It is a Thursday in February in Waterford. You run a 10-van building and maintenance company. One of your older Transits is due replacement. The Irish used van market is tight — a clean 2021 Transit Custom 2.0 TDCi at an Irish main dealer is €22,000. A mate tells you about a UK commercial vehicle auction where the same van ran £13,500 last Tuesday. At 1.17 to the euro that is €15,800. Gap: €6,200. A no-brainer.

Three weeks later the van is finally on Irish plates. The spreadsheet tells a different story. The van cost you €21,400 landed. Net saving against the Irish dealer: €600 — and you spent 22 hours of your own time across Revenue forms, a NCTS appointment, shipping calls and a very long phone queue to HMRC about UK VAT reclaim. For €600.

This article is the honest landed-cost maths that every Irish fleet buyer should work through before booking the ferry to Holyhead. There are still cases where a UK import makes sense — specific spec, unique colour, heavy commercials, left-over warranty on newer vans. But the volume cases are not them.

The four-layer tax stack on every UK import since January 2021

Pre-Brexit, a van from Manchester to Dublin was an intra-EU movement. You paid Irish VRT, you cleared a short NCTS appointment, and the van was on the road in a week. Post-Brexit, a van moving UK-to-IE is an import from a third country. The stack is four layers deep and every layer has a catch.

Layer 1 — Customs duty (10% — and the rules-of-origin trap most buyers fall into)

The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement removes customs duty on goods "of UK origin". Most buyers assume that means any van bought in the UK. It does not. Rules of origin require the vehicle to have been substantially manufactured or transformed in the UK. A Ford Transit built in Kocaeli, Turkey, sitting in a Manchester auction does not qualify. Neither does a Volkswagen Transporter built in Hanover. Neither does a Renault Trafic built in Sandouville, France, then sold into the UK.

In practice, almost no mainstream light commercial vehicle sold through UK channels is "of UK origin" for TCA purposes. That means Revenue will apply 10% customs duty on the CIF value (cost + insurance + freight) when the van lands. Use the Revenue customs import guidance as the authoritative source, not a broker WhatsApp message. For a €15,800 van plus €450 shipping, that is €1,625 in duty.

A UK-built Vauxhall Vivaro from the Luton plant may qualify — but the supplier has to issue a valid origin declaration that references TCA Annex 2 and the burden of proof sits on the importer. Auction yards generally do not issue these. If you want TCA origin relief, buy from a dealer who can document it.

Layer 2 — Import VAT (23%) and the UK VAT refund most people never claim

Irish import VAT is 23% on the CIF value plus customs duty. For our example: (€15,800 + €450 + €1,625) × 23% = €4,110.

Here is the trap. You bought the van in the UK. If you bought from a VAT-registered UK seller (most dealers and auctions), you paid UK VAT at 20% in the purchase price — unless you correctly zero-rated the export at the point of sale. In theory you can reclaim the UK VAT from HMRC as an export refund. In practice:

  • You need a UK EORI, which you probably do not have.
  • You need the UK seller to issue a zero-rated VAT invoice evidencing export within 3 months.
  • Auction houses rarely agree to this retrospectively.
  • The HMRC refund queue has sat at 12-17 weeks for most of 2024-2025.

Most Irish private and small-fleet importers end up paying UK VAT at 20% (baked into the auction hammer price) and Irish VAT at 23% on top. Double VAT. The official rules on zero-rating exports at source are on gov.uk personal export of vehicles and the Irish side on the Revenue VAT portal. Read both. Do not assume the seller will guide you.

Layer 3 — VRT (Vehicle Registration Tax — based on OMSP, not what you paid)

VRT is where most first-time importers get the biggest surprise. Revenue does not charge VRT on what you paid for the van. Revenue charges VRT on the OMSP — Open Market Selling Price — which is Revenue's own valuation of what the vehicle is worth in the Irish market. OMSP is typically close to Irish dealer retail, not UK auction wholesale.

For a goods vehicle (Category B or C on the Revenue classification) the VRT rate is 13.3% of OMSP for N1 light commercials in 2026. A Transit Custom with an OMSP of €22,000 carries €2,926 in VRT. The VRT calculator is on Revenue ROS VRT enquiry. Run the exact make/model/engine/year combination before you bid. Do not rely on a broker number.

A classification trap: if the van is a crew-cab with three rear seats and windows, Revenue may classify it as Category A (passenger car), not Category B (goods). Category A rates are 7-41% of OMSP depending on CO2. A Transit Custom DCIV can shift by €5,000+ depending on classification. Read Revenue VRT category guidance carefully before you assume it is Category B.

Layer 4 — NOx levy (grams scaled, up to €4,850)

Since 2020 Revenue charges a NOx levy on registration alongside VRT, based on the vehicle's NOx emissions in mg/km. A typical 2019-2021 Euro 6 diesel Transit emits around 80 mg/km and carries a NOx levy in the €400-€600 range. Older Euro 5 diesels can hit the €4,850 cap. The schedule is published on Revenue NOx emissions charge. Look up the exact figure before you commit. An unexpected €4,000 NOx levy on a cheap Euro 5 van kills the deal entirely.

The full landed-cost maths for the Waterford example

  • UK auction hammer: £13,500 = €15,800
  • UK buyer premium (~12%) and VAT on premium: €2,140
  • Shipping + collection + ferry: €450
  • CIF total: €18,390
  • Customs duty @ 10%: €1,839
  • Import VAT @ 23% (on CIF + duty): €4,653
  • VRT on OMSP (€22,000 × 13.3%): €2,926
  • NOx levy: €490
  • Number plates + registration fee: €80
  • NCTS VRT inspection appointment fee: €100
  • CVRT (required for commercial use): €75

Landed total: €28,553 — not €21,400 as the admin first counted. The admin count missed the buyer premium and double-counted UK VAT net of refund. Either way, significantly above the €22,000 Irish dealer price.

If you managed to buy VAT-zero-rated from the UK seller (requires patience and a dealer who will cooperate), strip £2,700 out of the stack. The landed total then drops to roughly €25,500. Still above the Irish dealer.

The 30-day clock — and why missing it is expensive

Once the van lands in Ireland you have 30 days to make a VRT appointment at a NCTS centre. Miss the deadline and Revenue adds a 0.1% per day penalty on the VRT amount, capped at the VRT due. The appointment itself costs €100 and lasts about 45 minutes. The tester measures the van, verifies the VIN against the V5 (or the UK equivalent registration document), and submits the VRT calculation to Revenue. Pay VRT online within five days, receive the new Irish registration number, order plates, and the van is road legal.

For commercial use you also need a CVRT (Certificate of Roadworthiness). A van imported with a current UK MOT does not carry over — Ireland does not recognise UK MOT post-Brexit. You book CVRT at any authorised centre as covered in our CVRT scheduling article.

When importing still makes sense

The landed-cost maths above is the base case — standard light commercial, 3-4 year old Transit or Vivaro. For these, the Irish market wins 9 times out of 10 once you count all four tax layers and your time.

Cases where UK import still pays:

  • Specific spec not sold in Ireland — dual-fuel vans, particular chassis-cab lengths, left-over UK dealer stock at run-out discounts.
  • Heavy commercials and buses — the fixed admin cost is the same but the vehicle value is much larger, so percentage savings matter more.
  • Specialist vehicles — recovery trucks, tippers, Luton-body box vans, refrigerated vans at particular internal dimensions. UK market is bigger and pricing sharper.
  • Classic and unique vehicles — not fleet territory, but worth knowing.
  • Dealer-to-dealer trade imports — if you have proper UK VAT export zero-rating, TCA origin paperwork from a UK-built van (Luton Vivaro, Ellesmere Port / Halewood vehicles), and you handle 20+ imports a year, the economics work because the admin cost per unit drops.

For a one-off import of a standard Transit, the cost of learning is usually higher than the saving.

Fleet-operator checklist before you bid

  1. Confirm the VRT category on Revenue ROS VRT enquiry using the exact make, model, engine and year. Note the OMSP and VRT figure.
  2. Check NOx emissions on the V5 or the manufacturer spec sheet and look up the levy on Revenue NOx.
  3. Confirm whether the vehicle is "of UK origin" under TCA. If the seller cannot produce an origin declaration, budget 10% customs duty.
  4. Ask the UK seller whether they will zero-rate the export for VAT. Get that in writing before you bid.
  5. Add €450-€700 for shipping and €100 for the NCTS VRT inspection.
  6. Add CVRT (~€75) and new plates (~€80). UK MOT does not carry.
  7. Compare the total to three Irish dealer quotes — not the asking price, the negotiated driveaway price. You will often find the gap is €500-€2,000 once the Irish dealer moves on a slow stock van.

Sources & further reading

Related Mekavo articles: CVRT scheduling for Irish SMB fleets, more IE fleet articles landing through April 2026.

Why we care

Mekavo Fleet is the lightweight fleet manager for Irish 5-30 vehicle operators. We track vehicle documents, CVRT dates, motor tax renewals and purchase paperwork in one place — so that when you do import a van from the UK, the VRT certificate, the Revenue confirmation, the CIF breakdown and the new CRW are all attached to that vehicle and searchable five years later. We do not replace your accountant. We keep the paper trail sane.

Note on scenarios: The shops, names, addresses, and case reference numbers in this article are fictional and used solely to illustrate how the cited statutes operate in practice. Any resemblance to actual shops, owners, or events is coincidental. The statutes, regulations, and agency procedures cited are real and current as of publication.