Regulation on Vehicle Sales, Transfer and Registration Services

The Regulation on the Conduct of Vehicle Sales, Transfer and Registration Services was prepared jointly by the Ministries of Justice and the Interior and published in Official Gazette No. 30318 of 31 January 2018. It sets out the procedures and principles for vehicle sales, transfer and registration services and the fees charged for these transactions (Article 1). It is based on Articles 20 and 22 and Additional Article 18 of the Highway Traffic Law No. 2918 (Article 2). The Regulation has since been amended; the latest amendment was published in Official Gazette No. 33219 of 9 April 2026.

What does the Regulation require of the vehicle owner?

The Regulation lays down the rules for registration, sale and transfer transactions carried out through notaries and traffic registration authorities. A vehicle registration certificate is treated as invalid when the vehicle is sold or transferred, scrapped, technically modified or put to a different use (Article 12). Each of these transactions depends on an application by the owner and, in most cases, on there being no outstanding tax or fine debts.

What is the difference between withdrawal from traffic and scrapping?

Withdrawal from traffic is temporary. It is carried out on application without inspection, and there must be no debts on the vehicle such as motor vehicle tax, traffic fines and toll charges. The owner gives an undertaking not to drive the vehicle and to keep it only at the declared address; the registration record is closed, the plates are cancelled and, if the conditions are met, the vehicle may later be returned to traffic (Article 43).

Scrapping is permanent. Vehicles that become unusable through reaching the end of their economic life, ageing, accident, fire, destruction and similar causes are scrapped, on the owner’s application, by notaries or the traffic registration units of the General Directorate of Security, as of the date of application (Article 44). A scrapped vehicle cannot be registered again; only its usable engine and parts may be used in other vehicles.

What conditions apply to scrapping?

To scrap a vehicle, an electronic query to the tax office must show no motor vehicle tax, late-payment interest or surcharge, tax penalty, traffic fine, General Directorate of Highways fine or toll debt, or a document stating that there is no objection to scrapping must be presented. There must also be no restrictive annotations such as attachment, pledge or injunction on the vehicle’s records (Article 44).

For M1 and N1 category vehicles and three-wheeled vehicles other than motorcycles and mopeds, the vehicle deregistration and disposal form, a model of which appears in the Regulation on the Control of End-of-Life Vehicles, must be presented during the procedure (Article 44). This requirement does not apply to the scrapping of military and law-enforcement vehicles (Article 45).

What does it mean for destruction and recycling?

The Regulation sets no waste or recycling rules; it governs the procedure that closes a vehicle’s legal record. On scrapping, the plates are taken back and cancelled, the registration certificate is annotated “scrapped” and handed to the owner, and the information is recorded electronically. This document is used as proof of ownership when vehicles are sold as scrap (Articles 12 and 44). Information on scrapped vehicles is reported electronically to the Revenue Administration.

The physical dismantling, depollution and recovery of the vehicle fall under a separate instrument, the end-of-life vehicles regulation. The two work together: for this group of vehicles, scrapping cannot be completed without the environmental disposal form, and a vehicle cannot be returned to traffic once its scrapping has been recorded.

What should be watched in practice?

It is important to know that a vehicle holding a scrapping record cannot be registered again; the registration record can be reopened only in the case of an erroneous scrapping. This possibility does not exist for vehicles for which a deregistration and disposal form has been issued under the Regulation on the Control of End-of-Life Vehicles and delivered to the relevant units (Article 44).

Separate rules apply to official vehicles: for official vehicles to be sold or transferred because their economic life has ended or the purpose for which they were assigned no longer exists, the owning institution has them withdrawn from traffic or scrapped before the sale, and a person who buys a vehicle withdrawn from traffic must register it in their name within one month (Article 45).