Most cars on Swedish roads must be taxed in order to be used in traffic and for some cars you have to pay a lot in vehicle tax, or car tax as it is often called in everyday speech.
The exception is, for example, vintage cars, i.e. cars that are 30 years old or older, which are tax-exempt and only need to pay a road traffic registration fee. Exactly which vehicles must and must not pay vehicle tax can be seen in the fact box below.
But what happens to the vehicle tax in the event of a change of ownership, and who will pay the car tax if it is unpaid when the car changes hands? Here you get the answer.
What happens to car tax when ownership changes?
Car tax is normally paid once a year, except for cars with a tax of over SEK 3,600 a year. Then the payment is divided into three occasions each year.
The tax is paid in advance for the period until the next payment. In the event of a change of ownership, the tax paid goes with the vehicle, and the seller thus does not get the tax back.
Even if you choose to park the car in connection with the change of ownership, the remaining tax is paid to the new owner, according to The Swedish Transport Agency’s website.
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Who pays the car tax when ownership changes?
Which month the car tax must be paid depends on the numbers in the registration number. You can read more about this here.
The question is what happens if the car changes owners during the month that the tax must be paid, if this has not been done.
The answer is that the tax liability does not transfer to the new owner, even if the change of ownership takes place before the last date when the car tax must be paid. Whoever sells the car at the beginning of the month in which the tax must be paid must therefore ensure that the tax is paid before the end of the month.
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Then you can be cheated
Buying a car in the month in which car tax is due may seem smart because the seller then has to pay car tax for the entire period until the next payment.
However, there is a risk with this arrangement for the buyer, and that is that the seller of the car does not pay the car tax. If the seller ignores or does not want to pay the car tax, the car is covered prohibition of use.
It’s not just the mechanics that have to be checked when buying a used car – Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad/TT
This means that the new owner may not use the car until the old owner has paid the tax.
If the car is still used and it has been more than two months since the tax should have been paid, the police can confiscate the registration plates.