Selling a Car to an Overseas Buyer

When a car is sold to someone who will keep it in the UK, the seller hands over the green new keeper slip from the V5C log book and tells DVLA who the buyer is. GOV.UK gives different steps when the buyer is taking the car abroad and will register it there:

• Fill in the permanent export section of the V5C.
• Send that section to DVLA, Swansea, SA99 1BD, with a letter giving the buyer’s name and address.
• Give the buyer the rest of the V5C, not just the green new keeper slip. They need it to register the car in the country it is going to.

DVLA works out any vehicle tax refund from the date it receives the permanent export section, and usually pays it in 4 to 6 weeks. When we ship the car, the rest of the V5C travels with it.

Before You Sell

• Update the V5C first if your name, your address or the car’s details have changed. GOV.UK warns that you may lose a vehicle tax refund if the details are wrong.
• If you want to keep a private (personalised) registration number, apply to remove it before you sell. GOV.UK says the right to the number is lost if it is not transferred or retained before the car is exported.

This section is for VAT-registered sellers. If you are not registered for VAT, none of it applies to your sale.

A VAT-registered dealer can sometimes sell a car without VAT, known as zero-rating, because the car is being exported. Whether a sale qualifies is for the dealer to decide under HMRC’s rules in VAT Notice 703, and if it does not qualify, the VAT is the dealer’s to account for. We are not VAT registered, so we do not charge, zero-rate or reclaim VAT. What we can do is make the export declaration and send you the proof of export.

HMRC’s Main Conditions

• The car must leave the UK within 3 months, and you must have evidence that it did within 3 months too. Both limits run from the time of supply, which in most cases is the earlier of the day the car leaves you and the day you are paid in full.
• If the buyer arranges the shipping, HMRC calls it an indirect export. The buyer must then be an overseas person: someone not resident in the UK, or a business with no establishment here from which it makes taxable supplies. The car must not be used after it leaves you, apart from the trip to the port or airport it leaves the UK from.
• If you employ the shipping line or forwarder yourself, rather than the buyer doing so, it is a direct export, and the car must not be used or delivered in the UK before it goes.
• A car sold under the second-hand margin scheme cannot be zero-rated as an export.

HMRC does not let a seller zero-rate a sale to a customer established in the UK, such as a UK resident or a business with a place of business here, even if that customer exports the car straight from the seller’s premises. Zero-rating may still apply if the seller arranges a direct export itself. Where the car passes through more than one sale before it leaves, only the sale to the buyer overseas can be zero-rated, whoever arranges the export. Our company is established in the UK and is not VAT registered. When we buy a car from you and sell it on, which is how we normally work, your sale to us cannot be zero-rated. If you are selling a new or VAT-qualifying car free of VAT, invoice the overseas buyer directly instead, and we handle the export and send you the proof of export.

For an indirect export, HMRC suggests taking a deposit from the buyer equal to the VAT and refunding it once you hold proof of export.

If the buyer wants to drive the car in the UK before it leaves, the route is HMRC’s Personal Export Scheme (VAT Notice 707). It is for overseas visitors and UK residents who will leave the UK with the car and stay outside it for at least 6 months. Only a business that operates the scheme can sell under it, and the buyer completes form VAT 410 with that business. Our Personal Export Scheme page explains it.

General guidance drawn from HMRC VAT Notices 703 and 707, not tax advice. Your accountant or HMRC can confirm how the rules apply to a particular sale.

Police warn sellers about a fraud they call criminal cashback, and vehicles sold online are among their examples. The buyer overpays, usually by cheque or banker’s draft, and asks the seller to send the extra to a friend, a shipping agent, an escrow company or someone else. When the payment bounces, the seller who paid it in still owes the bank, and the money sent on usually cannot be recovered. A draft from a foreign bank can be recalled months, or even years, after it reached the account.

• Never send money on to a shipping agent, or anyone else, out of a payment a buyer has made to you.
• Do not let a buyer hurry you. Fraudsters use pressure to push sellers into mistakes.
• Keep the car, the keys and the V5C until your bank confirms the money is in your account.
• Do not send a buyer a photo or copy of the V5C, or its document reference number. GOV.UK warns that someone could use them to get a fraudulent copy of the log book and steal or clone the car. A buyer can check what DVLA holds about the car, and its MOT history, on GOV.UK with the registration number.

We can help in two ways. If you would rather not take money from abroad, we can buy the car from you and sell it on to the buyer, and the only payment you receive comes from us in the UK. And if a buyer wants to use a shipping agent you cannot check, you can point the buyer to us instead.

If you think you have been targeted, contact your bank straight away. Fraud can be reported to Report Fraud, the national service run by City of London Police that replaced Action Fraud in December 2025, at reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040. In Scotland, report it to Police Scotland on 101.

From You

• The car’s make, model and registration number, and its V5C log book
• Your name and address, and the address the car is to be collected from if you want us to collect it
• The price agreed with the buyer, or a copy of your invoice or bill of sale
• Confirmation that there is no outstanding finance on the car

From the Buyer

• One government-issued photo ID and one utility bill showing their address, for the customs entries and our anti-money-laundering checks
• The destination country, and whether they want the car shipped by RoRo, by container or by air
• Any extras they want: marine insurance on a container shipment, and clearance, registration and delivery at the far end

Payment to us is due in cleared funds before the car is loaded, unless the quotation sets out different terms. Where we buy the car to sell on to the buyer, a £1,000 deposit from the buyer secures it. It is part of the price, not an extra fee. We accept bank transfer, which we prefer, and card payments up to £5,000, with no fee on personal debit or credit cards. We do not accept letters of credit, cheques, money orders or cash.