Import guide
If your car has no European CO₂ figure, Austria invents one from engine power. What that costs, and what to do about it.
Every American import in Austria turns on one number, and it is not the price of the car. It is the CO₂ figure the authority accepts — because that figure sets the Normverbrauchsabgabe, and NoVA is routinely the largest single line on the bill.
Austrian practice works down a fixed order. A WLTP figure is used if one exists for the vehicle. Failing that, a European NEFZ figure multiplied by 1.27. And failing both, the authority substitutes a figure of its own: engine power in kilowatts, multiplied by two.
The American EPA number does not appear anywhere on that ladder. It is measured on a different cycle and Austria does not recognise it, which surprises almost everyone the first time.
The substitute is not a rough approximation of a car's emissions. It is a proxy, and on a powerful engine it is a punishing one. A 300 kW V8 that might really emit 290 g/km is treated as emitting 600. Because the NoVA rate is a function of CO₂ — broadly the figure minus 91, divided by five, capped at 80 % — doubling the input does not double the tax. It pushes the rate toward the cap and then adds the per-gram malus above 155 g/km on top of that.
On the cars we are most often asked about, the gap between a recognised figure and the substitute is between forty and seventy thousand euro. It is the difference between an import that makes sense and one that does not.
It comes down to whether the manufacturer sells that model in Europe. A Corvette or a Mustang has European homologation and therefore a figure. A Charger, a Bronco or a full-size pickup does not, and for those the substitute is a live risk rather than a remote one.
It is decided per vehicle, not per model. Two cars with the same badge can land differently depending on the paperwork that follows them.
Establish the basis before you buy, not after. That means finding out — in writing, before any money moves — which rung of the ladder applies to the specific car, and what the resulting NoVA is. It is the single most valuable hour of work in the whole process.
It is also why we will not print a landed total for a car whose basis is unsettled. A number we might have to raise by fifty thousand euro is worse than no number at all.
One is cheaper, one protects the paint. The decision depends on the car rather than the budget.
A three-year-old car often lands cheaper than the tax on a new one. The crossover point is not where most people expect.
The import calculator runs the same engine we do, at today's ECB rate. Or tell us the car and we will establish the real basis in writing.
