Let’s register our car in Portugal! How hard can it be?
Unforgettable adventures in foreign bureaucracy
Well. If you are a sophisticated reader (and I know you are), you already have some idea of what this is about and where it’s going. Let me try to make it worth your while. I wish it were a shorter tale, but in a way, that’s the point of the story.
If you have Googled your way to this post hoping to find instructions for registering a car in Portugal, I need to tell you three things. First: That’s not what this is. Second: You have my undying sympathy. Third: Maybe, just maybe, this story can actually help you avoid some of the mistakes I made when I undertook this process.
Foreign bureaucracy is always the worst bureaucracy
Let me start (and this is the professorial side of me that my ex-girlfriend finds so annoying, but, well... ex) by saying a few things about foreign bureaucracy and why it is one of the most awful things in the world, no matter where you encounter it. The problem, as I see it, is that bureaucracy involves specific concepts, institutions, and procedures that must all be learned by anyone hoping to get things done in a place. This can be more difficult than it sounds.
It should come as no surprise that the terms for all of these things will be in the local language, which throws up the first barrier to understanding. Looking at a word like Aufenthaltserlaubnis in German is like looking at a big, beefy bouncer outside a club, even though it just means “residency permit”. In Spain, what we call a “driver’s license” in the United States (and they call a “driving license” in Britain) is called, technically, a licencia de conducir, but in everyday language is known as a carnet (or sometimes carné) de conducir. Meanwhile, in Italy, in case you were hoping that your knowledge of Spanish would help you out, you will be disappointed to learn that the same thing is called a patente di guida. And so on.
But the second barrier is the killer. This is the fact that these concepts, institutions, and procedures that make up the bureaucracy in a new country will not be the same ones that you are familiar with in your home country. Sure, in some cases, there will be similarities: in the United States, you get your driver’s license at the Registry of Motor Vehicles—or the Directory of Motor Vehicles, depending on where you live (already a smidge confusing)—while in Spain you go to the Dirección General de Tráfico (one would hope that the general direction of traffic would be forward). This is not so hard to get one’s head around. But in other cases, trying to map what we encounter in a new country onto what we already know does not go smoothly at all.
Let me tell you the story of how I spent half a year trying to register my car in Portugal.
How to register a car in only 23 steps
Last year, Liza and I moved from Sweden with a car we had bought there, so we had a couple of things going for us: We were coming from another EU country, and it was a used car, not a new import. I figured that would surely make it pretty easy to register the car. I had read that we had six months to register it and thought that that was way more time than we needed, so I waited a little while before starting the process. Foolishly.
In order to register your car in Portugal, you must live there. I know that sounds pretty obvious, but in this case, it translated into me needing a NIF and a CRUE. The NIF (Número de Identificação Fiscal) is your personal tax number (kind of like a social security number in the US). Also called the Número de Contribuinte (which is confusing at first), the NIF is the thing that grants you personhood in Portugal; without it, you are half-suspended in another dimension like a Nazgûl. I knew I needed a NIF before anything else, and I had read that it could be very tedious to get one in person, so I hired one of the many companies making a killing helping foreigners get their NIF in Portugal. I paid extra for three-day expedited delivery, and it came two weeks later. But at least I was on the path to being a person in Portugal!
Having a NIF, however, doesn’t mean you actually live in Portugal. For that, I needed a certificate of residency, which in the case of EU citizens, is called a CRUE (Certificado de Registo de Cidadão da União Europeia). This is something that surprisingly few people have ever heard of. Virtually every relocation website that you look at targets Americans, who are assumed not to have an EU passport. Which is fair enough, and that’s where the money is. But they get something totally different from a CRUE. Ever since I got mine, which is really just an ordinary piece of paper with some yellow stars and a stamp, I find that when I show it to people in government offices, they tend to say, “What is that?” Anticlimactic, but at least I had it.
About this time, Liza and I got an apartment (the sonic landscape of which I have described elsewhere) in a neighborhood with famously difficult parking—it is not unusual to arrive home and then spend thirty minutes driving around looking for an available parking space (they tend to go within 20 seconds of becoming available). I was pleased to learn, however, that we could get a parking decal (called a dístico) that would at least allow us to park for free. That sounded good, and I completed the online application, submitting my NIF and my CRUE and my car details. Two days later, I got an email saying that unfortunately, only cars with Portuguese license plates can get a dístico.
Knowing that I would need to pay for parking until I got the car registered got me moving. I looked into the requirements for registering my car at the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes, or IMT, which is sort of like the Directory of Motor Vehicles. This was a bit like having my fortune told: “You will meet a short, silent bureaucrat, and you will show them your Modelo 9, your DAV, and your CoC.” Wait, what were these things? It turns out that each one is something that is acquired through immense effort. I started to sense that this would be a long road.
Inspections and corrections
Figuring it would make sense to start with having the car inspected, I made an appointment with an inspection center, who informed me that I would need a Certificate of Conformity. This, it turns out, is a Europe-wide document attesting that your vehicle complies with European standards for emissions and such things that you have to order specially from the manufacturer of your car. My car is a Škoda, a Czech car made by a German company, since Škoda is now owned by Volkswagen (fantastic cars, by the way—I highly recommend them). I went to my local Škoda dealer, and they had no idea how to get a CoC. They suggested I Google it. So I did, and I found a company in Germany that would send me a CoC for a hefty fee. Not completely certain that this was a legitimate business, I nevertheless paid up—and a few days later, I did indeed receive my certificate. One down.
In preparation to have my car inspected for registration, I needed to fill out the vastly complicated Modelo 9 form, which asks questions about your car such as, “What is the distance between the axles in millimeters?” and “What are the average particulate emissions in grams per kilogram?” Scouring my existing ownership documents plus my newly acquired CoC, I managed to fill in enough of these fields that I hoped they might give me a pass for reasonable effort. I gathered my papers and took them to the inspection center.
At the center, I encountered the world’s slowest traffic jam, as six lanes of cars competed to fit into four inspection lanes with little or no help from the personnel. Nobody told me that I was supposed to submit the paperwork before my turn came, so I was chastised mildly, but in the end, the very helpful inspection person filled out the missing information in my form, created some nice, shiny documents which he stamped, and then told me the bad news.
It turned out that there was a sticker inside my car, showing the model number, that was missing a corner. And so my car failed the inspection. Not that any information was actually missing, but the sticker was damaged, and so I had to go to the Škoda dealership and order another one, which took a month and cost over 100 euros. At that point, I could say that the car had passed inspection. I felt like I was close to having my new license plates. They say there are no wrong feelings, but this was one.
On homologation and meatballs
There is a place here in Lisbon called the Loja de Cidadão, or Citizen Shop, which is to bureaucracy what shopping center food courts are to cuisine. It’s a place where there is a representative of almost every government agency and utility company that ordinary citizens need to deal with on a regular basis. The one I go to (in Saldanha) is centrally located and is upstairs from a fish market, which is either convenient or stinky, depending on your perspective. I have spent many half-days there, holding a numbered ticket and watching the display with the counter assignments, like the world’s saddest gambling experience.
I went there now to speak to a representative from the IMT, the transportation authority, to see how I was doing in the quest for new license plates. A very nice lady (they are almost always nice, which is one of the best things about bureaucracy in Portugal) took all my documents, looked through them, and then made a list of the ones that were missing. There were only two!
The first was the Certificado de Homologação; I typed this into Google Translate and learned that it is the Homologation Certificate—which made it no clearer. I was an English professor for many years, but I did not know the word “homologation”, which apparently means the granting of approval by an official authority. So it’s a certificate of approval. OK, fine. What was the other thing I needed? The DAV.
I asked exactly what a DAV was and where I would get it. She looked at me as though I didn’t know the word “homologation” and explained that the DAV was the Declaração Aduaneira de Vehículo, or the customs declaration for a particular vehicle. And to get that, I would have to go to the garden of tobacco.
“Excuse me?” I stared blankly at the lady, who was slightly flirtatious, so I tried desperately to figure out whether this could possibly be some form of flirtation—did she want to step outside for a cigarette? She said, “You know, the Alfândega?” I said, “Isn’t that a meatball?” “No, that’s almôndega. Alfândega is customs.” I said, “I thought that was aduana.” “It is, but so is alfândega.”
I figured at this point any possible hopes of flirtation had gone up in smoke. I said goodbye, went and did some research, and learned that the customs office is in the building in the port that used to be where they levied taxes on tobacco back in the seventeenth century. Nowadays, there’s no tobacco there, but they still call it the Jardim do Tabaco. And that’s where they would give me my DAV.
Learning the local customs office
The next day, I crossed town in an elétrico, the iconic electric trams that have been on postcards of Lisbon since postcards were invented, and went to the Alfândega, which turned out to be closed for lunch. I decided that when in Lisbon, do as the little lettuces do (people from Lisbon are referred to as alfacinhas, or “little lettuces”), and went and had some grilled sardines and wine, and waited. When I returned to the garden of tobacco, I secured the assistance of a very chatty bureaucrat who did what so many bureaucrats in Portugal do: ramp up the drama.
“But you haven’t filled out the form correctly!”, she shrieked. “This isn’t the way to do it!” I smiled patiently and told her that I was just a simple foreigner trying to understand what in the flying fuck was going on (I didn’t actually say that part). I knew how to proceed, and what was coming. I apologized profusely for my incompetence and threw in some random excuses about the buggy online platform and the traffic (“Oh, don’t get me started about the traffic around here!”, she said approvingly), and waited. Sure enough, she decided that she liked me and was going to help me.
“Look here,” she said, pointing at the complicated two-page form and the incredibly daunting list of necessary attachments. “You’re trying to say that you shouldn’t pay import duty on your car because you’re not importing it—it’s your car, right?” “Right!” “Well then, all you need to do is tick the box for “fiscal benefits” and under that, write in that you are applying for exemption from the ISV tax under the regime presented in Article 58 of the Código do Imposto sobre Veículos. That’s not so hard, is it?” “No, that should have been obvious to me.”
In this manner, I got my DAV. Or rather, I was able to submit an application for my DAV. To get it, I still had to do the homologation application, which I think I won’t bore you with. The fun fact about that application is that I did it online, using the Alfândega’s own platform, which I assumed worked like the parent Tax and Customs Authority’s platform, in that I would get an email when my request had been processed. That was silly of me: It took them three days to process the request, and it took me two weeks to notice that I hadn’t heard anything and go check the status online.
Professor Plum in the Conservatory
Finally, armed with all of my papers, including what I thought of as Dave and the Homunculus, I went to make an appointment to actually register my car. And… there were no appointments. Summer was in full swing, and I was unable to find a single time in a single branch of the IMT in Lisbon for this appointment. But the system is nationwide, so I said “What the heck!” and booked an appointment for the next day in Évora, which is two hours south.
The drive down to Évora was pleasant—rolling hills covered with olive trees and insanely quaint farmhouses—and I arrived in plenty of time, so I was able to have a nice lunch and wander around the ancient whitewashed streets of the city until it was time for my appointment. I was attended by a very young woman with a tight leopard-skin top and extremely long fingernails. She was friendly, helpful, and efficient. She took my documents and charged me a fee for something or other. Then she said, “OK, you’re all done!”, and handed me a paper. I said, “Great! Can I get my license plates now?” “Well, no, not before you go to the conservatória and register it.” Completely flummoxed, I asked her where the conservatória was, and she said she had no idea where it was in Lisbon.
I looked at the receipt she had given me. The description of the service I had paid €45 for was exactly this: “Atrib inic mat nac., repos mat ant atrib mat nac veic ant mat mod homol nac ou CE”. I didn’t dare read it out loud for fear that it was an incantation.
I drove back to Lisbon and spent the next couple of days asking people what a conservatória was, and several of them said they had no idea. Finally, someone explained: That’s what they used to call the registry office. Now it’s the IRN, the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado, which has a desk at the Citizen Shop. So I went there. This time, the person I spoke to was slightly unfriendly; when I asked whether this was the conservatória, she said, “Sure, it’s the conservatória, it’s the IRN, it’s whatever people call it.” She took the paper I had brought from Évora, typed something into her computer, and said, “Your application hasn’t been processed yet.” “What do you mean, I got this paper!”, I squeaked. “This paper just confirms that your application has been submitted. It now needs to be processed by someone somewhere, which takes a few days. But a lot of people are on holiday now. For me, as of right now, your car doesn’t exist.”
I asked her what exactly I was still waiting for. “Registering the car, and getting your DUA”. Thinking that this sounded like something issued by Homer Simpson, I asked her what a DUA was. “Documento Único Automóvel,” she explained. “It’s the card that shows that the car is legally registered. You need to have it at all times.” “So I can’t drive the car without it?” “Well, you could drive it now, and if the police stop you, just show them that you’ve applied for it. They know everybody’s on vacation now.”
The home stretch
Feeling unconfident but sensing the end of the process, I went home and called the Škoda dealer. I knew I needed to commission the actual making of the license plates and pay for them myself. So I made an appointment. I also bought an insurance policy.
I checked the status of my application every day. And sure enough, after two weeks, I found that my application had been processed. Now I could make an appointment to go back to the IRN-conservatória-whatsis. Given that everybody was on holiday, the only appointment I could get was all the way across town, but at this point, I didn’t care. I drove the 45 minutes across the city, filled in the form, got my car registered, and asked for my DUA. The woman smiled and said that it would be sent to me in the mail. Should be there in a week or two.
Slightly disappointed, I asked whether there was any step left in the registration process. She thought about it, and said, “Have you paid your IUC?” “Is that like a contraceptive device?” “No, it’s the Imposto Único de Circulação. It’s an annual tax that everyone who owns a car has to pay.” “Ah, OK.” This car business was getting pretty expensive. It turned out, maybe not so strangely, that paying the government was one of the easiest steps.
I realized that I could now unregister my car in Sweden. So I Googled this in Swedish and found that Transportstyrelsen, the transit authority, has a website dedicated specifically to doing this. I logged in using the same system I used with my Swedish bank, and it showed the registration number of my car, and a button saying “Click here to unregister this car”. I clicked the button and got the message, “Your car is now unregistered! Don’t forget to adjust your insurance policy.” Oh, Sweden! Sweden, with your long, sexy legs and your smooth procedures! Why did I ever leave you? I had forgotten how easy life used to be.
Arriving home
My DUA did in fact arrive, and so did the day of my appointment for the great license plate swap. I felt like my car was going into surgery. I went to the Škoda dealership, sat and waited for three hours, and then, finally: Out came my car, looking so different (to me) with Portuguese plates instead of Swedish ones!
It was an emotional moment. We had arrived in Portugal ten months before. More than half a year had passed since I started filling out automobile forms. In the interim, Liza and I had ended our relationship, and I had decided to move away from my neighborhood. One month before I moved out, my neighborhood parking permit, the dístico, finally arrived—a bittersweet victory. For one month, I would park like crazy. (I remember once seeing a parking garage in Berlin called “Nonstop Parking”; when I told my friend Nick about it, he doubled over laughing.)
Was the whole process worth it? Well, I certainly learned a lot. (What does it really mean when people say that?) And I do love my car, so I am happy we are still together. Plus, this, too: There is something to be said for the feeling of driving around town not in a foreign car, but in a local car, that does make it feel like it was worth it.
I choose to see it this way: The half-year that I spent making my car Portuguese was a sort of hazing ritual—a trial by fire that is part of my own journey toward becoming Portuguese. I am now just that much closer.
Road trip, anyone?
Congratulations on the successful completion of your epic quest! And even more, kudos for weaving your tale of navigating the maze of bureaucracy without even once resorting to the use of the term "Kafkaesque"--such admirable restraint!
This made me laugh so hard, and cry a little inside. We moved to Belgium with our car, which was made in South Africa for the US market. I couldn’t possibly write anything as entertaining as your account, but the experience (down to ‘homologation’) was similar and it took us 13 months!