Private individuals can introduce motor vehicles with foreign license numbers into Moldova only for a period of 180 days calculated during 12 consecutive months. The given provisions took effect on January 1 this year. In an online question and answer session, the head of the Customs Purposes Unit of the Customs Service Valeriu Kozyrev provided explanations about the new rules.
If the unit of transport with foreign license numbers of the citizen residing in the Republic of Moldova when the new rules came into force has been in the country for a period and hasn’t left the territory, the vehicle can stay until the period of three years stipulated by the old law expires. When the vehicle leaves Moldova, the old temporary admission regime is no longer valid and the period of 180 days during 12 consecutive months starts to be calculated when the vehicle enters again the country. In other words, the same rules are applied as in the case of nonresident persons with driver’s licenses issued in the country of residence, IPN reports.
The algorithm for calculating the period of 180 days was set in the information systems of the Customs Service. The period starts to be calculated when the vehicle with foreign license numbers enters first Moldova after January 1, 2023.
Asked to define solutions as regards the vehicles registered in the name of legal entities from Romania, which transport goods and passengers in Moldova, Valeriu Kozyrev said the aforementioned norms apply to these cases too. If a longer period than the 180 days during 12 consecutive months is necessary, the foreign legal entity will sign a contract with a legal entity from Moldova and will use the classical temporary admission regime, by submitting a customs declaration and providing a guarantee for a period of three years that can be extended to ten years. A temporary license number (red number) is necessary in this case.
The persons who bought motor vehicles with foreign license numbers can find out how much the vehicles have stayed in Moldova by calling on the Customs Purposes Unit’s phone number 022 574 191.
Valeriu Kozyrev noted that the Moldovans who introduced motor vehicles with foreign license numbers into the country after 2010 and haven’t taken these out of the country can go to the local customs office and confirm, by an own responsibility statement, that these vehicles were transmitted for being disassembled. Later, the customs office asks the customs laboratory to determine the equivalent value of these vehicles and the person can bring another unit of transport into the country only after paying this cost. This mechanism applies only to the vehicles introduced into the country before January 1, 2021. Import duties will be paid on vehicles brought in after this date.
The official of the Customs Service said that a working group under the aegis of the Ministry of Finance is working to reduce the customs duties paid on the import of motor vehicles with foreign license numbers, especially vehicles older than ten years, and the legislation is to be amended so that these vehicles could be registered in Moldova until the period of 180 days expires, which is by June-July this year.
Valeriu Kozyrev also said that the Republic of Moldova in the near future will review the system of tax rates for vehicles so that the citizens pay the VAT of 20% of the value of the vehicle brought into the country.
For further details about the temporary admission regime for motor vehicles with foreign license numbers, one can call on the Customs Service’s hotline 022 78 88 88.
