This tax, which concerns many motorists, will increase significantly in certain regions next year.
The expenses of French people who own one or more cars are not likely to reduce in 2025. Quite the contrary. The trend is towards an overall increase in costs, whether for repair costs in garages, car insurance prices, motorway prices, parking costs in cities, particularly for SUV owners… And that’s not all. Several regions of France have already announced the increase in a tax from 1er January. More bad news for many motorists.
This increase concerns the vehicle registration certification, still often called gray card. It remains mandatory to drive a car in France. When purchasing a new or used vehicle, the purchaser must make an online request via the website of the National Agency for Secure Titles (ANTS) or through certain approved professionals to obtain the registration certificate which allows the vehicle to be identified and provides essential information about its owner. This essential document has a cost, and this will skyrocket in 2025.
The price of the registration document essentially depends on the regional tax, set as its name indicates by the regions. Its amount, between 0 and 60 euros, is multiplied by the number of tax horses of the vehicle. In general, the tax power of a city car is 4 or 5 horsepower, that of an SUV rather 6 or 7. Three regions have already announced that they will increase their regional tax next year: this is Occitanie, Burgundy-Franche-Comté and Normandy. In the latter, the increase in the tax had already reached 31% this year, it will increase by another 30% in 2025. Concretely, the regional tax in Normandy will increase from 46 to 60 euros, the ceiling imposed by law.
As explained above, these 14 euros must be multiplied by the number of tax horses. The registration certificate for a 4CV car will therefore cost 56 euros more (4×14) in two and a half months if it is issued in Normandy. For the new owner of a Peugeot 3008 with 7 horsepower, the increase will reach 98 euros! Normandy is so far the only region to have reached the ceiling of 60 euros allocated to each tax horse. But many regions, including Île-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Centre-Val-de-Loire and Brittany, already exceed 50 euros. And new local increases could be announced soon…
As a reminder, failure to present the registration certificate of the vehicle you are driving during a roadside inspection is punishable by a fine of 11 euros. The motorist caught in default then has 5 days to bring it to the police station. After this period, he incurs a fixed fine of 135 euros, reduced to 90 euros in the event of payment within 45 days.