Your car is on foreign plates. What happens now.
You have just arrived with your own car, and everyone uses words you have never needed before: matriculación, ITV, IEDMT, ficha técnica. This page is the map of the path — what it consists of and in what order. Not a how-to: the steps are ours to run.
The short answer
The roadworthiness test you are probably searching for — the ITV — is a step inside the registration procedure, not a separate service you book first. It does come early in the chain, but you cannot simply book it: the station issues an appointment only once the case is open and the car is entered for inspection.
So the question is not «where do I get the ITV». It is «what is the path made of, and in what order».
The path, five steps
- Documents and opening the case. Your papers and the car's are collected, the case is opened and the car is entered for inspection. The inspection date comes out after this.
- The inspection, and the Spanish technical card. The car is checked against Spanish requirements; the station issues the card.
- The taxes. Registration tax and the municipal one.
- The application to the DGT, and the registration number. Filed under power of attorney.
- The plates.
Why this order, and not another: the technical card issued by the station is part of the application package. A document that does not exist yet cannot be attached — so the inspection precedes the filing at the DGT. That is the rule, not our preference.
What is ours is how it is run: the car is needed once, on inspection day. You do not drive anywhere, you do not book anything and you do not talk to any office.
Two different «we filed it»
This is where nearly everyone gets confused, and it is worth one paragraph. Opening the case and entering the car for inspection is the first step — the appointment follows it. Filing the application at the DGT is a different act and comes after the inspection, because the card from the station goes into it. One word, two moments, weeks apart.
What is needed from you
Your own identity and residence papers, and the documents that came with the car. We look at them first and tell you what is missing before anything moves — most cases hinge on one document nobody thought about.
How long you have
If you are a resident, the law gives you 30 days from when the car starts being used in Spain to register it, and 60 days where the change-of-residence exemption applies (Ley 38/1992, art. 65.1.d, consolidated text).
The same article decides from which date that period runs: the date the car was brought into Spain; and if that date is not documented, the later of the purchase date and the date you became resident here. So if you drove the car in yourself, the date you can prove is the date that counts.
How long the procedure itself takes in calendar days depends on the appointment the station gives and on the documents being complete. We do not promise a number we do not control.
Where people lose time and money
From our own files, in order of how often it happens: an appointment chased before the case is open, and the slot is wasted. A car with no certificate of conformity, which turns one step into an engineering procedure measured in weeks. The municipal tax paid to the wrong town hall. And the import date that nobody can prove, which moves the start of the clock to a date that suits nobody.
None of these are hard to avoid. They are hard to notice in time, in a language you do not read.
Temporary plates while it runs
The car does not have to stand still. Need to use the car while the paperwork is processed? We fit temporary green plates, as an optional extra. They are not the same thing as the DGT fee of 99,77 €, which is paid at registration in any case. The plates run for two months, with a free extension. Transit plates issued by the country the car is leaving are a different thing, and we quote those on request.
What it costs
900 € + VAT — the whole path above, from documents to Spanish plates. Official taxes and fees are billed separately, at the amount the administration charges, because we do not set them.
125 € (VAT included) — the inspection service on its own. This one is for a car that already has Spanish plates: we take it to its periodic test and bring it back.
1.300 € (VAT included) — transport, if the car still has to be brought here. Our own line, separate from the fee. If you drive the car in yourself, it is not charged.
Ask about your own case
Every case turns on one or two details: what the car came with, where you are registered, how long it has been here. Send us the car's papers and we will tell you what your path looks like.
What the inspection actually checks →
The registration service →
Service conditions →