How to Import a Car from Japan to the UK — NOVA, IVA and Registration

Three features set the UK apart from the other major JDM import destinations.

First, there is no minimum age requirement. The United States blocks cars under 25 years old from casual import; Canada blocks those under 15 years. The UK imposes no such threshold — a car one year old is as importable as a car twenty years old, subject to passing the appropriate approval test. For buyers who want a 1990s or 2000s JDM car without a multi-year wait, the UK is the most permissive English-speaking market.

Second, Japan and the UK both drive on the left and use right-hand-drive vehicles. A JDM car arrives in the correct configuration for UK roads with no steering conversion needed, and the headlamps already dip to the correct side for driving on the left. This matters most for the IVA test: the conversion costs that consume budgets on left-hand-drive imports simply do not apply.

Third, the UK has a long-established enthusiast community for JDM cars — Nissan Skylines, Honda Civics, Subaru Imprezas and Toyota Supras have a multi-decade road-legal presence in the UK — so specialist importers, insurance underwriters, IVA test preparers and parts suppliers are well-represented in a way they are not in North America. The Japan-side process for a UK import is identical to any other export: buy through an auction agent or export dealer, deregister the car from the Japanese vehicle register to produce an export certificate, and ship it. Once the car lands, the UK-side process described below takes over.

Once the car lands at a UK port, five stages lead to a roadworthy, registered vehicle. The Japan-side steps — buying, exporting, and shipping — are the same as any JDM export and are covered in the importing from Japan guide. The stages below are UK-specific.

The duty and VAT calculation runs on the CIF (cost + insurance + freight) value — the price paid for the car in Japan, plus insurance, plus ocean freight to the UK port. For a car importing under the UK–Japan CEPA preferential rate:

NOVA (Notification of Vehicle Arrivals) is an HMRC obligation that sits outside the customs declaration process — it is a separate notification specifically for vehicles entering the UK permanently, introduced to prevent VAT avoidance on vehicles brought in from the EU.

The 14-day clock starts when the vehicle arrives in the UK, not when it clears customs or when you collect it from the port. If the car sits in bonded storage for two weeks, the clock has already been running. The penalty for a late or missed NOVA applies regardless of whether any VAT is due on the vehicle.

A NOVA confirmation number is one of the documents the DVLA requires for first registration. You cannot register the vehicle, and therefore cannot obtain a UK number plate, without it. The HMRC NOVA online service is available to individuals and agents; if you are using a customs broker, confirm whether NOVA filing is included in their service (it often is, but confirm in writing).

The IVA test for a Japanese passenger car is a statutory inspection conducted by a DVSA examiner at one of approximately 20 DVSA test centres across the UK. The test covers over a hundred technical items across braking, steering, lighting, construction, exterior projections, the interior environment, and exhaust emissions. For a Japanese right-hand-drive car the items that most commonly require preparation before test are:

• Speedometer — must display mph. Japanese speedometers show km/h and must be fitted with an mph conversion unit or replaced. The speedometer is tested for accuracy between 35 and 70 mph.
• Rear fog lamp — must be fitted to the centre or offside rear. Japanese cars typically have the fog lamp on the nearside (left side) only. An additional offside fog lamp is required; both must be a matched pair mounted symmetrically.
• Headlamp beam pattern — must dip to the left for UK left-hand driving. Japanese domestic-market RHD cars already dip to the left, so this is rarely a required modification on JDM imports — but the examiner will check and will fail a car with a beam that dazzles oncoming drivers.
• General construction — exposed wiring, unsecured hoses, and sharp edges (exterior projections must be radiused to 2.5 mm minimum) are common reasons for a borderline fail on older cars.

Kei cars (660cc or under, small-format passenger cars) and kei trucks are legal on UK roads without restriction once registered. Unlike the United States, where roughly half of states restrict or prohibit kei truck road registration, the UK has no kei-specific rules. A kei car or kei truck imported from Japan is treated as an ordinary passenger car or light commercial vehicle in the registration system.

Because many popular kei models are at least ten years old, they are often IVA-exempt and need only a standard MOT. The common modifications — mph speedometer, rear fog lamp — still apply, but the cost is modest. Kei cars are popular in the UK as second cars and runabouts; parts availability varies by model, with Honda, Suzuki and Daihatsu kei models generally better-served than others.

A realistic UK total-landed budget for a JDM car adds the following to the Japan purchase price:

• Ocean freight — approximately £2,300–£3,900 (RoRo or container, Japan to Southampton or Tilbury; RoRo is the cheaper option for most standard cars).
• Import duty — 0% with CEPA origin statement; 10% of CIF value without it.
• VAT — 20% of the CIF value (assuming the CEPA 0% duty rate and a standard, non-historic vehicle). On a car with a CIF value of £10,000 this is £2,000.
• Customs brokerage — approximately £400–£800 for a full entry including customs declaration and NOVA.
• Port handling — approximately £400–£500.
• Vehicle approval — IVA fee £199 (for cars under 10 years old) plus any pre-test modifications (speedometer conversion £100–£300, fog lamp addition £80–£200); or MOT fee up to £54.85 (for cars 10 years and over).
• DVLA first registration — £55 plus vehicle excise duty (road tax) at the rate appropriate to the vehicle's CO2 emissions or engine size.

The following mistakes account for the majority of problems on UK JDM imports.

• Missing the NOVA deadline. The 14-day clock starts on arrival in the UK, not on collection or on receiving paperwork. Flag the arrival date with your broker the day the car docks.
• Omitting the CEPA origin statement. Without it, 10% duty applies instead of 0%. On a £15,000 CIF car, the difference is £1,500 in duty plus additional VAT on that duty — more than the broker fee.
• Buying a car that needs IVA without budgeting for modifications. A car under 10 years old that arrives without an mph speedometer and without a rear offside fog lamp cannot pass IVA until those are fitted. Factor in the modification cost and the time to rebook the test.
• Confusing the 10-year IVA exemption with the 40-year MOT exemption. A car over 10 years old still needs a current MOT to register and to use on public roads; the 40-year MOT exemption is a separate, narrower rule.
• Insurance before driving. You cannot drive the car on a public road without insurance — not even from the port to an IVA test centre. You can arrange cover before the car arrives, using the chassis number.
• Buying a car already in transit without confirming the destination port. A car routed to Southampton cannot be easily redirected to another country once at sea. Confirm the destination before committing to a car advertised as 'in transit'.