Neil5097

Hi, we will be moving to Brittany some time next year and would appreciate any advice and help with knowledge about registering two motorcycles in France. Both are UK registered. Information on the net is rather mixed, some say any bike over 106hp cannot be registered. Has anyone on this site done so please? Thanks, Neil

Novocastrian

Google is your friend. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/f...es-106522.html

Tweedpipe

Novo's post is interesting, and no longer being a motorcyclist (sold my 350 AJS many years ago) I wasn't aware of this change in the law here around 2016. Another quick Google found this, and I love the cartoon humour.......
Dossier : La fin des 100 chevaux moto en France ! C'est Officiel ! - Mag' Motardes

To the original poster: If you do import and register your potent machine, heed the implied advise in the above cartoon, i.e. take care of your 'honorable couilles'.........

Exprop

As someone still in the process of registering my wife's Triumph Tiger 800 and having recently succeeded in registering my 1200GS I bear the scars of this process and would recommend that you seriously consider selling your bikes in the UK and buying replacements when you arrive in France.

There has been a recent change which means that you can only apply for a carte grise online rather than at the local prefecture. The result has been that there is no leeway allowed in the process, nor is there any feedback on what has gone wrong with the application. This makes it difficult and there are currently 450,000 applications for motor vehicle registrations which are held up somewhere in the system. Expect delays.

You can obtain a certificate of conformity free of charge (usually) from the bike manufacturer in the UK. Unfortunately this will be completely useless in France since it applies only to riding on the left hand side of the road and the type approval number will not be recognised by the French authorities. This applies even if the bike is identical with those sold in France (as with my wife's Tiger) where the only change is to switch the speedo to read in Km/h rather than mph.. You will need instead to apply to a dealer here in France who can attest that your bike conforms with the requirements applying here and who can then apply to the manufacturer's head office in France for a new certificate of conformity with the correct type approval number The usual charge for this is 300 euros and you can expect a 3 month wait to receive the new COC.

For bikes with power in excess of 100 bhp things are a bit more complicated. The law relating to this was rescinded in 2016.for those bikes with ABS but the old rules still apply if your bike was first registered during the period in which the restrictions applied. If bikes of the same type were imported and sold in France during that period (as with my 1200gs they were chipped to have a power output of less than 100bhp. The only way to get it registered is to submit it to the dealer so that they can chip it to the reduced power level and then provide an attestation that it complies completely with the rules which applied to French bikes at the date it was first registered. Only once that has been done can you apply for a COC and thus for a carte grise. (Afterwards you can completely legally remove the chip and restore the power output to the old level but expect for this to have severe consequences in terms of insurance premiums.

Please bear in mind that you can ride your bikes on British plates for as long as you have valid insurance (normally up to 90 days) and must register your bikes within a similar period of becoming resident here. However, it is extremely difficult to find any French insurance company who will insure your bike to be ridden while on UK plates unless you can prove that you have submitted your application for a carte grise (including having obtained a COC with the correct type approval number). You may thus find yourself with bikes which are uninsurable until you have completed the process.

There are some other papers involved in the application for a carte grise such as a copy of the original bill of sale to show that tax has been paid appropriately which can then be traded for a 'quitus fiscale' the local tax office but these are simple compared to the COC problem.

Having talked this through with several others who have had similar experiences the advice is universal.Unless there is a compelling reason to hold on to a particular bike you will be well advised to sell it in the UK and buy a replacement here in France. It will probably cost less and save you a great deal of hassle with the process of registration.

Tweedpipe

Excellent information here.
This statement surprised me a little, "You can obtain a certificate of conformity free of charge (usually) from the bike manufacturer in the UK. Correct.
Unfortunately this will be completely useless in France since it applies only to riding on the left hand side of the road and the type approval number will not be recognised by the French authorities."
I wouldn't have said it was completely useless, as it's definitely one of the documents that the registration procedure will require, but I totally agree that (as with a car) mechanical changes will be required to the speedometer, headlights, and sometimes other components. At one time here this used to require a re-test at an authorised station (service des mines). - been there, done that - and what a pain in the derrierre! I was driving a UK registered Lotus at the time, and wouldn't want to go through that procedure again!
Yes, the best advise is to sell the bike and cut the losses and considerable annoyance.