Estonia to tax 86,000 vehicles left on its register

About 86,000 vehicles with suspended registration records will become subject to Estonia’s motor vehicle tax next year after their owners chose not to remove them from the register, ERR reports.

On November 1, the Transport Administration removed more than 70,000 long-suspended records for vehicles whose registrations had not changed for at least seven years. The vehicles included wrecks left in yards, as well as cars that were lost or destroyed.

The agency had notified about 100,000 owners over the summer. Around 30,000 decided to keep their vehicles on the register. The tax will also apply to about 56,000 vehicles whose registration has been suspended for less than seven years.

Owners can put a vehicle back into use by arranging insurance and a technical inspection, take it to a waste handler for dismantling, or apply to have it temporarily removed from the register.

More owners have been bringing vehicles in for scrapping. Kuusakoski, a scrap metal company, receives 15 to 20 cars a day in Tallinn and pays about 200 to 400 euros for each. The company said the number of vehicles it has received has risen by about 50 percent since mid-September compared with the same period last year.

A government campaign offering to collect cars from owners’ yards for dismantling runs until November 8. Kuusakoski has received 150 cars through the campaign this year. Owners need a registration certificate to arrange collection, but the Transport Administration will issue a missing document free of charge during the campaign.

Applications to temporarily remove vehicles from the register are taking longer to process because of high demand. The agency said it had been receiving 1,000 applications a day during the two weeks before the November 1 deadline, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 a week previously.

Transport Administration traffic service director Siim Sarapuu said owners should remove vehicles that no longer exist from the register before the end of this year. The procedure costs 15 euros this year and will cost 800 euros next year.

Raido Notton, who owns a car collection, said submitting digital proof about vehicles had been difficult. Some people received additional instructions by email only a week before the deadline, he said, which created particular challenges for older people with vintage cars in their garages.