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Hi David,

A camper van that’s more than 30 years old qualifies for vintage tax, which is just €56 a year. You will have to NCT it, but only once every two years. Once it’s older than 40 years, it’ll be NCT exempt. As for insurance, that will very much depend upon your insurer, but usually a classic car policy will have a mileage limit included. Some are as little as 5,000km per year. 

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Hi Mike,

Unfortunately, Revenue and the VRT process are inexplicably cruel in this regard. You have to pay the money before you appeal, but the good news is that more than 50 per cent of appeals are successful. It would be helpful to find some expert in Japanese vehicles (and I would suggest tracking down a garage that imports them regularly) to give you their opinion on the value, as Revenue is legendarily awful at coming up with reasonable values for unusual cars.

As for the NOx charge, I would ask for a statement in writing from the VRT/NCT office that you brought the car for inspection before January, but were told to come back afterwards. That might (emphasis on the might) get that waived when you make your appeal.

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Hi Mark,

This is unfortunately a common issue with Revenue, VRT and ‘out of the ordinary’ cars. Sadly, and infuriatingly, there’s no way to appeal before payment. You have to pay and then appeal. My advice would be to get some expert advice (possibly from an importer who specialises in GT-Rs, or possibly from an owners’ club) as to the true value of the car, which you can then present as part of your appeal.

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Hi Bryan,

It’s not going to be too bad, actually. A 2016 Verso will run you about €2,400 in terms of VRT and, unusually, it’s one of those older diesels that’s not too bad in terms of NOx, with an official figure of just 24mg/km, meaning an extra charge of €120 on top of that.

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Hi Maura,

God knows, the VRT and VAT system is byzantine at the best of times, but according to the Revenue handbook, the VAT charged on an imported vehicle is based on the price paid, converted into Euro. According to the handbook, under the heading ‘Purchase of new vehicles (New Means of Transport) by a private individual from a person in another country’ it says: "The VRT is calculated on the Open Market Selling Price (OMSP) of a vehicle, rather than the actual purchase price. The value for calculating VAT is the price charged for the vehicle, converted to Euro where necessary."

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Hi Veronica,

That car should (emphasis on the should) have NOx emissions of just 30mg/km so will cost just €150 extra on top of the normal VRT. 

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Hi John,

The quoted weight on the V5 should be sufficient as the only thing that matters come inspection time is the maximum gross vehicle weight, the limit for which is 3,500kg. As long as you’re not carrying a two-tonne load (which the van wouldn’t take anyway) you should be fine. 

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Hi Roy,

You haven’t said whether this is a BMW 420i (petrol) or a 420d (diesel), so we’ve checked both. For a 420d diesel, the VRT charge is going to be in the region of €3,900 depending on the specific spec of the car. For a petrol 420i, it’s going to be pretty similar — around €3,500. There will be NOx tax charges on top of that, but thankfully even the older 4 Series diesel models were very NOx-efficient, just 23mg/km officially, so that’ll only be an extra €115 onto the VRT for the diesel. Oddly, the petrol 420i was actually a little worse off for NOx (28mg/km) so that’ll cost you €140 extra.

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Hi Paul,

No. If you purchase it as a commercial vehicle, then you will pay the commercial vehicle VRT rate of 13.3 per cent, whether or not you then go on to convert it. There should be no VAT implication either, as you’ll pay the normal VAT rate at the time of purchase. According to Revenue, if you’re converting to M1 status, you only need to make them aware of it if you’re adding seats to the vehicle, but as with all VAT matters, check with your accountant before leaping. 

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Hi Hugh,

Sort of, yes. The thing is that there aren’t any five-seat commercial 4x4s anymore — the N1 certification loophole for that kind of car was closed off in 2018, so now five-seat SUVs pay a full rate of VRT. However, if you’re exempt from paying both VRT and VAT then one of those very cars (Toyota Land Cruiser, perhaps? Or maybe a VW Touareg?) would be an ideal car for you as you will be getting one at an effective 50 per cent discount compared to the rest of us. Well worth investigating.