Reclaiming Dutch BPM when your car moves to Spain

The Tax Administration lists, among other things, these conditions:

• the vehicle is a used car, van or motorcycle with a Dutch registration on which BPM was paid;
• it received its Dutch registration on or after 16 October 2006;
• it is not a damaged vehicle;
• it has export status at the RDW;
• it has been taken to the other EU country and permanently registered there within 13 weeks of the RDW granting export status.

A car that stays in the Netherlands after deregistration therefore does not qualify. The order is fixed: first deregistration for export, then the refund request for a vehicle with export status. The papers you receive on deregistration are described on Dutch car export documents.

In practice, those 13 weeks are the tricky part. After arrival come the ITV inspection, the registration tax IEDMT, the municipal road tax and registration at Tráfico. If the CoC is missing, a ficha reducida is needed first. If the car was bought from a private seller, Spain also asks for a translated purchase contract and the transfer tax ITP. And the DGT has up to 3 months by law to deal with an application: almost the whole BPM deadline.

If you want to reclaim BPM, check before deregistration that the papers include a CoC. Book the ITV station and a cita previa at Tráfico as soon as you arrive, or ask a gestoría to do it. The steps and documents are on registering a car in Spain. If the car is driven and things take longer, you can extend the export insurance, but the Tax Administration's 13 weeks do not move.

We check whether your car meets the conditions and calculate the possible refund. We then complete the application, submit it to the Tax Administration and keep track of the deadlines. If the Tax Administration rejects the application or the decision is not what was expected, we lodge an objection where needed.

The service costs a fixed €149 including VAT. The export document is not included; we arrange it separately, from €50. The Tax Administration decides on whether a refund is granted, how much and how long it takes, so we promise no refund, no amount and no deadline.

The starting point is the car's gross BPM. From that, a fixed reduction is applied for each month the car has been in use. The older the car, the smaller the amount that can come back. The refund is paid into the bank account the Tax Administration has on record.

Among other things, the refund form asks for a copy of the foreign registration, which in Spain is the permiso de circulación. Also keep proof of the transfer, for example:

• the invoice with the name and address of the foreign buyer;
• proof of payment;
• transport documents.

Make copies of the export certificate and the registration card before you hand in the originals for Spanish registration. If you use our service, send us the documents as soon as you have them, by email or WhatsApp.

If you are moving with your own car, a BPM refund is possible as well: according to NederlandWereldwijd, moving to an EU country is one of the situations in which it applies. Even so, be careful. The Spanish relocation exemption from registration tax requires that the car received no tax exemption or refund on departure, and whether a Dutch BPM refund counts as one is unclear.

So ask the Agencia Tributaria or an adviser before you apply for either. More about the exemption is on moving to Spain with a car. All our desk rates are on the cost of importing a car to Spain.