A type approval on its own is not enough to register a vehicle in Greece. It has to be notified to the competent authority, and its technical characteristics recorded in the Technical Vehicle Archive. The office takes on the whole dossier.
The problem it solves
Through the Notification Certificate the competent Greek authority accepts a type approval, so that vehicles covered by it can be registered in the country. At the same time the technical characteristics of the type are recorded in the Technical Vehicle Archive, the register from which the Transport Directorate draws the figures printed on the registration certificate.
That entry is not an administrative detail. Whatever goes into the register will appear on the certificate of every vehicle of that type, and correcting it later calls for a fresh procedure.
Is it required?
It depends on whether the vehicle type is already on record. If it is, nothing further is needed and the vehicle is registered normally. If it is not, the Transport Directorate has no source for the technical data printed on the registration document, and registration stops there — for every vehicle of that type, not only yours. The check is made against the Vehicle Technical Archive and it is the first thing we look at before opening a file.
Who this concerns
- Private owners registering their own vehicle, where the licence will not issue because the type is not on the register.
- Importers and dealerships bringing vehicles in for registration.
- Bodybuilders and superstructure manufacturers — refrigerated bodies, tippers, cranes, box bodies, special trailers.
- Vehicle and caravan traders handling a series of the same type.
- Fleet operators, along with public bodies registering in volume.
Where files usually stall
The electronic technical characteristics file sits at the centre of the dossier and is, in our experience, the most frequent reason for a return. It calls for a specific structure per category and consistency on every line.
Next comes the matching of type, variant and version. Where an approval covers several variants, the link to the CoC of the particular vehicle has to be exact. The same goes for the approval number: extensions and corrections form part of it, and leaving them out at even one point in the file creates a problem.
Finally there are compliance requirements that shift over time, and discrepancies between the approval, the CoC and the technical file — even where these originate with the manufacturer.
Timing
For passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, that is categories M1 and N1, a fast route applies which indicatively completes within a few days. For the remaining categories the authority’s deadline runs to 50 days from the submission of a complete file. In both cases completeness remains the deciding factor.
