What a 550 hp Charger actually costs on Austrian plates
A 2026 Charger SIXPACK Scat Pack lists at about $62,400 in the United States. That is roughly €57,800. By the time it is sitting on Austrian plates it has cost more than double — and the difference between a good outcome and a ruinous one is one line on a form.
The straightforward part
Two of the three charges are arithmetic and hold no surprises. Customs duty is 10 % of the customs value, which is the purchase price plus freight to the EU border. Import VAT is 20 % of that total, duty included. On this car:
- Vehicle, converted at today’s rate — €53,947
- Ocean freight from Baltimore — €2,180
- Customs duty at 10 % — €5,613
- Import VAT at 20 % — €12,348
That is €74,088 before anyone has mentioned NoVA, and none of it is negotiable.
Then NoVA
The Normverbrauchsabgabe is calculated from the car's CO₂ figure. For 2026 the rate is (CO₂ − 91) ÷ 5 percent, capped at 80 %, plus €80 for every gram above 155 g/km, less a flat €350.
Rules per the Austrian Finance Ministry, vehicle import from third countries.
Put a declared 275 g/km through that and you get a 37 % rate on the assessment base plus a €9,600 surcharge — about €32,094. Painful, expected, and roughly what anyone importing a large-engined car should budget for.
The line that changes everything
All of the above assumes the car has a European CO₂ figure. A Charger SIXPACK does not, because it is not sold here and has never been through WLTP homologation.
When there is no WLTP figure, Austrian law substitutes one — the ladder is set out by the Finance Ministry for third-country imports. First it will take an NEFZ value multiplied by 1.27 if one exists. If neither exists, the CO₂ figure becomes engine power in kilowatts, multiplied by two.
This Charger makes 410 kW. So for tax purposes it emits 820 g/km.
At 820 g/km the rate is pinned at the 80 % cap, and the malus alone — 665 grams over the threshold, at €80 each — comes to €53,200. NoVA on this car becomes roughly €102,000. Nearly twice the car.
The same car, with a CO₂ figure on the paperwork, lands at about €118,000. Without one, it is closer to €188,000. Nothing about the car changed.
What to do about it
Three options, in descending order of how much we like them:
- Buy a model that is homologated in Europe. A Mustang GT has a WLTP figure because Ford sells it here. That is why it is the most-imported American car in Austria, and it is not a coincidence.
- Get a CO₂ value established during the individual approval. This is the real work, and it is most of what you are paying an importer for.
- Accept the substitute. Occasionally rational on a low-powered car, where kW × 2 is not far from reality. Never rational on a V8.
The summary
Freight is predictable. Duty and VAT are arithmetic. Our fee is published. The only genuinely large variable in an American import is whether a number exists on a form — and that is worth more attention than the exchange rate, the shipping quote and the negotiation put together.