If you have inherited a car that is abroad, you can often import it into the UK with 0% customs duty and 0% VAT under inheritance relief. It recognises that you did not buy the car, you received it from someone's estate, so taxing it as a normal import would not be fair. As with any relief, HMRC sets conditions, and the paperwork of an estate needs to line up. Here is how it works.
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What inheritance relief does
Inheritance relief removes the duty and VAT on a car that comes to you through someone's estate. Rather than up to 10% duty and 20% VAT, the car can be imported with no import tax, because it is a bequest, not a purchase.
It sits alongside the other reliefs that recognise a car is not always bought and sold in the ordinary way. What they share is that HMRC decides, and expects the situation to be genuine and documented.
When it applies
The relief is for a vehicle you have inherited from someone who has died, where the car is being brought into the UK as part of what you received from the estate. It is not for a car you bought from an estate, or from a relative while they were alive, those are ordinary purchases and taxed as such.
The test is simple in principle: were you left the car, or did you buy it? Relief is for the first, not the second.
What you need to show
Because the relief rests on the car being a genuine bequest, HMRC will want evidence of that. In practice this means documentation from the estate: typically the will or equivalent, and paperwork showing the car has passed to you as the beneficiary.
The exact documents depend on the country and the estate, but the principle is constant: you are showing that the car was left to you, and that you are the person entitled to it.
The relief is about how you came to own the car, not how old it is or where it was built. It covers private motor vehicles, not commercial vehicles, and the car should be imported within 2 years of the date the estate is finally settled.
The process
Bringing in an inherited car follows the same path as any import, with the relief claimed in place of paying the tax. The car is shipped, the customs side is handled with the relief applied, HMRC is notified of the arrival, and we prepare every DVLA form for you to sign and post.
The difference is the evidence. Where a normal import settles the duty and VAT, an inheritance claim presents the estate documentation to support the relief. Getting that right, and in the correct order, is what makes the claim go smoothly.
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Sometimes an inherited car is also an old one, which raises a fair question: which benefit applies? If the relief is granted, the inheritance route already removes both taxes, so there is nothing further to save.
But if for any reason the inheritance relief does not apply, the car's age may still help. A car over 30 years old, in its original state and of a model no longer in production pays 0% duty and just 5% VAT in its own right. We cover that in our guide to tax on a 30-year-old car, and the full set of reliefs in when you are exempt from paying VAT.
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Importing an inherited car means lining up the estate documents with the customs and DVLA process. We make the relief claim with your estate documents, handle the customs and NOVA, and prepare every DVLA form, you just sign and post. Over 1,500 vehicles cleared since Brexit.
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