Hundreds of protesters from all over Ukraine gathered in front of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada on Sept. 6 demanding the parliament to ease the rules of stay of vehicles with foreign license plates.
Protesters, most of whom drive vehicles with foreign registration plates from Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, blocked the morning traffic in Kyiv, calling on lawmakers to pass laws that will reduce excise duties and taxes for used European cars.
Many Ukrainians who find new cars unaffordable have been buying used cars from European Union countries. The cars are legally owned by firms in the EU that lease them to Ukrainians for several thousand euros. The de facto owners then drive the cars in Ukraine without paying customs clearance.
The Customs Code allows using foreign vehicles in Ukraine in a transit mode for up to 10 days. Foreigners are allowed to drive their cars in Ukraine for one year. While drivers of the cars registered in the EU are violating the law, the violation is rarely tracked and punished. The punishment is a fine of some $325.
Ukraine’s fiscal authorities earlier proposed to introduce a new fine of up to 100 percent of the cost of the car for Ukrainians who drive cars with foreign license plates in Ukraine for more than 20 days, and to confiscate the car.
The protesters want the parliament to pass a bill regulating the transit and temporary import of cars with foreign registration for personal use. If backed by the parliament, the owners of vehicles with foreign license plates imported into the country will be allowed to freely move without customs clearance by paying a duty once a year. The bill sets the size of the annual duty at about 2.5 per cent of the car’s customs clearance cost.
According to the State Fiscal Service, there are at least 63,900 vehicles with foreign registration on the territory of Ukraine. In 2016, more than 712,000 cars with foreign registration crossed the border of Ukraine and at least 54,300 of them never left the country.
