Increase in the price of the registration certificate: what is the removal of the ceiling on the regional tax on the registration certificate ?

The price of the registration card could cost you even more in the coming months. MAXPPP – Richard Villalon

While an increase in the price of the registration card has been effective since the beginning of the year in eight French regions, the government, deputies and senators are working to remove the cap on the regional tax, currently set at 60 euros. This measure would reverse the decline in resources generated by the growth of the electric vehicle market.

Any resource is good to take, in the debates around the 2025 Budget. Among them, the registration card, or tax on the registration certificate, could (again) soar, according to information from Parisien. Currently, the regional tax on vehicles equipped with an engine varies according to its number of fiscal horsepower, in other words its power. This is currently capped at 60 euros.

A complete removal of the tax cap

According to a source in Parisien, the “ceiling would become a floor”, if the regional tax on the vehicle registration certificate were to be removed. This possibility should therefore be studied by the Joint Committee (CMP), next Thursday, January 30.

A measure that is likely to make motorists grind their teeth, particularly in regions that have already increased vehicle registration fees on January 1, 2025 (Normandy, Centre-Val-de-Loire, PACA, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Corsica), or next February 1 (Brittany, Grand-Est and Réunion). Currently in the Occitanie region, the price of the tax on the registration certificate is 54.50 euros.

What are the objectives of a removal of the ceiling?

Already a desire under the Barnier government, which wanted to raise the ceiling to 65 euros as part of the 2025 finance bill (PLF), the increase in the regional tax on the registration certificate would result in budget savings. Increasing the resources generated by the regions would make it possible to cope with the rise in the electricity market, whose sales share increased from 2% in 2019 to 17% in 2023.

A growth that does not go in the direction of the regional tax on the registration certificate. Indeed, electric vehicles are exempt, while hybrid vehicles are at a reduced rate. Unless electric vehicles are no longer exempt. This is in any case what Carole Delga, President of the Occitanie Region, is putting forward.“It's a possibility”, she justified as proposals for additional regional resources.