RAR type approval on a Chinese car, step by step

A car imported from China without RAR type approval is an expensive object parked in a yard. It has no right to be driven, it cannot be registered, it cannot be insured. Type approval is the step that turns it into a car, and it is the step most people fear — rightly, because it is the only one you cannot hurry with money.

RAR is the Romanian Auto Register, the state body that decides whether a vehicle may be driven here.

What individual type approval is

When a manufacturer sells officially in Europe, it approves the type of car once, and every car inherits that approval. A model not sold in Europe has no type approval. Every individually imported car goes through individual type approval at RAR: the car is checked physically and on paper, as if it were the first of its kind. Because, as far as RAR is concerned, it is.

The steps, in order

1. The file, before the car arrives. The manufacturer's certificate of conformity or its Chinese equivalent, the technical sheet with emissions and consumption, the export paperwork, the invoice, the customs declaration. Some documents have to be requested from China before the car is even paid for; without them we do not start the order. It is also why the model list is short: with every new model, the first file is the hard one.

2. Customs. The car enters the Union through a European port, the 10% duty and 21% VAT are paid, and only then can it travel on temporary plates. Exactly what is paid.

3. The physical inspection at RAR. Identifying the car — chassis number, manufacturer plates — and checking the safety and lighting systems, the emissions, the noise. On an electric car, the emissions chapter is simple. Lighting is the chapter with surprises: headlights approved for China rather than Europe, which get adjusted or replaced; red rear indicators, where Europe requires amber.

4. The registration certificate. If everything conforms, RAR issues the vehicle registration certificate. With that, the car is registered and gets its plates.

What a Chinese car specifically needs

• Headlights and lamps checked against the European standard. Some models already have an "export" version of the headlight; on others the beam is adjusted.
• Amber rear indicators. In China they may be red; here that is not accepted.
• A speedometer in km/h — Chinese models already are, unlike American ones.
• The charging port. RAR does not require it, but you do: with a Chinese GB/T port you cannot charge at any public station. How it is dealt with.
• Tyres with European markings, if the originals lack them.

None of this is a problem in itself. They are things done once, on one car, and known in advance by the second.

How long it takes

Type approval itself, usually two to three weeks from presenting the car. The whole journey, from order to plates, eight to sixteen weeks, of which the sea crossing is five to seven. The stages, in detail. We give you a firm date in the quote, not an optimistic estimate, precisely because RAR hurries for nobody.

If it fails

It is rare, but it happens: a model with a peculiarity RAR will not accept. Our contract says what happens then: you get your money back. The approval risk is ours, not yours — which is why we check a model before putting it on the list, and why there are few models on the list.

Why we handle it

Not because you could not. Because the file needs documents in Chinese, contacts at the exporter, and experience of what an inspector asks about a model he has never seen. Our first approval took three times as long as our tenth. You sign where signing is needed.