I’ve previously imported a number of cars personally from the UK and been really happy with the experience. I got higher-spec cars with better service histories, and for a better price than buying on the Irish market. But that was all pre-Brexit. Are there any cars or years that might still be worth importing from the UK and, if so, what are they? Is it PHEVs [plug-in hybrid electric vehicles] made in the EU no more than three years old? Or EVs?
From P Santoro, Co Dublin
There is a huge number of pitfalls when it comes to buying a post-Brexit car from Britain, as opposed to the UK, and we’ll come back to that in a minute.
The UK is now considered a “third country” nation when it comes to trade, and therefore if you’re importing a car from Scotland, Wales or England into Ireland, you will not only have to pay the usual vehicle registration tax (VRT). That can be as much as 40 per cent of the value Revenue Commissioners decide your purchased car would be worth if it had been sold in Ireland, known as the OMSP (open market selling price).
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You’ll also have to pay VAT on the actual purchase price, at 23 per cent, and import duty, which is generally 10 per cent of the purchase price plus shipping costs.
It means that UK imports, which once upon a time represented spectacular value for money – especially from 2016 to 2020, after the value of sterling collapsed, but before the full Brexit process had been completed – are now generally too expensive and too complicated to consider unless there’s a specific vehicle you want and you can only find it across the Irish Sea.
There is, of course, a loophole: Northern Ireland maintains a half-in, half-out stance with the EU, and so you can potentially avoid paying the customs duty and the VAT if you buy a used car in the North. There’s a whole bunch of rules surrounding this, and we’ve covered it in a previous Helpdesk answer, so check that out. It’s a very good option.
You are correct that UK models tend to be higher in specification, because UK buyers aren’t charged VRT on each and every optional extra that they add. And it is also true that, in general, the cars are kept in better condition.
We have been told by more than one Irish car dealer that there is simply no comparison between the condition of a three-year-old UK car and a three-year-old Irish car. As a nation, we’re spectacularly bad at looking after our cars.
When it comes to specific vehicle recommendations, it really comes down to precisely what you’re looking for, and the UK market can still be a happy hunting ground for some models, even with the extra costs involved.
Toyota, in particular, has always been a good brand when it comes to shopping in the UK, as while sales of Toyotas are reasonably strong there, the cars and the brand still are not quite held in the same high regard as they are in Ireland, so used values are a little weaker, and that means they can still represent something of a bargain. There’s another side to that, though, but more on that in a moment.
In a broader sense, the best cars to import from the UK are fully electric cars. Why? Because EVs have suffered the same sharp depreciation in the UK as they have here, and while you’ll still have to pay the VAT and the customs duty, at least the VRT will be in the lowest possible band of just 7 per cent. And there’s the VRT rebate for electric vehicles, which almost always means you’ll effectively be charged no VRT at all.
Of course, that’s only if Revenue calculates that the car is worth less than €50,000 on its OMSP.
There’s another good reason to shop in the UK, though – which in fairness might not specifically apply to you – and it’s for classic cars. According to Revenue, any car which is more than 30 years old counts as vintage (technically, a vintage car is one made in the period between the first and second World Wars, but Revenue bandies about such terms, including “Jeep”, with some abandon).
That means it is only charged a flat VRT rate of €200 to import, although you might get caught out paying a hefty chunk of VAT.
The good news is the classic car scene is much bigger in the UK than in Ireland, so there’s immense choice out there, and while the 30-year rule might sound like you’re buying a very old car, who wouldn’t love to spin around in a W124 Mercedes, or a third-generation Honda Prelude, or even an early Ford Mondeo?
I said we needed to come back to Toyotas, but actually what we need to do is come back to Japanese cars in general. Since Brexit was completed, and the cost of imports from the UK went up, many Irish dealers have turned to Japanese imports to fill the gap in their stock, and imports of used cars from Japan have skyrocketed.
You will still have to pay VRT, VAT and customs duty but second-hand Japanese cars are generally much cheaper to buy in the first place, so they’re better value overall than UK cars.
And we’ve been told by experts that the condition of the cars is at a level that suggests their owners were even more fastidious than those of cars coming from the UK. It’s not just Japanese brands, either.
There are now several Irish dealers making a happy living importing right-hand drive Volkswagens, Audis and BMWs from Japan. It sounds mad – especially given the potential carbon cost of the actual physical shipping – but bringing in your next used car from Japan might be a better bet than getting one from the UK.
