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6. Cost & Payments

FAQ

6. Cost & Payments

Learn all you need to know about the financial aspects of using OPENLANE. From understanding auction fees to managing payments and handling transactions, we provide clear details and helpful tips to ensure a smooth and transparent experience. This guide will help you stay informed about costs and manage payments efficiently.

6.1 How and when do I pay for the vehicle?

Once you’ve won the auction, and the seller has assigned the vehicle to you, you have one business day to complete the vehicle purchase online. After receiving the payment invitation, you pay for the vehicle via bank transfer within two business days. It’s possible to make payments for several cars in one transfer.

Please always include the reference numbers of all vehicles you paid. This helps us to follow everything up and process your payments more quickly. As soon as your payments are received and processed, you will receive a confirmation email and all related invoices will be available online in ‘My Account’.

Important: We only accept payments coming from a bank account registered on your company’s name and from the country where your company is registered. In addition, the payment should be made in full. In case of partial payments for one vehicle, we shall charge additional fees.

According to our T&C, we do not accept cash payments or payments from companies with an invalid VAT number. A refund of a received payment will result in a cancellation of the purchase and we shall charge additional fees.

When a vehicle is not paid on its due date, it will give us the right to postpone any further delivery of goods/and or services.

For fast accurate communication about your vehicle, please always include its reference number or chassis number. You can find the entire buying process here.

6.2 How can I know when you have received my payment?

The best way to follow up on your purchases is in ‘My orders’. When we have received your payment, you can easily see it here. Your invoice will also appear under ‘My orders’.

You will also receive an email from us as soon as the payment has been confirmed by our bookkeepers and your invoice has been processed.
For cars that have been delivered, the invoice will appear as a PDF file in ‘My orders’.

6.3 What are the rates in 2025?

Registration? Free. Bidding? Free. Customer support? Free. In fact, OPENLANE does not charge you anything unless you are successful in purchasing or selling a vehicle. A good deal? We think so.

If you do win an auction, certain mandatory fees apply. These include country-specific import fees, auction fees and fees for the related customs documentation. Please always remember to take these costs into account when calculating your bid.

The auction fee depends on how much you eventually pay for a vehicle. However, we guarantee high-quality personal service no matter how much you pay. For every vehicle purchased also incurs a country fee. The fee depends on which country the vehicle is sold in. You will always find it listed on the car details page.

Additionally, for a limited number of sellers, we charge extra costs. For full transparency, these appear under ‘Seller specific fee’ on the car details page. This is mainly applicable for sellers who are offering their vehicles exclusively on openlane.eu.

* Rates are applicable as from 16/12/2024.

Fees for export documents

Scenarios Cost Remark
1. Vehicles from the EU are exported to a country outside the EU
(example: a Belgian car is exported to Serbia)
EX document: €110 Document is provided by OPENLANE for all vehicles that are physically located in Belgium or the Netherlands.
2. Vehicles from the EU are sold to another EU country.
(Example: a Belgian car is exported to Romania)
N/A No export documents needed.


Transport fees
Don’t forget that when you order transport with us, a transport fee will be charged. This depends on your location and the location of the vehicle you purchase. You can find out more about transport here.

IMPORTANT: The fee for the Optimo service appoints to €145.

Who choose to organise international transport themselves, a pickup fee of €80 will be charged to cover the costs of handling and administration. For domestic transport, and vehicles or destinations for which OPENLANE does not offer a transport solution, the pickup fee will not be applicable.

IMPORTANT
1. 
In case you order transport at a later stage in the process, the pick-up fee cannot be refunded.
2. Transport cannot be cancelled after payment

6.4 What is the Margin Certificate?

We also offer margin cars: for these cars the VAT is included in the vehicle price. For these margin vehicles we provide an additional document, the “Margin Certificate”, which attests the VAT special margin regime for second-hand vehicles.

This certificate appears as .PDF files in‘ My account’ .

Margin Certificate

6.5 What is the VAT regime of a vehicle? What does it mean?

The rules relating to the Value Added Tax (better known as VAT) you pay on a vehicle are influenced by a number of factors. Where did you purchase the vehicle and where will you be selling it? Are you going outside the EU? Are you staying in the country of purchase? What is the VAT qualification of the vehicle you have purchased? It’s a complex area.

Our platform offers vehicles under normal VAT rules (normal VAT vehicles) and vehicles under margin scheme (margin vehicles). Vehicles under normal VAT rules are symbolized with “D” (D for Deductible VAT or Qualifying) on our website and margin vehicles are shown with “M” (M for Margin). The prices of vehicles under normal VAT rules are VAT excluded while for margin vehicles VAT is included in the price of the vehicle.

In the table below, we give you an overview of the rules and regulations you will face based on the details of your vehicle.

Local sale

(Example: German registered vehicle sold by OPENLANE Deutschland to a buyer with a German VAT number. The car stays in Germany)

(All vehicles sold to a buyer with a Belgian VAT number are invoiced via OPENLANE Belgium NV as local sale.)
EU transaction

(Example: a German registered vehicle is sold and transported to Romania)

Export

(Example: a German registered vehicle is exported to Russia)

Normal VAT vehicle = VAT excluded in price mentioned on website • VAT on vehicle included on the invoice (deductible)

• Costs(*) incl. VAT

• VAT deductible

• VAT on vehicle excluded on the invoice

• Buyer declares VAT in destination country

• Costs(*) excl. VAT (declaration)

•  VAT excluded, no VAT to be paid inside the EU

• Buyer declares vehicle in import country according to local country rules

• Costs(*) excl. VAT

See European directive EC/2006/112: art. 140 for more information. See European directive EC/2006/112: art. 146 for more information.
Margin vehicle = VAT included in price mentioned on website

 

 

 

• VAT included in the vehicle price

• Costs(*) subject to VAT (to be paid by the buyer)

• VAT included in vehicle price and paid on costs(*) is not deductible

• VAT included in the vehicle price

• Costs(*) subject to VAT (to be paid by the buyer)

• VAT included in vehicle price and paid on costs(*) is not deductible

• VAT included in the vehicle price

• Costs(*) not subject to European VAT

Please check the European directive EC/2006/112: art. 312 for more information.
For all margin cars, a margin certificate is available as a PDF file.

(*) Costs = all costs (country-specific costs, auction fees, transport costs, costs for paper invoice) except for the price of the vehicle.

6.6 What is BPM?

The vast majority of Dutch vehicles are subject to a domestic vehicle tax called BPM, which is related to the CO2 emissions of a vehicle. BPM is a Dutch abbreviation for “tax on passenger vehicles and motorcycles”.

For every new or imported vehicle that is registered in the Netherlands for the first time and that is subject to BPM, a gross BPM tax amount is due. This amount depreciates each month following the registration according to a fixed depreciation table, price list or valuation report.

The charging of residual BPM only applies for domestic sales, so if a BPM subject vehicle is sold to another Dutch owner and if it stays registered in the Netherlands.

In case of international sales (Dutch cars sold for export), the residual BPM will not be charged to the international customer.

In that case, OPENLANE Netherlands is the last Dutch owner who has to pay the remainder of the BPM amount and who has the option to get it refunded under certain conditions when de-registering and exporting the car.

More detailed info on BPM can be found on the site of the Dutch Tax Administration:

6.7 What do the bank codes IBAN, BIC, SEPA and SHA mean?

To be able to make payments, you need to understand the various bank codes that are involved. The following is an explanation of what these codes stand for and which types of transactions they apply to.

IBAN (International Bank Account Number)
An IBAN is an internationally recognised, standardised number that’s used to identify a bank account. It contains up to 34 alphanumeric characters, beginning with a double-digit country code, followed by two check digits that confirm the validity of the IBAN, and ending with a BBAN (Basic Bank Account Number) that contains specific bank and account details. The format of the BBAN varies from country to country, but generally includes a bank code and branch code.

BIC (Bank Identifier Code), aka SWIFT code
BIC and SWIFT code refer to the same thing: a code of 8 to 11 characters that’s used to identify a specific bank in an international transaction. Each bank has a unique BIC/SWIFT code to ensure money transfers end up in the right place.

SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area)
SEPA is a pan-European network that enables people to send and receive payments in euros (€) between two bank accounts within the eurozone. With SEPA, transferring money within the eurozone is as easy as a domestic bank transfer. SEPA has 36 member states: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Vatican. The United Kingdom remains a SEPA country despite Brexit.

SHA (Shared)
SHA means that you only pay your bank’s outgoing transfer charge. We receive your payment minus the correspondent bank fee, i.e., intermediary bank charges.

6.8 What are the steps Italian customers need to follow for importing vehicles and paying VAT after being invoiced by OPENLANE Europe?

With the new invoicing changes, Italian customers with VAT linked to VIES will now be responsible for the import process and VAT payment. The procedure differs depending on whether the vehicle is a Margin car or the VAT is excluded:

Margin cars

Step 1: Contact the Revenue Agency

  • Locate the appropriate Revenue Agency office for your region.
  • Request an appointment to unlock the chassis number by phone or online.

Step 2: Prepare the Required Documents At your appointment, present the following:

  1. Original Registration Document: Proof of ownership from the country of origin.
  2. Purchase Invoice: Details of the vehicle and price.
  3. Proof of Payment: Evidence of payment (e.g., bank transfer receipt).
  4. Margin Certificate: Provided by Openlane, confirming the vehicle was sold under the margin scheme (specific VAT regime).

Step 3: Provide Additional Documents if Requested
The Revenue Agency may ask for more documents (e.g., customs clearance, Certificate of Conformity).

Step 4: Attend Appointment
Present all documents, and the Revenue Agency will unlock the chassis number.

Step 5: Complete Vehicle Registration
Register the vehicle with the Motorizzazione Civile (motor vehicle authority), pay taxes, and obtain Italian plates and insurance.


VAT excluded vehicles

Guide to Importing Foreign Vehicles into Italy (VAT excluded Vehicles)

Step 1: Make VAT Payment

  • Calculate the VAT due for the vehicle.
  • Pay VAT using the F24 form. Complete the payment via bank transfer or other accepted methods.

Step 2: Request CED Receipt

  • Submit the following documents to your local Revenue Agency to request the CED receipt:
  • Purchase Invoice: The original invoice detailing the vehicle purchase.
  • F24 Form and Payment Proof: Completed F24 form and proof of the VAT payment.

Step 3: Check for Chassis Block During Registration
If the vehicle’s chassis is blocked when attempting registration, check your tax drawer (Cassetto Fiscale) on the Revenue Agency’s online portal.

Step 4: Resolve Chassis Block (only necessary if blocked)
If the chassis is not matched or shows insufficient payment, contact the Revenue Agency to request unblocking.

Step 5: Complete Registration
Once unblocked, proceed with vehicle registration through the Motorizzazione Civile, including paying any other fees and obtaining Italian license plates.

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