Motor vehicle tax

What it means

Motor vehicle tax is paid by whoever uses a vehicle registered in Slovakia for business - whether they own it, hold it on lease, or merely use it and claim the related costs.

The rate is based on engine capacity for cars and on weight and axle count for commercial vehicles. The annual rate is then adjusted for the vehicle’s age, so the same van pays different tax in its third and its tenth year.

Unlike real estate tax, motor vehicle tax is not one of the local taxes: the tax office administers it, not the municipality. Nor is it the motorway vignette or the fee paid when a vehicle is registered. The vignette pays for motorway use whether or not there is a business, whereas this tax attaches to business use itself and is counted for the months that use lasts.

How it works in practice

Liability starts in the month the vehicle is first used for business and ends in the month that use stops. The return is filed by the end of January for the previous year, and the tax falls due at the same time.

Above a certain level the tax is prepaid in quarterly or monthly instalments, sized on the expected annual amount. So we need registration documents, first-use dates and any sale or deregistration.

With a new client we go through the list of vehicles together with the logbook and fuel costs, and agree which car is a company car, which is private and how business trips will be booked. That decision determines which vehicles are taxed, from which month and whether advances are due.

What to watch out for

What gets forgotten is the director’s private car against which the company claimed even a single fuel invoice - that alone makes it a vehicle used for business. Using a mileage allowance instead creates no liability.

The age adjustment of the rate runs from the vehicle’s first registration, not from its purchase by the company. For a used car imported from abroad the date of Slovak registration is sometimes used by mistake, the tax is computed with the discount for new vehicles, and an audit then collects the difference with a penalty.