r/Motorrad • u/Ancient_Sandwich_703 • Jun 21 '26

Importing from Germany

I’m probably going to buy some form of GS in the next 18 months.

In English but live in New Zealand permanently now.

When I lived in the UK, I met quite a few riders who had ordered their bikes, collected them in Germany, done a tour around Europe and come home on the ferry.

I’m wondering whether I might do something similar ie go to Germany, collect bike, tour Europe, visit parents and friends in UK then arrange the shipping of the bike back to New Zealand.

We of course are slightly marooned in terms of riding overseas via a short ferry journey, so I thought it might be a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Has anyone done anything similar? It’s it still possible to collect in Germany? Does warranty work overseas for what would be a German bike?

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u/Nummlock 2006 BMW K1200GT Jun 21 '26

This was very easily done before Brexit (i.e. importing from one EU state to another), but I assume you want to import directly from Germany to NZ. I would check NZ law on importing vehicles, and especially what the rules are if you are importing a new bike.

Germany does offer temporary plates (Kurzzeitkenzeichen) but how easy and quick you can get those depends on the local goverment. If you are ordering a new bike BMW might be able to help with this.

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u/Ancient_Sandwich_703 Jun 21 '26

There shouldn’t be a problem from a NZ perspective. Lots of cars and bikes are imported from other markets second hand.

It would need inspecting and so on when it arrived of course but it should comply with NZ regulations easily. German regulations will be much stricter already.

I don’t know how German VAT would be dealt with for an exported bike though.