Changing UK plates to Spanish

You can do it on your own and save a bunch.

1, Contact any customs broker to comply with import formalities and pay import taxes plus 21% VAT on car value, customs charges and fees.

2. Change front (and rear) lights for right hand traffic.

3. Proceed to any ITV to get "Certificado de caracteristicas tecnicas". +/- 100,-

4. Pay road tax for current entire year at your coincil.

5. Pay pollition tax

6. Take all documents and title of ownership to "Trafico" to register +/- 100,-

7. Have license plates embossed +/- 35,-

8. Get insurance cover.

And that's it. A "Gestoria" will charge you charge as much as they can, better ask beforehand.

Thanks very much - that’s super helpful.

Or... get someone to do it for you as it is a hassle.Try car-registrations-spain.com. 

Based in La Zenia, they took our car for 5 hours while we went shopping and got something to eat and brought it back to us fully legitimate and compliant with all paperwork, work done on the car lights and ITV. Total cost 1200 €. The service they provided was first class.

La Zenia is about an hour and a half from us but, personally I would rather travel that distance and pay a company who does it on a daily basis rather than try to battle through the bureaucracy myself. 

Thank you so much will contact them tomorrow as I wouldn’t have a clue where to start !

It makes a lot of sense and I'm sure they'll look after you. Check out their reviews.

Hi, We used Gestoria Signes on  C/ de Sentori, 13, Denia. Cost about €600. Worth it to avoid the bureacracy for me. Was accompanied to the ITV station and all paperwork and fees done for us. It cost more to have the headlights changed which we did ourselves.

Thanks very much for the information.

So the office you mentioned can do everything, and will take the car to the ITV? All we need to do is get the headlights changed ?

Will they deal with the import tax for us ?

Last question, would they help/advise us on how to get road tax ?

thanks

Annie

Hi,

   They do everything except drive your car to the ITV station. They meet you there with all the paperwork and payments done. All you have to do is queue up and meet them after a successful test. They send the paperwork to Alicante and about 2-3 weeks later contact you with your new number plates to be collected from their office and final payment to be made. 

   He takes you through the process step by step and I found it quite painless except for paying for the headlights to be changed which cost more than the rest of the procedure.

Just as a comparison, car-registrations-spain.com organised absolutely everything and when our car was returned after 5hours the front and rear lights were done, ITV in place and number plates ordered, which turned up at our PO Box a week or so later. We had to do absolutely nothing apart from drop the car off and pick it up again. As far as we were concerned it might cost a little more but the convenience was worth the (slightly) enhanced cost.