So here, in Canada....you have to buy a sticker to put on the bike's plate to keep it on the road, and of course you have to have insurance to get the sticker....

What if I'm away for years? Do I need a "legal" sticker on my bike for Canada? This is one thing I have not been able to find out about. The sticker here can be purchased for 2 years...so do I need to renew if I'm not in Canada?

Any help appreciated.

Unfortunately you live in a province that would rather you take half a day off and get in line to renew your registration
NWT, Yukon, Sask and maybe a few more provinces don't have stickers on plates anymore
You just have to go online and renew your registration with payment
Im sure Ontario can do it and send your sticker to where ever you are

Not without insurance - And I don't know how they'll deal with foreign insurance papers....And do I REALLY need to have a Canadian registered sticker...its to make it legal for me to ride in Ontario...I won't be there!

I asked the same question about technical inspections once.

The short answer seems to be: not until you cross back into your own country.

If it's an *insurance* sticker, well you've got local insurance for the country you're riding in, so the sticker is irrelevant.

If it's for *technical inspection*, no border guards have ever seemed to give a damn about this on a foreign bike. (Can confirm: have had speeding tickets in the EU/EEA outside my country, nobody even checked if I had registration papers for the vehicle.)

In my country, the law says that an uninspected but insured vehicle is allowed to be driven on public roads to a repair shop and/or inspection station. So you're just returning to your closest inspection station, which is in your country.

If it's for *road tax* in your country, I've heard of some countries taking that seriously - Australia does for UK plates I think? In reality, it's almost certainly never going to come up. They won't enforce foreign laws.

Worst case scenario - you go to a local inspection station and do the whole inspection procedure, ask for a paper saying your bike complies with local regulations and is road-worthy.

Have you personally walked into the DMV office and asked them what to do about your registration

But without giving your personal details - Grant and Susan had fun and games getting their ticker renewed when they were in Gibraltar. I think - but I am frequently wrong (according to my wife (who isn’t on HU)) - that there is a requirement within the Carnet documentation that your bike is legal to ride in your home country.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Personally, I don't think so. I've kept my Ontario-plated motorcycle overseas for many years, and ride it every year, but I have not purchased a plate renewal sticker in over 10 years.

My thinking is that it does not matter whether the plate sticker is current or not, the motorcycle REGISTRATION & OWNERSHIP is still valid, just as it would be in Canada if you failed to buy a new sticker. The sticker is, in my opinion, a tax that we pay to ride the motorcycle in Canada. In most European countries, there is no such thing as an annual renewal sticker... you get the license plate and it is valid forever (there may be other annual fees that Europeans pay, but they don't involve a sticker on a license plate, so cops & border officials don't look for stickers).

As for your expired sticker, take a hair dryer or heat gun to the plate, warm up the expired sticker, then peel it off and throw it away. That will eliminate any curiosity that an official might have about an expired date. They won't know that your home province expects a sticker to be on the plate.

Michael

A real grey area. Lots of people don't try to renew in the country of registration, and there's a moral logic which says that if you're paying for use of the road in the country in which you're travelling (permits, fuel taxes, etc.) and not wearing out the infrastructure in the country of registration then you shouldn't have to pay to keep the bike/vehicle paperwork current when you're not there.

Travellers from the UK, for example, can declare a vehicle on SORN (statutory off road notice) and travel for years without paying UK road tax etc. You're not on UK roads so why should you have pay to use them. We've done this in the past. We also have a vehicle in Canada which is not currently taxed because it's off the road. When we want to use it, one day, we'll put it back on the road and pay the tax/insurance/etc.

Now, as mentioned, there is a kicker here - when travelling you are given the right to travel in a host country (TIP or carnet) as long as the vehicle is legal in its country of registration. This is where the grey comes in - does this mean legal in the sense of being capable of passing a safety inspection, or does it mean legal in the sense of being taxed and insured in the home country? I've never found clarity on this. More helpful perhaps is that I have never encountered (or heard of) a situation where this even comes up - border crossings, police checkpoints, etc. Now I suppose that if the vehicle is clearly in unsafe condition, or if one ever had an accident and subsequent proceedings, things could deteriorate.

I asked about that whether at Johnson Mayer or a call to ICBC, I remember that I was told they ship the registration once anywhere in the world. I'm in Mexico right now, but when I'm bacck to back to BC I will check about that.

Well, for riders from the province of Ontario, the question is now moot, because the province will no longer be charging annual renewal fees.

Ontario No Longer Charges Licence Plate Fees

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the upcoming provincial election....

Michael

"This is where the grey comes in - does this mean legal in the sense of being capable of passing a safety inspection, or does it mean legal in the sense of being taxed and insured in the home country?"

With the greatest respect, Alanymarce, if you think that 'legal' means it could pass an inspection if you decided to submit it to an inspection, you are deluding yourself.

Legal means just what it says; everything up to date and kosher.

Anything less is giving your freedom up for grabs if you have an accident.

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Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

Provinces in Canada all have different systems. Quebec has a "no fault" system of insurance. Hence what is referred above as an annual tax also comprises a full liability insurance (not damage insurance that you have to get from a private insurance firm). It covers health care ++ should you hurt (or kill) someone, other driver, pedestrian, passenger... The cost of this compulsory insurance is set against the size of the engine and type of motorcycle (sport bikes cost +/-triple). It's valid across Canada (and the United States - with some restrictions if I understand well). The expiry date appears on the registration document. So if you take your vehicle out of the country, even for an extended period of time like I did for two bikes, you nonetheless have to pay on a yearly basis to keep the registration valid, which is not required if you register the vehicle in another country.

Here's the trick: There are road registration and off-road registration for a fraction of the costs (currently CAD 73/yr compared to CAD 600 e.g. for a KTM 690R). You can register any motorcycle as off-road, the license plates number then starts with a letter instead and you get a registration paper for the year not mentioning anywhere on it that the vehicle is strictly for off-road use. You pay online and the renewed registration is mailed to your permanent address in Canada. So you can carry a valid registration at all time for a little money.

Holders of Quebec drivers' licences also pay an insurance premium included in the yearly licensing cost. That insurance covers -- worldwide -- for emergency in case of an accident, health costs, rehab after an accident, death fees, body repatriation and a lump sum in case of permanent impairment. It' a good but costly system.

Interesting, but I don't live in Quebec. With the change in Ontario soon not needing a sticker - the issue no longer exits as the vehicle registration will never expire and I don't have to worry. Thanks though...