Any definitive assistance is greatly appreciated. I am flying my BMW1200RT to Munich , Germany this week. I will stay in the EU for 6 months. Do I need:
a carnet ( everyone says no ). Do I need to change the Canadian plates for German or any other plates? I have Can registration / green card etc already. Do I need to register the bike with TUV? Thanks

Hello Nicholas:

I assume you are a Canadian citizen. If that is the case, you can only stay in the Schengen Countries (the EU) for 90 days at a stretch, and I believe that you are limited to less than 180 days in a year. Check the numbers yourself, I'm not 100% sure of the accuracy of what I have written, but I think I'm pretty close.

So far as the motorcycle goes, as long as you are a bona fide tourist (not working, not planning on immigrating, etc.), you can leave the Canadian plate on it. You will have to obtain insurance (a Green Card) for the bike, there are lots of explanations about how to do that here in the forum.

You do not need a carnet. The customs people will probably only be interested in seeing your European insurance coverage (your Green Card) and your ownership, it is unlikely they will have any other interest in the moto.

I have flown my Canadian registered moto over to Europe many times over the past 10 years, never had any problems at all. Enjoy your holidays, but be sure to check out the facts on that 90 day limit. It is probably pretty easy to get a visa of sorts (tourist visa) to prolong your visit, but don't try to just sneak through staying 6 months straight, that could cause you problems in the future.

Michael

Just a postscript: Don't leave your bike in the freight shed at the airport any longer than necessary - in fact, try and get it cleared out of the warehouse the same day it arrives.

The airport freight sheds (bonded warehouses) charge storage based on the cubic size of the object, and they charge very dearly. By example, in Paris, it's about $80 a day to keep the moto in the air freight warehouse. So, get the darn thing out of there as soon as you can!

Your total out of pocket costs for fees at the destination will probably be around 150 euros (custom fee, freight handling fees, etc.) - so bring cash with you when you go to pick the bike up.

Michael

Thank you for this Michael. I have all papers and have purchased green card insurance already. So when I arrive at the airport i go to the red zone at customs and declare the bike. Do they register the bike at customs and then I simply go and collect it at customs?

Thanks again for your help. Nick

Hi Nick:

Unless the motorcycle is travelling with you as checked baggage and you plan to pick it up from baggage claim at the passenger terminal (extremely unlikely), you should not declare it when you go through customs and immigration. You have likely shipped the moto as "air freight", therefore you deal with it as an entirely separate transaction once you get to the air freight terminal.

So, go through the passenger arrival process normally, only declaring what you have in your accompanying luggage (what you will be picking up from the baggage claim carousel). Then take a taxi to the air freight facility (be sure you know before you leave the exact address and location of this facility - the airport taxi drivers likely will not be familiar with that area of the airport), and once you arrive at the freight warehouse, you pick up the waybills for the bike and then take them to the freight customs office (another office, separate from the air freight company but usually in the same general neighborhood) and clear the bike with customs officers there.

As I mentioned before, it is unlikely that the customs officers in the air freight compound will actually want to see the bike. Most likely they will just look at the waybill, look at your ownership certificate, inspect your insurance document, then stamp the paperwork as "cleared". You then take the paperwork back to the freight shed, give it to the staff there, and they will then bring the bike out of the bonded area and give it to you.

Hopefully your bike will be inside a ULD (Uniform Load Device, more commonly called a container or can), not a crate. You then remove it from the crate (untie it, etc.), and now you have to figure out a way to get it from the loading dock onto the parking lot. The loading docks are typically about 4 feet higher up than the parking lot, this to facilitate trucks backing up to the loading dock. If you are lucky there will be a ramp somewhere (this is not common). Usually, you wind up waiting around until a truck with a liftgate shows up, then asking the truck driver if they will be so kind as to let you push the bike into the (empty) truck, then pull forward 10 feet and let you put the bike on the liftgate of the truck and lower it to the ground. A $20 tip is a nice gesture if you find a co-operative driver.

Time-wise, the fastest I ever got on the road (from arriving at the freight shed to riding away) was 2 hours, the longest it has taken me was about 4 hours. Basically, it's all a paper-pushing exercise. Below is a photo of my moto in a ULD, as it looked last time it came off the plane in Paris.

If you want to talk on the phone, send me a private message with your phone number and I will call you and brief you in more detail.

Michael

Moto in ULD

Again. Very helpful Michael. Thank you. I will send you a mail to advise you how it went.

Michael. Arrived in Munich, cleared customs without a hitch and hit the auotbahn south to Italy. Thanks again, your tips helped.
Nick

Hi Nicholas:

Glad to hear it all went well. By coincidence, I was also in Munich earlier this week, likely the same day you picked up the bike. I was only there for a day - I had to move an aircraft from Switzerland to Slovakia, and I returned to Canada via Munich.

Hope you have a good trip. Be moderately careful in Italy, especially as you go further south. There are a lot of undocumented migrants in Italy, unfortunately they are poor and have empty bellies, and that tends to cause a lot of opportunistic theft. Be especially cautious in large cities and in 'port' cities such as Brindisi.

Whenever I tour Italy, I always pay to put the motorcycle in a parking area that is either closely supervised (daytime), or very securely locked up (when overnighting).

Michael

This is very timely.
I've had a trip planned for Spain for a few months. Just last night it was decided that I'll ship a bike over as well.

Seems like getting the bike crated will be the hardest part.
The green card insurance is available online?
I'll look...

No need to crate it at all if it goes by air... just drive it into the container and the air freight guys will strap it down, as shown above. Have less than a 1/4 tank of fuel, that's the only special requirement.

If you do some digging here in the forum, you will find LOTS of information about shipping by air, and also about various specialty companies (such as Motorcycle Express) who facilitate shipping by air.

As for insurance, again, there are LOTS of discussions here that fully explain the requirements and various options available.

The "executive summary" is that it will cost you about $5,000 in total to ship a moto from Canada to Europe and back (that includes the air freight fees, port fees, and insurance), so, think twice about taking your own moto if you expect to be touring Europe for a month or less. It's pretty clear that the break-even point is somewhere beyond one month of use, in other words, if you will be riding for a month or less, it is cheaper and a lot more trouble-free to rent a bike in Europe.

Michael