Removals to Germany from Spain, and Germany to Spain

Some territories sit outside that. The European Commission’s table of territorial scope (opens in a new window) shows that EU customs, VAT and excise rules do not apply in Ceuta and Melilla, that in the Canary Islands customs rules apply but VAT and excise rules do not, and that in Germany the island of Heligoland and the territory of Büsingen are outside all three. Spain’s tax agency says Spanish VAT applies on the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands (opens in a new window) but not in the Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla. If an address is in one of these places, say so in your first message. This page does not cover them.

Goods from outside the EU are a different case, because the customs union applies its common tariffs to goods imported from the rest of the world. If part of your household is stored in the UK, for example, read our customs guide for Germany or our customs guide for Spain, depending on where it is going.

Moving to Germany from Spain. Section 17 of the Federal Registration Act (opens in a new window) (Bundesmeldegesetz) gives you two weeks from the day you move in to register your address with the registration authority (Meldebehörde). This is the Anmeldung. The two weeks run from moving in, not from the day you cross the border.

Leaving Spain. A foreign citizen who leaves Spain to live elsewhere can ask to be removed from the register of the municipality where they are entered. Alicante’s town hall (opens in a new window) says this takes a signed, dated statement and proof of identity, and cites the national statistics institute’s instructions to councils as the basis. Ask your own town hall how it takes the request. For a Spanish citizen the same page says to apply for registration in the consular register (Registro de Matrícula) of the consulate or consular section at the destination.

Moving to Spain from Germany. The Spanish government’s guidance for EU citizens says you need to be on the municipal register, the padrón, before you can apply for residence. The application for the EU citizen registration certificate is made in person at the foreigners’ office (Oficina de Extranjería) of your province or, failing that, at the local police station, and you need an appointment. It is due within three months of your date of entry into Spain, and the certificate shows your foreigner identity number, the NIE.

Leaving Germany. Section 17 of the Federal Registration Act also applies to leaving: if you move out and take no other home in Germany, you must deregister (Abmeldung) within two weeks after moving out. You can deregister from one week before the move at the earliest, and the register is updated as of the move-out date.

GOV.UK’s Living in Spain guide (opens in a new window) (updated 3 July 2026) tells you to check which visa or residence permit you need.

For Germany, the Residence Ordinance (opens in a new window), in section 41, allows UK nationals to enter visa-free for a stay that is not short and to obtain any residence permit they need after arriving, applying within 90 days of entry. GOV.UK’s Living in Germany guide (opens in a new window) (updated 11 December 2025) adds that if you did not apply for a visa or permit before leaving the UK, you make an appointment at the foreigners’ authority (Ausländerbehörde) within 90 days of arriving. It does not say how someone arriving from another EU country is treated, so ask the Ausländerbehörde.

GOV.UK’s guides to living in Spain and living in Germany both say that people who moved to Spain or Germany before 1 January 2021 and have lived there legally since have rights under the Withdrawal Agreement in that country. Neither says whether those rights carry over to a second country, so check with the authority at your new address before relying on them.

Tax follows residence, and each country has its own test. Germany’s Income Tax Act (opens in a new window), section 1, makes anyone with a home (Wohnsitz) or habitual stay in Germany liable to income tax without limit, and section 9 of the Fiscal Code (opens in a new window) treats a continuous stay of more than six months as habitual from the start, except for visits and similar private stays of up to a year.

Spain’s personal income tax law (opens in a new window), article 9, treats you as habitually resident if you spend more than 183 days of a calendar year in Spain, counting sporadic absences unless you prove tax residence in another country, or if your main base of activities or economic interests is there.

In the year you move, you could meet both the German and the Spanish residence tests. The sources linked here do not say how an overlap is settled, so ask a tax adviser or the tax office.

Germany. Section 30 of the road traffic regulations (opens in a new window) bars lorries of more than 7.5 tonnes gross permitted mass, and trailers behind lorries, from commercial or paid carriage of goods on Sundays and public holidays between midnight and 22:00. Some holidays apply only in certain states: Corpus Christi in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, All Saints’ Day in the same states except Hesse, and Reformation Day on 31 October in nine others. The listed exceptions include combined road-rail and road-port transport within set distances, fresh perishable food and breakdown vehicles.

The holiday traffic regulation (opens in a new window) adds a Saturday ban from 1 July to 31 August, 07:00 to 20:00, for lorries over 7.5 tonnes and lorries with a trailer on the motorways and two federal roads it names. The motorways include stretches of the A 5 between Offenburg and Neuenburg and of the A 8 between Karlsruhe and Munich.

France. The 2026 calendar from Bison Futé (opens in a new window), France’s traffic information service, says goods vehicles over 7.5 tonnes maximum authorised weight, other than specialised vehicles, may not drive from 22:00 on Saturday until 22:00 on Sunday, and from 22:00 the evening before a public holiday until 22:00 on the holiday. It adds some winter Saturdays on part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes network and up to seven summer Saturdays. Its permanent exemptions include office and factory moves but do not name household moves. These are 2026 dates; for later ones look for the next calendar.

In Germany the rules differ from one city to the next. A temporary no-parking zone (Halteverbotszone) is applied for through the local authority. Our Düsseldorf page explains a city that changed its short-notice permit rules in June 2026, and our Augsburg page one that wants 21 days. Several cities also have environmental zones with a green sticker: our Stuttgart page explains how a vehicle with foreign plates orders one, and our Essen page reports that the city says its Ruhr zone rule applies to foreign plates.

In Spain cities set their own low-emission zones (zonas de bajas emisiones), and some reach foreign vehicles. Barcelona says a vehicle on foreign number plates (opens in a new window) must register beforehand and check that it meets the environmental requirements. One that does not meet them can apply for daily permits, up to ten a year. Other Spanish cities set their own rules too, so give the exact address and date and ask the removal company how they apply.

Councils also decide where the lorry may stand to load. Valencia asks for an authorisation for moves (opens in a new window) when the vehicle’s maximum authorised weight is 3,500 kg or more, when a lighter vehicle needs external mechanical means (the page limits these to manual or mechanical pulleys), or when the move involves complementary operations. Anyone can apply, and where it is needed the council asks for 15 working days’ notice, or 30 on a pedestrian street. Decide with the removal company whether it applies or you do.

Your Europe adds that its page does not apply to UK nationals residing in the EU, for whom national rules apply.

To Spain from Germany. The DGT’s page on vehicles from the EU (opens in a new window) (updated 25 September 2024) says the car must first be deregistered for export in the country it comes from. In Spain an ITV station issues a Spanish technical sheet, you show proof of payment, exemption or non-liability for the registration tax (form 576, 06 or 05) and of payment or exemption for the council’s annual circulation tax, and the DGT registers the car. If the car was already yours before you moved, the DGT says you need not pay the purchase-related taxes.

Spain’s excise law (opens in a new window) sets the car-registration deadline. It taxes the first definitive registration of a car in Spain, with listed exceptions, and also a car used in Spain whose registration was not requested within 30 days of first use, or within 60 days where the exemption for moving your habitual residence applies.

That exemption has conditions, including 12 consecutive months of residence outside Spain, six months’ use of the car at the old home and a registration request made within that 60-day period. Counting normally begins on the day the car enters Spain or, if that day cannot be shown, on the later of the purchase date and the date from which you count as resident in Spain.

To Germany from Spain. Bremen’s service page on vehicles registered abroad (opens in a new window) (updated 2 October 2025) says that if you move to Germany with a vehicle registered abroad you must apply for registration, bringing the foreign papers and plates, an electronic insurance confirmation (eVB), a direct debit mandate for vehicle tax and a valid roadworthiness test report from an organisation such as TÜV or DEKRA. Bremen’s page gives no number of days for the German registration.