New regulations help car buyers save tens of millions of dong

Decision 618 of the Ministry of Finance regulating the price list for calculating registration fees for cars and motorbikes, issued on April 9, effective from April 10, has set the fee prices much lower than the old price list for many car models. Thanks to that, the rolling price of many car models has unexpectedly decreased significantly.

Rolling price reduction of tens of millions of dong

Mr. Manh, a sales staff at a Nissan dealership in Hanoi, shared: “The information about adjusting the registration fee table this time is very beneficial for customers. The fee is low, resulting in the fee customers have to pay being reduced by tens of millions of dong compared to before.”

According to Mr. Manh, previously, the Nissan X-Trail 2.0L had a registration fee of 1.048 billion VND, resulting in the first registration fee payment (12% in Hanoi) being 125.76 million VND.

The State has set the registration fee for the Nissan X-Trail 2.5L at 1.198 billion VND, resulting in the registration fee payable being 143.76 million VND.

However, since April 10, according to the new registration fee price list, the Ministry of Finance has sharply reduced the registration fee price for the Nissan X-Trail 2.0 from VND1.048 billion to only VND936 million, a decrease of VND112 million, and the Nissan X-Trail 2.5L from VND1.198 billion to only VND1.018 billion, a decrease of VND180 million.

As a result, the registration fee has also decreased significantly, the two versions of the Nissan X-Trail above only have to pay 112.32 million and 122.16 million respectively, a reduction of 13-22 million VND. This is also the rolling price reduction when customers buy the car.

“However, up to now, customers seem to have not been updated with this adjustment information, so purchasing power at dealers remains at a normal level without any significant changes,” Mr. Manh added.

Ford Focus is one of the car models that customers have complained about a lot because the registration fee is too high, much different from the actual selling price. According to the new registration fee table, the Ford Focus model will be discounted quite a bit this time.

Specifically, previously, the listed price for customers of the Ford Focus Trend version was 570 million VND, but the registration fee had to be calculated according to the price set by the Ministry of Finance at 699 million VND, 129 million VND higher.

The Ford Focus S and Titanium versions have listed prices on the market of 700 and 710 million VND respectively, but the registration fee is up to 848 million VND, 138-148 million VND higher.

The difference between the registration fee and the listed price of up to more than a hundred million VND makes consumers angry, because it results in the registration fee calculated as a percentage being much higher than the actual price that customers should have paid. The registration fee for the Ford Focus S and Titanium versions that must be paid according to this old regulation is 101.76 million VND (12% of the price of 848 million VND).

According to Mr. Trung, a salesman at Ford Phap Van dealership in Hanoi, “Starting from April 10, the registration fee for the Focus S and Titanium versions will be adjusted down to only 626 and 770 million VND respectively, a sharp decrease of 148-222 million VND. That means Hanoi customers buying the Ford Focus S version will pay a much lower registration fee.”

With a fee of 12%, calculated based on the new price of 626 million, customers buying a Ford Focus S only have to "spend" 75.12 million VND in registration fees, a reduction of 26.64 million compared to the old registration fee of 101.76 million at the old price. Similarly, with the above calculation formula, customers buying a Ford Focus Titanium will only have to pay 92.4 million VND, a reduction of 9.36 million VND compared to before.

Similarly, the Mitsubishi Outlander model, after applying the new registration fee, also reduced its rolling price to 12-13 million VND/car.

More opportunities to reduce registration fees

In addition, according to sales staff, one of the current advantages for car buyers is that the price fluctuation range used as a basis for adjusting the price list for calculating registration fees is now closer to the market than before.

Specifically, according to Decree 20 of the Government issued on February 21, 2019 on registration fees, when the transfer price of cars and motorbikes fluctuates by 5% increase or decrease compared to the price list for calculating registration fees, the Ministry of Finance will amend and supplement the price list so that the fee calculation price is closer to the market.

Previously, according to Decree 140 issued by the Government on October 10, 2016, the range of increase and decrease between the transfer price of cars and motorbikes and the price list for calculating registration fees had a wider range of up to 20%. This is the reason why the calculated price and the real price in the car market have recently differed, causing customers to lose tens of millions to hundreds of millions in registration fees due to having to pay unrealistically high prices.

Mr. Hoang, representative of Toyota Long Bien dealer, also said that customers buying Toyota Vios high-end version will have the selling price of 606 million VND, 2% lower than the registration fee price which is still the same at 622 million VND.

If applied according to the old regulations in Decree 140/2016, the registration fee will only be reduced if the selling price of this car model is reduced by 20% compared to the fee calculation price list, which means it must be reduced by 124.4 million VND. However, in reality, the car price is very difficult to reduce by 20%.

In contrast to the new method of calculating registration fees, if the price of the Vios above changes by only 5%, which means a further 3% reduction, equivalent to a further reduction of about 18.66 million VND, consumers will have the opportunity to receive a reduction in registration fees, which means that this car model will be sold at a lower rolling price.

“This calculation method is very beneficial for consumers in the current trend of many car models being heavily discounted to stimulate demand,” Mr. Hoang shared.

According to Decision 618 of the Ministry of Finance regulating the price list for calculating registration fees for cars and motorbikes, effective from April 10, 2019, the highest registration fee of 66.182 billion VND belongs to the unique Bugatti Veyron sports car model in Vietnam, with an 8-liter engine capacity. As a result, the theoretical highest registration fee (12%) is only 7.9 billion VND for the above supercar. In contrast, Lada 111 VAZ 21113 and Chery SQR7080 are two small cars with the lowest registration fee of only 90 million VND.