ten years old, which is what makes an older second-hand import far cheaper to put on French plates than most buyers assume. Electric vehicles are no longer automatically exempt: since 1 May 2025 each region decides, and Centre-Val de Loire charges the full rate.
Reckon on 60 EUR per cheval fiscal in Centre-Val de Loire, an 11 EUR fixed charge and a 2.76 EUR delivery fee, and you have the entire predictable half of the bill. The unpredictable half is Y3 and Y4.
The two malus charges, where the real money sits
On a 2018 diesel saloon the carte grise comes to a few hundred euros. On a large new petrol SUV it can pass 80,000 EUR. The two are not the same transaction, which is exactly why an import is never costed by guesswork.
Both are one-off charges. They fall due when the vehicle is registered in France for the first time, and they are never asked for again when it changes hands afterwards. The CO2 charge (article L. 421-62 of the code des impositions sur les biens et services) starts in 2026 at 108 g/km and reaches 80,000 EUR above 191 g/km. The weight charge (article L. 421-75) applies from 1,500 kg, at a marginal rate of 10 to 30 EUR per kilo. Its base is the masse en ordre de marche, the running mass shown in field G of the registration document, not the gross weight in F.2 and not the unladen mass. Article L. 421-74 caps the two together at the highest figure on the CO2 scale that applies to the vehicle, and it is always the weight charge that gets trimmed, never the CO2 one.
The scale applied is the one in force in the year of first registration, abroad included, which is where most online simulators go wrong. A car first registered in Germany in 2021 falls under the 2021 scale, capped at 30,000 EUR, and not under the 2026 scale capped at 80,000. On a fast car the gap between those two readings reaches 50,000 EUR, and it is the difference between a deal worth doing and a deal you walk away from. The scales do not switch over on 1 January either: the 2025 one only took effect on 1 March 2025, so a car registered in January 2025 is still read against the 2024 scale.
Age then cuts what is left, on a sliding scale in bands of months (article L. 421-7-2, created by article 29 of the loi de finances pour 2025), reaching full relief at 181 months. Anything first registered before 1 January 2015 pays neither charge at all, whatever it emits and whatever it weighs, and a battery-electric or hydrogen vehicle is exempt from both (articles L. 421-67 and L. 421-79). Our import calculator (in French) applies the official scales from 2015 to 2026, age relief included, and the full working is set out article by article (in French).
What the registration file has to contain
The taxes are only half the job. The application goes nowhere without the documents, and one of them takes weeks to obtain, which is why it is ordered on the day the car is bought rather than on the day it arrives.
- The foreign registration document, or the sale certificate where the authorities abroad have kept the original.
- The European certificate of conformity, the COC, issued by the manufacturer or its French representative. Reckon on 100 to 300 EUR and one to three weeks, a month with some marques. Where no COC can exist, the file goes through a procès-verbal de réception à titre isolé, an individual vehicle approval granted by the DREAL, the regional directorate for the environment, planning and housing. That route is slower, dearer and not guaranteed to succeed, so it is settled before the car is bought, not after. What to do when there is no COC (in French).
- The quitus fiscal, formally the certificat fiscal 846 A, the tax clearance certificate stating that the vehicle's VAT position is in order, for anything previously registered in the European Union. For a vehicle from outside the Union, the customs clearance certificate takes its place. How the quitus is obtained (in French).
- A contrôle technique, the French roadworthiness test, for any vehicle over four years old. It has to be less than six months old on the day the application is filed.
- Proof of identity, and proof of address less than six months old in the name of the person whose address will appear on the certificate.
The file is made out in the name of the person who will be the registered keeper, and rests on that person's own documents. That last line is the one that trips up buyers who have only just arrived in France, and it is worth settling before a car is bought rather than after it has landed.
Where we come in
Send us the link to the advertisement. You get back the complete price and the tax calculation, line by line, before anything is committed. We buy the car, we bring it back, and you buy it from Autonero: a French invoice and the two-year legal guarantee of conformity that a French professional seller owes its customers under French law (garantie légale de conformité, articles L. 217-3 and following of the code de la consommation). 40% on order, the balance on delivery.
The registration is run from here, as your mandataire, an agent acting under a written power of attorney: COC, quitus fiscal, contrôle technique, WW plates and the application itself. Third-party costs are passed on to the euro, because what a professional can legitimately charge for is the work, not the document. And when a vehicle cannot be registered in France, we say so before you have paid, since a car that cannot be registered is not an inconvenience but a dead loss.
Autonero, 10 rue du Bois Paris, 28630 Nogent-le-Phaye, Eure-et-Loir, six kilometres from Chartres at junction 2 of the A11. Viewings, handovers and trade-ins by appointment. Telephone +33 9 80 80 15 10, or send us an advertisement to price (in French). If the car is still to be found, start with importing from Germany, start to finish (in French).
Read next
- Buy a car in Germany without ever leaving France
- The malus on an imported car, worked out the way the French authorities do it
- When French VAT is due on a vehicle you import
- Quitus fiscal: the tax certificate standing between your car and French plates
- Buying a vehicle from Autonero, delivered worldwide
How much does a carte grise cost for an imported car?
There is no flat rate, but the range is easy to bracket. On an ordinary 11 CV diesel of ten years or more, the regional tax is halved and the total comes to just under 345 EUR, provided the car emits under the threshold for its year of registration. On a recent, heavy, high-emission petrol car, the same document runs into tens of thousands, because the two malus charges dwarf everything else on the certificate. The part you can work out in advance without any help is the regional tax, 60 EUR per cheval fiscal in Centre-Val de Loire, plus 11 EUR and 2.76 EUR of fixed lines.
Can I drive the car while I wait for the final carte grise?
Yes, on a temporary WW registration, valid for four months. It is only issued once the vehicle has been paid for in full, and we handle that step ourselves. Once the definitive application has been filed, the system also issues a certificat provisoire d'immatriculation, a provisional certificate valid for one month and usable in France only, which covers you until the printed document arrives by post.
Does the regional tax depend on where I live or on where the seller is?
The rate per cheval fiscal is set by the region the registered keeper lives in, not by the place of purchase and not by the dealer's address. Someone living in Centre-Val de Loire pays 60 EUR per cheval fiscal whether the car came from Munich, from Marseille or from our own forecourt. The only thing that changes that figure is moving to a region with a different rate before the application is filed.
Do cars over ten years old really pay half?
On the regional tax only, and age is counted from the date of first registration, not from the date you bought the car. The fixed lines and any malus are outside that reduction, although the malus itself is heavily reduced for a vehicle over ten years old in any case, and it disappears entirely where the first registration predates 1 January 2015.
Does an electric car pay the regional tax?
No. The rate per cheval fiscal is nil for a battery-electric vehicle, and electric and hydrogen vehicles are also exempt from both malus charges (articles L. 421-67 and L. 421-79). What is left on the certificate is the 11 EUR fixed charge and the 2.76 EUR delivery fee. A plug-in hybrid is in a different position: it pays the regional tax in full and it is not exempt from the weight charge, although it does get an allowance on its mass.
What is a quitus fiscal and do I need one?
It is the tax clearance certificate, formally the certificat fiscal 846 A, issued by the French tax office. It states that the vehicle's VAT position is in order, either because the tax has been paid or because none is due. You need one for any vehicle previously registered in another EU member state; without it the registration application is refused. It costs nothing when no VAT is due, since it is a certificate and not a tax, and where VAT is owed it is paid at the tax office and the certificate follows. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours in practice, once the file is complete. Outside the Union it is the customs clearance certificate that plays the same role.
Do I need a French contrôle technique, or will the test from the other country do?
The contrôle technique is the French roadworthiness test, and it is required for any vehicle over four years old. For a car previously registered in the European Union, a test carried out in that country is accepted, on one condition: it has to be less than six months old on the day the registration application is filed. In practice the foreign test is nearly always older than that by the time the car has been bought, transported and cleared, so a French test is what ends up in the file. A vehicle under four years old needs no test at all.
I have just moved to France. Can I register an imported car in my name?
Yes, and you are required to, within a month of settling here, whatever your nationality, once France is your main home. The obstacle is rarely the car; it is the proof of address less than six months old, in your own name, that the file demands. Most new arrivals have everything else in place long before they have a French utility bill in their own name. Where that is your situation, tell us early: the four months of a WW registration are usually enough to cover the gap, and it is far better to plan around it than to discover it once the car is in the yard.
Is the malus payable on a used import as well as a new one?
Yes. What triggers the charge is the first registration of the vehicle in France, not its first registration anywhere in the world, so a five-year-old German car being put on French plates pays it, reduced by the age scale. It is a once-only charge: once it has been paid, it is never asked for again when the car is sold on, which is why a car already registered in France carries no malus for its next buyer. And a vehicle first registered anywhere before 1 January 2015 pays nothing at all, which is what makes older imports so much cheaper to bring in than people expect.
If I buy through you, who actually deals with the paperwork?
We do, from the advertisement to the plates. We buy the car, repatriate it, and sell it to you as a French dealer, which means a French invoice and the two-year legal guarantee of conformity that a French professional seller owes its customers under French law. The registration is handled as your mandataire, an agent acting under a written power of attorney: certificate of conformity, quitus fiscal, contrôle technique, WW plates and the application itself. Third-party costs are billed on to the euro, with nothing added. 40% on order, the balance on delivery.
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