Nearly new cars that cross borders

Used imports first registered abroad less than a year earlier, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czechia, Spain, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania and Romania

Most used imports are old: in the import-heavy markets of this site the average imported car is around ten years old. A small part of them is almost new. A car that was first registered in one country and is registered in another a few weeks or months later is, in the statistics of the second country, a used import, although it may have hardly been driven. This page counts those cars in every market whose source dates both registrations: the used imports that were first registered abroad less than a year, and less than 180 days, before they entered the national register.

How many there are

Each row sums the market's latest twelve complete months. The base is the used imports whose age is known; the shares are of that base. The last column lists the five brands with the most imports under one year old, with the number of cars.

The Netherlands has the highest share: 14.6% of its used imports, 49 278 of 337 690 cars, had been first registered abroad less than a year before, and 17 064 of them less than 180 days before. Romania has the lowest, 1.0%.

By month

Where they come from

Few registers record the country a used import was registered in before. Where the source does, the table shows the countries of the imports under one year old over the same twelve months, as a share of those imports; "Not recorded" is a blank field in the source.

In Luxembourg the largest source is Germany, with 47.8% of the imports under one year old, ahead of Denmark (12.8%). In Lithuania the largest source is Germany, with 46.3% of the imports under one year old, ahead of Sweden (8.8%).

The trade behind it

The price of the same new car, before tax, differs between European countries, and so do the discounts that importers and dealers give to reach a sales target at the end of a month or a year. Together they make it attractive to register a new car in one country and sell it soon afterwards, as a used car with next to no mileage, in another where the same model costs more or has a long waiting time. Inside the single market this is legal in most cases: a registered car is a used good, and anyone may buy it and take it across a border. The trade names for such cars vary: short-term registrations, zero-kilometre cars, re-exports.

The trade leaves a trace on both sides. In the country of first registration the car counts as a new registration, although it never serves a local driver, so the new-car statistics of that country are somewhat higher than the number of cars that stay. Czechia is a documented case on this site: the EU statistics' annual figure for new passenger cars there has been 4 to 8 % below the national count of first registrations since 2022, and re-exported cars, which the national count includes, are the explanation given for the gap. In the country where the car ends up it appears as a young used import, which is what the tables above count.