pictured is the Renault Kangoo
Persons who can claim residence outside
the European Union,
who are 18 years of age or older, and have had a valid, non-provisional driver license for at
least one year qualify for a tax-free short-term auto lease, which France designates with a "TT" (Transit Temporaire) registration.
No maximum age limit applies.
Tourists qualify for up to 170 days.
Students and educators typically qualify for up to 355 days,
as do certain employees undertaking a limited engagement in Europe.
(Click here to
learn more about this longer-duration, so-called TT Special registration.)
Simply put, the lease plan is designed for visitors.
The pick-up date for one of these French "TT" (Transit Temporaire) tax-free short-term auto leases should be such
that no one-year time-window involving that date — whether terminally, initially or otherwise — also contains
more than 185 days during which the client (i.e. you, the customer) was/is/will be in the European Union — the notable exception being
TT Special registration, in which case
the one year duration involving the pick-up date as its initial day may contain up to 365 days (366 if a leap day is involved) that the client expects to spend
in the European Union. … In terms of the lease booking process the 185-day constraint is effectively an “on your honor” thing unless
there is an ineluctable record — i.e. another such lease or leases in the client's own full name (in contrast to, say, the client's spouse's name) and effective
within the one year duration immediately prior to the pick-up date — which particular record would during said process seem to contradict a client’s statement
in this respect. A client’s passport will of
course bear a unique stamp for each day s/he enters or exits the European Union, but the inner pages on which these stamps are placed are not viewed as part
of the lease booking process. Only French Customs officials in France might view those pages with regard to the lease.
Such officials are no longer typically stationed at major or minor roadway entry/exit points to/from France.
They are mostly stationed at airports and seaports, although to some small degree they do patrol the roads of France.
If French Customs actually encounters in France a TT- or TT Special-registered vehicle and discovers that it is being leased by a client who does not qualify
for such registration, French Customs (alone) is empowered to confiscate the vehicle for this reason, in which case no refund would be given to the client.
By the way, a client may not have two or more TT or TT Special leases in his or her own name the durations of which leases overlap.
who can drive the vehicle?
Many people wonder if their partner or partners can drive the vehicle.
Strictly speaking, the French tax-free vehicle registration entails the following
constraint (embellished with bracketed comments by IdeaMerge): "Apart from the holder of the
vehicle registration document [i.e. you the person in whose name the vehicle
is registered], only the spouse, the co-habitee (with documentary
proof of living together, or an affidavit [i.e. to that effect, signed by
a notary public]), and direct ascendants [i.e. parents] and
descendants [i.e. children] if they satisfy the necessary conditions
to benefit from the same TT regime [i.e., basically, reside outside
the European Union and are 18 years old; and relative to registration that is
TT special, if they too would qualify for such registration] may pick-up the vehicle."
[The term "pick-up" implies that such persons are generally qualified to
drive such vehicle without being accompanied by other such persons.
However, please note that a
"proxy" form must
be submitted to specifically qualify someone other than you, the person in whose name the vehicle
is registered, to pick-up the vehicle in your absence.]
Apart from the pick-up occasion, this limitation is enforceable in France
only and by French Customs officials only (not by regular French police nor other
police nor by customs officials of other countries).
In spirit this constraint is meant to withhold
from persons whose main residence is in Europe
the benefits of tax-free vehicle registration.
Almost only with respect to that spirit
might the constraint be enforced by French Customs.
The insurance is a separate issue:
the insurance is effective no matter who is driving, provided
the vehicle is being driven within the geographic domain of the insurance.
(That domain is represented on this Webpage in terms of a list
of some 30 countries.) If a friend, say,
were to grab your keys, jump in your vehicle, and drive it into a flying
buttress of Germany's Cologne cathedral,
the insurance would be effective relative to this incident. Similarly, if while on a particular driving
excursion in France one or more of the aforementioned qualified drivers
happened to become incapacitated (e.g. by illness) yet remained in the
vehicle, another companion (e.g. friend) could drive the vehicle in their stead
without violating the terms of the vehicle's registration and insurance.
leadtimes
The following are the leadtimes typically required to arrange such lease, per pick-up location.
IdeaMerge may be able to arrange more urgent pick-ups, however.
- Paris city and Paris airports: 21 calendar days
- the rest of France: 22 calendar days
- Brussels or Frankfurt: 23 calendar days
- other pick-up locations: 30 calendar days
warning
Although motor travel in Europe is
not generally considered prohibitively dangerous, there are, of course, associated
risks — including
death. For quantitative measures of these risks, please see the
Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT) http://www.asirt.org.
|
