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Hi Angie,

Insurance companies can be a little funny about Japanese imports, even if the cars are identical to those sold new in Ireland. I'm a bit surprised the company demanded proof of it having an immobiliser though – that's not the norm, in that most of the time they take your word for it. Perhaps do some more shopping around on the insurance side?

If the Auris looks the same and has the same powertrain as the cars sold in Ireland, then I wouldn't worry about parts.

In terms of warranty, get the longest one you can of course.

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Hi Pat,

MDL, the Irish distributors of BYD, tells us it will be "Q2 2026".

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Hi Pat,

We're not aware of any changes to the Smart #1 Brabus since it went on sale a couple of years ago, but yes, it is still listed as available on the Smart Ireland website. 

Here's our review of the car if you're interested.

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Hi Mark,

We don't have any information on this at all I'm afraid. It would be highly surprising if it did not eventually come here, but we don't know anything more at this stage.

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Hi John,

The Mazda3 was updated slightly last year, but nothing drastic, and yes, that's on sale in Ireland. No announcements have been made about an all-new model.

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Hi Patrick, 

It's not yet in Ireland (in fact, we're driving it in the coming week at its European launch), but we have been told that it should arrive in the second quarter of this year. We'd guess that means closer to the "262" plate in July in reality.

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Hi Patrick,

At the time of writing, prices for the 2026MY MG4 EV have yet to be announced, so there's only one variant listed on the MG Ireland website. It's the Excite Standard Range at €30,995, though there's a 261 offer live as well knocking an additional €4,000 off that price.

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Hi Jason,

First up, whether a used car coming from Northern Ireland is subject to VAT or not is purely to do with its customs status, not its value. If this BMW was registered new in NI, or was imported there from England, Scotland or Wales and then used by someone there (as opposed to being imported by someone to sell on), then no VAT would be payable on importing south of the border - regardless of its value.

You would need to be able to prove its status. If it was registered new in the North, then that will be easy to do of course.

Now for VRT. There is VRT relief for electric cars , but that only applies if their Open Market Selling Price (OMSP) is below €50,000. For cars worth more than that there is no VRT rebate and you'd have to pay VRT according to Band 1 for cars emitting 0-50g/km. That's currently 7% of the OMSP.

In case you're not familiar with it, the OMSP is the value Revenue believes the car to be worth after it's registered in Ireland. It's not related to the price you've actually paid for the car.

A quick check of the classifieds reveals that 2022 BMW iXs are listed in Ireland for between €44,000 and €60,000. If the model you're looking at is deemed to have an OMSP of less than €50,000, then you will get a bit of VRT relief, but nothing substantial.

For your information, if Revenue places an OMSP of €60,000 on the iX, VRT of €4,200 would be payable.

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Hi Ger,

No prices as yet, but the Irish media launch of the e Vitara will be towards the end of March, just a few weeks away, which means the car will be available to order imminently.

Once we have Irish prices, we will update our review of the car.

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Hi Tomas,

Revenue's website is only ever a guide in any case, so you should always do your own calculations, so you have an estimate. We can help with that but be aware that all figures below are only estimates.

First up, we're assuming you mean “GB” – i.e. England, Scotland and Wales – as opposed to “UK”, as the latter would include Northern Ireland as well. If the van is coming from Northern Ireland, the treatment of import duty and VAT is different.

Coming from GB, however, you will have to pay 10 per cent import duty and 23 per cent VAT.

The duty is calculated on the “customs value”, which is the price paid, transport and insurance together. If the van is £13,000, that's about €15,000, so the import duty would be a minimum of €1,500 before any allocation for transport or insurance.

VAT is charged on the sum of the import duty and the customs value. So if import duty is €1,500 in this case, and the customs value is €15,000, that's a total of €16,500. VAT is 23 per cent of that, at €3,795.

Unfortunately, regardless of where you are importing the van from, Revenue will treat a six-seat crew cab van as Category A for VRT, which means you'll have to pay the NOx levy (could be as high as €4,850 for a 2019 Trafic) and VRT based on its CO₂ emissions.

You'll need to get the official figures for this van, but if say the CO₂ emissions rating is 171-190g/km, then it's in Band 19 for VRT, at 35 per cent of the so-called OMSP.

That's the Open Market Selling Price, a value Revenue believes the van to be worth after registration in Ireland. It's not easy to guess. If it's €20,000, then the VRT would be 35 per cent of that, or €7,000.

This is all looking very costly, I'm sure you agree.