Moving to Belgium With Your Car: Removal Goods Exemption Guide (2026)

If you are relocating to Belgium and bringing your own car, there is a customs rule that can save you thousands of euros: the removal goods exemption, called verhuisgoederen in Dutch. Meet the conditions and your car comes in at 0% import duty and 0% VAT.

Miss one condition, or do the steps in the wrong order, and you pay the full 21% VAT on a car you already own. We have run these files for clients relocating from the UK, the United States, Moldova, South Africa and the UAE, and the pattern is always the same: the rules are not that hard, but the paperwork is heavy and the order of the steps matters more than anything else.

This guide is the checklist we actually work from.

The short answer

If you move your normal residence to Belgium from outside the EU, you can import your personal car free of import duty and VAT, provided you lived abroad for at least 12 consecutive months, owned and used the car for at least 6 months before the move, declare it within 12 months of registering in Belgium, and do not sell or lend it for 12 months after import. The declaration goes to the customs office, not through the online E705 application. After customs approves, the normal registration chain follows: conformity documents, technical inspection, and DIV registration.

What the exemption is actually worth

Take a car with a value of €25,000 at the time of import.

On a modest car it is still worth several thousand euros. This is the single largest saving available to anyone moving to Belgium with a vehicle, and it is why the paperwork is worth doing properly.

The four conditions you must meet

All four, not three. Customs checks each one.

1. You lived outside the EU for at least 12 consecutive months. Immediately before the move. This is the condition clients most often cannot prove, not because it is untrue, but because nobody keeps documents proving where they slept for a year.

2. You owned and used the car for at least 6 months. Before you gave up your residence abroad. Note the word used. A purchase invoice proves ownership. It does not prove use. Customs wants both.

3. You import it within 12 months of settling in Belgium. The clock starts the day you register with your Belgian commune, not the day you arrive. One of our clients registered on 30 November, which gave him until 30 November the following year to declare the car for free circulation. Keep that date written down somewhere.

4. You do not sell, rent, lend or pledge the car for 12 months after import. If you sell early, the duty and VAT become payable. Lending to immediate family is usually tolerated; selling to a neighbour is not.

The complete document list

This is the part people search for and never find in one place. The list below is what a Belgian customs file actually needs. Not a summary of it.

Personal and residence

1. Passport and full identity details
2. Proof you lived outside the EU for at least 12 consecutive months: lease or property documents, proof of registration or residence, utility bills (electricity, water, gas), employment records
3. Evidence of deregistration or departure from the country you are leaving
4. Your full new address in Belgium
5. Date of registration in Belgium, plus a copy of your Belgian registration certificate (the attest van woonst, or Bijlage 4 if you are still in the process)
6. Employer's certificate, or proof of registration as self-employed, showing you have genuinely settled in Belgium

The vehicle

1. Make, model and fuel type
2. Current mileage
3. VIN (chassis number)
4. Estimated residual market value in EUR at the time of import
5. Proof of purchase
6. Proof the vehicle was insured in your name for the previous two calendar years
7. Maintenance and technical inspection records for the previous two years
8. Current registration number and the foreign registration certificate
9. Country of economic origin

Everything else in the container

1. A complete itemised list of all other goods: description, common name, value and weight per item, plus totals, each line numbered consecutively

If you are shipping only the car, say so explicitly in the file. If you are shipping a household, that itemised list is not optional and it is tedious. Start it early.

Translations

Documents in a language other than Dutch, French, German or English generally need a sworn translation. For one of our Moldovan files that meant the registration certificate and the purchase contract, around €100 to €150 for both. Budget for it and order it early, because translators are the step most likely to delay a file.

The mistake that ties up thousands of euros

Here is the one thing we tell every relocation client before anything else.

Register with your Belgian commune before the car arrives.

If your Belgian registration formalities are not complete when the vehicle is imported, customs requires a guarantee (borgstelling) covering the full duty and VAT that would be due if the exemption were refused. On a mid-value car that is typically €2,500 to €3,500 tied up, sometimes far more.

You get it back. It is a deposit, not a tax, and it is released as soon as customs approves the exemption. But it has to be money you can live without for the length of the procedure, and most people moving countries do not have a spare €3,000 sitting idle.

If your container arrives in February and you are reading this in October, you have plenty of time. Get the commune registration done first.

Who actually files the declaration

This causes more confusion than any other part of the process.

• Expect to need a licensed customs broker. Antwerp customs told us directly that removal goods declarations must be lodged by a registered douane-expediteur or declarant. On that instruction, every file we handle goes through our customs partner.
• Nobody can file it for you informally. A friend, a family member or a company cannot lodge the declaration on your behalf unless they hold that licence.
• Practice varies by office. Whether a private individual may lodge their own declaration for their own car is handled differently from one customs office to another. Ask your competent office the question directly and in writing before you assume either way, because the answer decides whether you are paying a broker fee at all.
• The online E705 application is closed for move-related vehicles. This goes to the customs office, on a submitted dossier, not through the app.

A declaration through a broker typically costs €150 to €300, sometimes with a one-off account setup fee on a first file.

For the Antwerp region the competent office is the hulpkantoor at Ellermanstraat 21, 2060 Antwerpen. One practical detail that matters: for a removal file, customs asked that the subject line of the email read "Verhuis + aangiftenummer". Small thing, but it routes your file to the right desk instead of the general queue.

One more thing worth checking first: if a shipping company is handling your container, they may do the customs declaration and exemption application themselves as part of their service. Ask before you pay anyone else for it.

What happens after customs says yes

Approval is not the finish line. It produces the E705 signal to the DIV, which is what lets you register the car. From there:

1. E705 issued by customs
2. Conformity documents: either a Certificate of Conformity (CoC) ordered from the manufacturer, or, if no CoC exists for your car, an individual approval through the Belgian import procedure
3. Technical modifications, if the car was not built for the European market
4. Keuring voor inschrijving, the technical inspection before registration
5. DIV registration and Belgian plates
6. BIV (registration tax) and then annual road tax

Steps 2 and 3 are where the real money and the real delays sit. We have written a separate guide on homologation, the documents and the photos it needs.

The trap nobody warns you about: US-spec cars and the resale restriction

This one deserves its own section, because it has killed deals for us.

If your car has no European type approval and has to go through individual approval under the removal goods scheme, the approval certificate can carry a permanent restriction. MOW Vlaanderen confirmed to one of our clients that the certificate names him and states the vehicle may only be registered in his name. A future buyer could not register it in Belgium, and possibly not elsewhere in the EU.

That client was bringing back a US-spec Porsche Boxster he had owned for years. Once he understood that the car would effectively be unsellable in Europe, he decided not to import it and sold it in the US instead. That was the right call, and we told him so.

So before you ship a US, GCC or Japan-spec car as removal goods, ask the question in writing: will the individual approval restrict future registration to my name only? If the car is something you intend to keep for life, fine. If you expect to sell it in three years, the exemption you saved may cost you more than it gave you.

A car that was built for the European market, where a CoC can be ordered, does not have this problem.

A real cost example

A client relocating from Moldova with an EU-built Ford Focus, 2017, 1.5 petrol:

Annual road tax on that car runs roughly €300 to €400 a year afterwards.

Compare that with the €5,000-plus of VAT he would have paid without the exemption, and the case makes itself.

How long it takes

• Collecting your documents: 1 to 4 weeks, and this is almost always the bottleneck
• Sworn translations: 1 to 2 weeks
• Customs assessment: a few weeks, if the file is complete
• CoC from the manufacturer: 2 to 6 weeks
• Homologation, if needed: 4 to 10 weeks
• Keuring and DIV: 1 to 2 weeks

A clean file on an EU-built car can be done in about 6 to 8 weeks. A US-spec car needing full individual approval is a 3 to 5 month project. Plan the shipping around that, not the other way round.

The 5 most expensive mistakes we see

1. Shipping the car before registering with the commune. This is what triggers the guarantee and ties up thousands.
2. Proving ownership but not use. An invoice is not enough. Dig out the insurance certificates, the MOT or inspection history, the road tax records.
3. Thin evidence of the 12 months abroad. Two or three solid dated documents spanning the period beat a dozen vague ones. Leases, utility bills and employment records are what customs wants.
4. Shipping a US-spec car without checking whether it can be homologated at all, and whether the approval will restrict resale.
5. Missing the 12-month deadline. It runs from your commune registration date. Write it in your calendar the day you register.

Do it yourself or hand it over

You can run this file yourself. Thousands of people do. If you are organised, speak one of the national languages, and your car is EU-built with a CoC available, it is genuinely manageable.

Where it goes wrong is the combination: a non-EU-spec car, a tight deadline, documents in a third language, a container with a household in it, and a customs office that answers in Dutch. That is when a half-finished file sits for months while the car cannot legally be driven.

At AutoLink M.A.T in Antwerp we handle the whole chain as one file: the document collection and gap analysis, the sworn translations, the customs dossier through our licensed customs partner, the CoC or homologation, the keuring and the DIV registration. Fixed fee, quoted upfront, with all third-party costs invoiced at cost and the official invoices passed to you.

You deal directly with me, in English, Dutch or French.

FAQ

What are removal goods (verhuisgoederen)? Personal belongings, including a car, that you bring with you when you transfer your normal residence to Belgium from outside the EU. Under certain conditions they are exempt from import duty and VAT.

How long must I have owned the car? At least 6 months before you gave up your residence abroad, and you must be able to show you used it in that period, not just owned it.

How long must I have lived abroad? At least 12 consecutive months immediately before the move.

How long do I have to import the car? Within 12 months of establishing your residence in Belgium. The clock starts at your commune registration.

Can I sell the car after importing it tax-free? Not within 12 months of import. If you do, the duty and VAT become payable.

Can I file the customs declaration myself? Assume not. Antwerp customs told us these declarations must be lodged by a registered customs broker (douane-expediteur), and practice differs between offices. Ask your competent office in writing before you plan around it.

Why is customs asking me for a deposit? That is a guarantee covering the duty and VAT while they assess your file. It is refunded when the exemption is approved. Completing your commune registration before the car arrives usually avoids it.

Does the exemption cover the technical side too? No. The exemption is customs only. Conformity documents, any modifications, the keuring and the BIV still apply.

Can I bring a US-spec car as removal goods? Often yes, but check two things first: whether it can be homologated in Belgium at all, and whether the individual approval will restrict future registration to your name only.

Which costs are not covered by the exemption? Certificate of Conformity, translations, homologation and modifications, the keuring, DIV registration, the BIV and your annual road tax.

Planning a move to Belgium with your car? Send me the VIN, the country you are moving from, and your planned arrival date. I will tell you straight away whether you qualify, what the car will need technically, and what the whole thing will cost.

📞 WhatsApp: +32 486 09 91 69 | ✉️ info@autolink-mat.be | 🌐 autolink-mat.be