Type approval and the missing CoC: why 'Article 45' is usually the wrong answer
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- salvagealert
Almost every guide to importing a US car into the EU tells you to apply for individual vehicle approval under Article 44 or Article 45 of Regulation (EU) 2018/858. For a genuinely used car that is, in most member states, the wrong door — and knowing which door is right is the difference between a two-week process and a year of being sent between offices.
First: why there is no CoC, and why nobody can sell you one
Article 3(5) defines a Certificate of Conformity as
the document issued by the manufacturer which certifies that a produced vehicle conforms to
the approved type of vehicle and complies with all regulatory acts that were applicable
at the time of its production.
A CoC is not a test certificate. It is the manufacturer's statement that this specific VIN conforms to an EU type-approval that already exists. A car built to US federal standards for the US market was never covered by an EU whole-vehicle type-approval, so there is no approved type for it to conform to.
So the CoC is not lost, not missing, and not obtainable for a fee. It cannot exist.
Article 36(3) gives an owner the right to a duplicate CoC from the manufacturer for ten years after the date of manufacture, and this is the provision brokers quote when they offer to "obtain your CoC". It only works where an EU type-approval covered that VIN in the first place — an EU-spec car that was exported to the USA and is coming home. For a US-market car there is nothing to duplicate.
**If somebody offers to sell you a CoC for a US-market car, that is the end of the
conversation.** Whatever arrives will be something else, and it will not survive an
approval office.
The framework, briefly
Regulation (EU) 2018/858 replaced Directive 2007/46/EC — Article 88: "Directive 2007/46/EC is repealed with effect from 1 September 2020." (Adopted 2018, applied 2020; guides that say "replaced in 2018" are describing the signature, not the law.)
Two individual-approval routes:
Route Article Where it is valid EU individual vehicle approval 44 Everywhere. Art. 44(6): "Member States shall permit the placing on the market, registration or entry into service of vehicles with a valid EU individual vehicle approval certificate." National individual vehicle approval 45 One country. Art. 46(1): "The validity of a national individual vehicle approval shall be restricted to the territory of the Member State that granted the individual vehicle approval." Article 46(2) and (3) then give you a right to a statement of the technical requirements used, and oblige another member state to permit the vehicle — "unless that Member State has reasonable grounds to believe that the relevant alternative requirements … are not equivalent to its own". That is a case-by-case equivalence assessment, not recognition. Poland charges a separate administrative decision for it; Spain has its own equivalence authorisation.
The practical consequence: approving a car in a cheap country and driving it home is not a plan. It buys registration in that country, and the destination will assess equivalence and may refuse.
Why Article 44 usually does not apply to your car
Annex II, Part I, Appendix 2, point 1, verbatim:
For the purpose of application of this Appendix, a vehicle is deemed to be new where:
(a) it has never been registered previously; or (b) it has been registered for **less than
six months** at the time of the application for individual vehicle approval.
A car that has been on US plates for three years is not new by that definition. And several member states read both Articles 44 and 45 as new-vehicle instruments: Italy's implementing circular says both are "rilasciabili solo per veicoli nuovi", Poland's individual-approval act speaks of a nowy pojazd, and France splits them explicitly — one order for new vehicles, a separate one for a véhicule usagé.
So the route for a used import is a national inspection instrument, and it is not the same instrument in any two countries.
What your car actually goes through
Country The procedure for a used US car Who does it Germany Betriebserlaubnis für Einzelfahrzeuge— § 21 StVZOA Gutachten by an officially recognised expert (TÜV) or a designated Technischer Dienst (DEKRA, KÜS, GTÜ); the Land authority issues the Betriebserlaubnis — not the KBA France Réception à titre isolé d'un véhicule usagé— arrêté of 19 July 1954, arts. 13–14 ter, under Code de la route art. R321-15DREAL / DRIEAT (the regional ministry services). Not UTAC — UTAC does series type-approval testing Poland Okresowe badanie technicznebefore first registration — art. 81 ust. 3 PoRD: "Okresowe badanie techniczne po raz pierwszy jest przeprowadzane przed pierwszą rejestracją pojazdu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej"An SKP inspection station; the starosta registers Spain Inspección técnica unitaria— RD 750/2010 art. 5.4(b), producing the tarjeta ITVAn ITV station, authorised by the autonomous community Italy Collaudo in unico esemplare (EU)under art. 75 Codice della Strada, mapped onto national individual approval by the ministry's 2020 circularMotorizzazione Civile (UMC) Romania Omologare individuală— one of the two systems that expressly covers a used imported vehicle at first registrationRAR, through its territorial offices Ukraine (not EU) Індивідуальне затвердження— Order No. 521/2012, п. 1.4(б) covers every vehicle "що був у користуванні і підлягає першій державній реєстрації в Україні"A designated body; ДП "ДержавтотрансНДІпроект" is the principal one Two of those — Romania and Ukraine — have texts that name the used imported car directly. Everywhere else it is handled through a national inspection instrument that sits beside the individual-approval articles rather than inside them.
Germany, a naming trap worth avoiding. § 21 StVZO produces a Gutachten, which the authority turns into a Betriebserlaubnis and the entries on Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I and Teil II. A Datenbestätigung is something else entirely — § 12 EG-FGV, national small-series type approval — and asking for one will get you a blank look.
The rules you are measured against, if you do go through Appendix 2
Three points in Appendix 2 decide how hard this is, and none of them is about age.
Point 2.2(d):
The technical requirements shall be those applicable to vehicles belonging to a type of
vehicle currently in production, in relation to the date of the submission of the
application.
Your 2014 car is measured against today's rules, not 2014's. That is the real barrier, and it moves every year.
Point 2.2(e) — the chokepoint for an auction car:
the applicant shall supply a statement of compliance with recognised international standards
or regulations. The statement in question may only be issued by the vehicle manufacturer.
A US manufacturer has no obligation to issue one for a car it sold in America, and for a salvage lot it has no reason to.
Point 2.5:
each particular vehicle shall be inspected physically by the technical service. **No
exemption to this principle shall be permitted.**
And point 2.2(b): one application per vehicle, in one member state only. The authority may ask for a written commitment to that effect — so "try three countries and take the cheapest" is not available.
The California carve-out almost nobody knows about
Appendix 2, item 2A, on emissions, point (e), verbatim:
The test referred to in point (a) **shall not be conducted where it can be shown that the
vehicle complies with the California Code Regulations** referred to in point 2.1.1 of
Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 692/2008.
A vehicle certified to California standards can be relieved of the EU Type I tailpipe test by the Regulation's own text. Many US-market cars are California-certified — the underhood emissions label says so — and it is worth checking before anybody quotes you for a dyno test.
The other requirements in that item still stand: an evaporative emissions control system for a petrol engine, a crankcase gas recycling device, and an OBD system that talks to ordinary roadworthiness-test diagnostic tools.
There is a similar US-standard alternative at item 3A: a plastic fuel tank may be evidenced by a manufacturer's statement of compliance with FMVSS No. 301 instead of UN R34 Annex 5. And seat-belt anchorages at item 19A accept FMVSS No. 210 as an alternative to UN R14.
Is there a maximum age, or an emissions floor?
Not in the Regulation. There is no age limit and no blanket emissions cut-off in 2018/858. The only age-shaped rule is the six-month "new" definition above, which decides which route applies rather than whether the car is admissible at all.
Every age limit and emissions floor you will encounter is national, made possible by Article 45(1), which lets a member state exempt a vehicle from requirements "provided that those Member States have imposed relevant alternative requirements". That power is why the answer genuinely differs by country, and why an answer you read about Poland does not transfer to Romania.
One thing that is slightly broken, so it does not confuse you
Germany's § 13 EG-FGV still cites Directive 2007/46/EC Article 24 — an act repealed on 1 September 2020. Spain's RD 750/2010 art. 4.4 does the same. Neither ordinance has been renumbered to Regulation 2018/858. If you read the national text against the EU regulation and find they do not line up, that is a drafting lag rather than a mistake on your part.
What we could not verify
Romania's article numbers. RAR's site and the Romanian legislation portal both refused connections from here, so the Romanian row above is built from consistent extracts of those official pages rather than from the primary text we read ourselves. The procedure name and the authority are solid; we are not publishing RNTR 7 article numbers we have not read. If you have done this in Romania, a reply with the current order number would be genuinely useful.
Ukraine's emissions floor sits in separate customs and registration legislation that we did not locate, so no Euro-standard cut-off is stated here for Ukraine.
Where this guide is wrong for your country, say so with a source and it gets corrected.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2018/858 (consolidated) — Arts. 3, 36, 44, 45, 46, 88 and Annex II Appendix 2 (official · 2026-09-21)
- § 21 StVZO — Betriebserlaubnis für Einzelfahrzeuge (Germany) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Code de la route art. R321-15 — réception à titre isolé (France) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Prawo o ruchu drogowym art. 81 — okresowe badanie techniczne before first registration (Poland) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Real Decreto 750/2010 — homologación individual, art. 5.4 (Spain) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Order of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine No. 521 of 17.08.2012 — індивідуальне затвердження (official · 2026-09-21)
Verified 2026-09-21. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.
#1(edited 2 times)
- Version from Sep 22, 2026, 1:39 AM
Almost every guide to importing a US car into the EU tells you to apply for individual vehicle approval under Article 44 or Article 45 of Regulation (EU) 2018/858. For a genuinely used car that is, in most member states, the wrong door — and knowing which door is right is the difference between a two-week process and a year of being sent between offices.
First: why there is no CoC, and why nobody can sell you one
Article 3(5) defines a Certificate of Conformity as
the document issued by the manufacturer which certifies that a produced vehicle conforms to
the approved type of vehicle and complies with all regulatory acts that were applicable
at the time of its production.
A CoC is not a test certificate. It is the manufacturer's statement that this specific VIN conforms to an EU type-approval that already exists. A car built to US federal standards for the US market was never covered by an EU whole-vehicle type-approval, so there is no approved type for it to conform to.
So the CoC is not lost, not missing, and not obtainable for a fee. It cannot exist.
Article 36(3) gives an owner the right to a duplicate CoC from the manufacturer for ten years after the date of manufacture, and this is the provision brokers quote when they offer to "obtain your CoC". It only works where an EU type-approval covered that VIN in the first place — an EU-spec car that was exported to the USA and is coming home. For a US-market car there is nothing to duplicate.
**If somebody offers to sell you a CoC for a US-market car, that is the end of the
conversation.** Whatever arrives will be something else, and it will not survive an
approval office.
The framework, briefly
Regulation (EU) 2018/858 replaced Directive 2007/46/EC — Article 88: "Directive 2007/46/EC is repealed with effect from 1 September 2020." (Adopted 2018, applied 2020; guides that say "replaced in 2018" are describing the signature, not the law.)
Two individual-approval routes:
Route Article Where it is valid EU individual vehicle approval 44 Everywhere. Art. 44(6): "Member States shall permit the placing on the market, registration or entry into service of vehicles with a valid EU individual vehicle approval certificate." National individual vehicle approval 45 One country. Art. 46(1): "The validity of a national individual vehicle approval shall be restricted to the territory of the Member State that granted the individual vehicle approval." Article 46(2) and (3) then give you a right to a statement of the technical requirements used, and oblige another member state to permit the vehicle — "unless that Member State has reasonable grounds to believe that the relevant alternative requirements … are not equivalent to its own". That is a case-by-case equivalence assessment, not recognition. Poland charges a separate administrative decision for it; Spain has its own equivalence authorisation.
The practical consequence: approving a car in a cheap country and driving it home is not a plan. It buys registration in that country, and the destination will assess equivalence and may refuse.
Why Article 44 usually does not apply to your car
Annex II, Part I, Appendix 2, point 1, verbatim:
For the purpose of application of this Appendix, a vehicle is deemed to be new where:
(a) it has never been registered previously; or (b) it has been registered for **less than
six months** at the time of the application for individual vehicle approval.
A car that has been on US plates for three years is not new by that definition. And several member states read both Articles 44 and 45 as new-vehicle instruments: Italy's implementing circular says both are "rilasciabili solo per veicoli nuovi", Poland's individual-approval act speaks of a nowy pojazd, and France splits them explicitly — one order for new vehicles, a separate one for a véhicule usagé.
So the route for a used import is a national inspection instrument, and it is not the same instrument in any two countries.
What your car actually goes through
Country The procedure for a used US car Who does it Germany Betriebserlaubnis für Einzelfahrzeuge— § 21 StVZOA Gutachten by an officially recognised expert (TÜV) or a designated Technischer Dienst (DEKRA, KÜS, GTÜ); the Land authority issues the Betriebserlaubnis — not the KBA France Réception à titre isolé d'un véhicule usagé— arrêté of 19 July 1954, arts. 13–14 ter, under Code de la route art. R321-15DREAL / DRIEAT (the regional ministry services). Not UTAC — UTAC does series type-approval testing Poland Okresowe badanie technicznebefore first registration — art. 81 ust. 3 PoRD: "Okresowe badanie techniczne po raz pierwszy jest przeprowadzane przed pierwszą rejestracją pojazdu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej"An SKP inspection station; the starosta registers Spain Inspección técnica unitaria— RD 750/2010 art. 5.4(b), producing the tarjeta ITVAn ITV station, authorised by the autonomous community Italy Collaudo in unico esemplare (EU)under art. 75 Codice della Strada, mapped onto national individual approval by the ministry's 2020 circularMotorizzazione Civile (UMC) Romania Omologare individuală— one of the two systems that expressly covers a used imported vehicle at first registrationRAR, through its territorial offices Ukraine (not EU) Індивідуальне затвердження— Order No. 521/2012, п. 1.4(б) covers every vehicle "що був у користуванні і підлягає першій державній реєстрації в Україні"A designated body; ДП "ДержавтотрансНДІпроект" is the principal one Two of those — Romania and Ukraine — have texts that name the used imported car directly. Everywhere else it is handled through a national inspection instrument that sits beside the individual-approval articles rather than inside them.
Germany, a naming trap worth avoiding. § 21 StVZO produces a Gutachten, which the authority turns into a Betriebserlaubnis and the entries on Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I and Teil II. A Datenbestätigung is something else entirely — § 12 EG-FGV, national small-series type approval — and asking for one will get you a blank look.
The rules you are measured against, if you do go through Appendix 2
Three points in Appendix 2 decide how hard this is, and none of them is about age.
Point 2.2(d):
The technical requirements shall be those applicable to vehicles belonging to a type of
vehicle currently in production, in relation to the date of the submission of the
application.
Your 2014 car is measured against today's rules, not 2014's. That is the real barrier, and it moves every year.
Point 2.2(e) — the chokepoint for an auction car:
the applicant shall supply a statement of compliance with recognised international standards
or regulations. The statement in question may only be issued by the vehicle manufacturer.
A US manufacturer has no obligation to issue one for a car it sold in America, and for a salvage lot it has no reason to.
Point 2.5:
each particular vehicle shall be inspected physically by the technical service. **No
exemption to this principle shall be permitted.**
And point 2.2(b): one application per vehicle, in one member state only. The authority may ask for a written commitment to that effect — so "try three countries and take the cheapest" is not available.
The California carve-out almost nobody knows about
Appendix 2, item 2A, on emissions, point (e), verbatim:
The test referred to in point (a) **shall not be conducted where it can be shown that the
vehicle complies with the California Code Regulations** referred to in point 2.1.1 of
Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 692/2008.
A vehicle certified to California standards can be relieved of the EU Type I tailpipe test by the Regulation's own text. Many US-market cars are California-certified — the underhood emissions label says so — and it is worth checking before anybody quotes you for a dyno test.
The other requirements in that item still stand: an evaporative emissions control system for a petrol engine, a crankcase gas recycling device, and an OBD system that talks to ordinary roadworthiness-test diagnostic tools.
There is a similar US-standard alternative at item 3A: a plastic fuel tank may be evidenced by a manufacturer's statement of compliance with FMVSS No. 301 instead of UN R34 Annex 5. And seat-belt anchorages at item 19A accept FMVSS No. 210 as an alternative to UN R14.
Is there a maximum age, or an emissions floor?
Not in the Regulation. There is no age limit and no blanket emissions cut-off in 2018/858. The only age-shaped rule is the six-month "new" definition above, which decides which route applies rather than whether the car is admissible at all.
Every age limit and emissions floor you will encounter is national, made possible by Article 45(1), which lets a member state exempt a vehicle from requirements "provided that those Member States have imposed relevant alternative requirements". That power is why the answer genuinely differs by country, and why an answer you read about Poland does not transfer to Romania.
One thing that is slightly broken, so it does not confuse you
Germany's § 13 EG-FGV still cites Directive 2007/46/EC Article 24 — an act repealed on 1 September 2020. Spain's RD 750/2010 art. 4.4 does the same. Neither ordinance has been renumbered to Regulation 2018/858. If you read the national text against the EU regulation and find they do not line up, that is a drafting lag rather than a mistake on your part.
What we could not verify
Romania's article numbers. RAR's site and the Romanian legislation portal both refused connections from here, so the Romanian row above is built from consistent extracts of those official pages rather than from the primary text we read ourselves. The procedure name and the authority are solid; we are not publishing RNTR 7 article numbers we have not read. If you have done this in Romania, a reply with the current order number would be genuinely useful.
Ukraine's emissions floor sits in separate customs and registration legislation that we did not locate, so no Euro-standard cut-off is stated here for Ukraine.
Where this guide is wrong for your country, say so with a source and it gets corrected.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2018/858 (consolidated) — Arts. 3, 36, 44, 45, 46, 88 and Annex II Appendix 2 (official · 2026-09-21)
- § 21 StVZO — Betriebserlaubnis für Einzelfahrzeuge (Germany) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Code de la route art. R321-15 — réception à titre isolé (France) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Prawo o ruchu drogowym art. 81 — okresowe badanie techniczne before first registration (Poland) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Real Decreto 750/2010 — homologación individual, art. 5.4 (Spain) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Order of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine No. 521 of 17.08.2012 — індивідуальне затвердження (official · 2026-09-21)
Verified 2026-09-21. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.
- Version from Sep 22, 2026, 12:27 AM
Almost every guide to importing a US car into the EU tells you to apply for individual vehicle approval under Article 44 or Article 45 of Regulation (EU) 2018/858. For a genuinely used car that is, in most member states, the wrong door — and knowing which door is right is the difference between a two-week process and a year of being sent between offices.
First: why there is no CoC, and why nobody can sell you one
Article 3(5) defines a Certificate of Conformity as
the document issued by the manufacturer which certifies that a produced vehicle conforms to
the approved type of vehicle and complies with all regulatory acts that were applicable
at the time of its production.
A CoC is not a test certificate. It is the manufacturer's statement that this specific VIN conforms to an EU type-approval that already exists. A car built to US federal standards for the US market was never covered by an EU whole-vehicle type-approval, so there is no approved type for it to conform to.
So the CoC is not lost, not missing, and not obtainable for a fee. It cannot exist.
Article 36(3) gives an owner the right to a duplicate CoC from the manufacturer for ten years after the date of manufacture, and this is the provision brokers quote when they offer to "obtain your CoC". It only works where an EU type-approval covered that VIN in the first place — an EU-spec car that was exported to the USA and is coming home. For a US-market car there is nothing to duplicate.
**If somebody offers to sell you a CoC for a US-market car, that is the end of the
conversation.** Whatever arrives will be something else, and it will not survive an
approval office.
The framework, briefly
Regulation (EU) 2018/858 replaced Directive 2007/46/EC — Article 88: "Directive 2007/46/EC is repealed with effect from 1 September 2020." (Adopted 2018, applied 2020; guides that say "replaced in 2018" are describing the signature, not the law.)
Two individual-approval routes:
Route Article Where it is valid EU individual vehicle approval 44 Everywhere. Art. 44(6): "Member States shall permit the placing on the market, registration or entry into service of vehicles with a valid EU individual vehicle approval certificate." National individual vehicle approval 45 One country. Art. 46(1): "The validity of a national individual vehicle approval shall be restricted to the territory of the Member State that granted the individual vehicle approval." Article 46(2) and (3) then give you a right to a statement of the technical requirements used, and oblige another member state to permit the vehicle — "unless that Member State has reasonable grounds to believe that the relevant alternative requirements … are not equivalent to its own". That is a case-by-case equivalence assessment, not recognition. Poland charges a separate administrative decision for it; Spain has its own equivalence authorisation.
The practical consequence: approving a car in a cheap country and driving it home is not a plan. It buys registration in that country, and the destination will assess equivalence and may refuse.
Why Article 44 usually does not apply to your car
Annex II, Part I, Appendix 2, point 1, verbatim:
For the purpose of application of this Appendix, a vehicle is deemed to be new where:
(a) it has never been registered previously; or (b) it has been registered for **less than
six months** at the time of the application for individual vehicle approval.
A car that has been on US plates for three years is not new by that definition. And several member states read both Articles 44 and 45 as new-vehicle instruments: Italy's implementing circular says both are "rilasciabili solo per veicoli nuovi", Poland's individual-approval act speaks of a nowy pojazd, and France splits them explicitly — one order for new vehicles, a separate one for a véhicule usagé.
So the route for a used import is a national inspection instrument, and it is not the same instrument in any two countries.
What your car actually goes through
Country The procedure for a used US car Who does it Germany Betriebserlaubnis für Einzelfahrzeuge— § 21 StVZOA Gutachten by an officially recognised expert (TÜV) or a designated Technischer Dienst (DEKRA, KÜS, GTÜ); the Land authority issues the Betriebserlaubnis — not the KBA France Réception à titre isolé d'un véhicule usagé— arrêté of 19 July 1954, arts. 13–14 ter, under Code de la route art. R321-15DREAL / DRIEAT (the regional ministry services). Not UTAC — UTAC does series type-approval testing Poland Okresowe badanie technicznebefore first registration — art. 81 ust. 3 PoRD: "Okresowe badanie techniczne po raz pierwszy jest przeprowadzane przed pierwszą rejestracją pojazdu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej"An SKP inspection station; the starosta registers Spain Inspección técnica unitaria— RD 750/2010 art. 5.4(b), producing the tarjeta ITVAn ITV station, authorised by the autonomous community Italy Collaudo in unico esemplare (EU)under art. 75 Codice della Strada, mapped onto national individual approval by the ministry's 2020 circularMotorizzazione Civile (UMC) Romania Omologare individuală— one of the two systems that expressly covers a used imported vehicle at first registrationRAR, through its territorial offices Ukraine (not EU) Індивідуальне затвердження— Order No. 521/2012, п. 1.4(б) covers every vehicle "що був у користуванні і підлягає першій державній реєстрації в Україні"A designated body; ДП "ДержавтотрансНДІпроект" is the principal one Two of those — Romania and Ukraine — have texts that name the used imported car directly. Everywhere else it is handled through a national inspection instrument that sits beside the individual-approval articles rather than inside them.
Germany, a naming trap worth avoiding. § 21 StVZO produces a Gutachten, which the authority turns into a Betriebserlaubnis and the entries on Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I and Teil II. A Datenbestätigung is something else entirely — § 12 EG-FGV, national small-series type approval — and asking for one will get you a blank look.
The rules you are measured against, if you do go through Appendix 2
Three points in Appendix 2 decide how hard this is, and none of them is about age.
Point 2.2(d):
The technical requirements shall be those applicable to vehicles belonging to a type of
vehicle currently in production, in relation to the date of the submission of the
application.
Your 2014 car is measured against today's rules, not 2014's. That is the real barrier, and it moves every year.
Point 2.2(e) — the chokepoint for an auction car:
the applicant shall supply a statement of compliance with recognised international standards
or regulations. The statement in question may only be issued by the vehicle manufacturer.
A US manufacturer has no obligation to issue one for a car it sold in America, and for a salvage lot it has no reason to.
Point 2.5:
each particular vehicle shall be inspected physically by the technical service. **No
exemption to this principle shall be permitted.**
And point 2.2(b): one application per vehicle, in one member state only. The authority may ask for a written commitment to that effect — so "try three countries and take the cheapest" is not available.
The California carve-out almost nobody knows about
Appendix 2, item 2A, on emissions, point (e), verbatim:
The test referred to in point (a) **shall not be conducted where it can be shown that the
vehicle complies with the California Code Regulations** referred to in point 2.1.1 of
Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 692/2008.
A vehicle certified to California standards can be relieved of the EU Type I tailpipe test by the Regulation's own text. Many US-market cars are California-certified — the underhood emissions label says so — and it is worth checking before anybody quotes you for a dyno test.
The other requirements in that item still stand: an evaporative emissions control system for a petrol engine, a crankcase gas recycling device, and an OBD system that talks to ordinary roadworthiness-test diagnostic tools.
There is a similar US-standard alternative at item 3A: a plastic fuel tank may be evidenced by a manufacturer's statement of compliance with FMVSS No. 301 instead of UN R34 Annex 5. And seat-belt anchorages at item 19A accept FMVSS No. 210 as an alternative to UN R14.
Is there a maximum age, or an emissions floor?
Not in the Regulation. There is no age limit and no blanket emissions cut-off in 2018/858. The only age-shaped rule is the six-month "new" definition above, which decides which route applies rather than whether the car is admissible at all.
Every age limit and emissions floor you will encounter is national, made possible by Article 45(1), which lets a member state exempt a vehicle from requirements "provided that those Member States have imposed relevant alternative requirements". That power is why the answer genuinely differs by country, and why an answer you read about Poland does not transfer to Romania.
One thing that is slightly broken, so it does not confuse you
Germany's § 13 EG-FGV still cites Directive 2007/46/EC Article 24 — an act repealed on 1 September 2020. Spain's RD 750/2010 art. 4.4 does the same. Neither ordinance has been renumbered to Regulation 2018/858. If you read the national text against the EU regulation and find they do not line up, that is a drafting lag rather than a mistake on your part.
What we could not verify
Romania's article numbers. RAR's site and the Romanian legislation portal both refused connections from here, so the Romanian row above is built from consistent extracts of those official pages rather than from the primary text we read ourselves. The procedure name and the authority are solid; we are not publishing RNTR 7 article numbers we have not read. If you have done this in Romania, a reply with the current order number would be genuinely useful.
Ukraine's emissions floor sits in separate customs and registration legislation that we did not locate, so no Euro-standard cut-off is stated here for Ukraine.
Where this guide is wrong for your country, say so with a source and it gets corrected.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2018/858 (consolidated) — Arts. 3, 36, 44, 45, 46, 88 and Annex II Appendix 2 (official · 2026-09-21)
- § 21 StVZO — Betriebserlaubnis für Einzelfahrzeuge (Germany) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Code de la route art. R321-15 — réception à titre isolé (France) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Prawo o ruchu drogowym art. 81 — okresowe badanie techniczne before first registration (Poland) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Real Decreto 750/2010 — homologación individual, art. 5.4 (Spain) (official · 2026-09-21)
- Order of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine No. 521 of 17.08.2012 — індивідуальне затвердження (official · 2026-09-21)
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