Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Buying a car on tourist visa

Country forums / Australia, New Zealand & Antarctica

Hi
Does anyone know if it's possible to buy and regsiter a car in Australia as a tourist visa holder (so without a resident status and permanent address in the country)?
Many thanks

No restriction under immigration rules.
You can use hostel address to register a car, but of course ask hostel first.
Need an international driving permit of course.
Registering a car covers "insure others" except NSW.
If you don't register a car (no compulsory third party insurance) it means you are out for a lot if you injure others.

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Re above:
a) You DON'T need an international driving permit if your licence is in English.
b) Registering the car is not optional - driving an unregistered car is ILLEGAL. Quite apart from the injury to others, an unregistered car will be quickly pinged by the police highway patrol and you will have to pay a large fine.

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Registration is also handled by the state governments and requirements do vary slightly state by state, NSW for instance not requiring a vehicle roadworthiness check on registration transfer but one each year whereas Victoria and Queensland require a certificate to do an ownership/registration transfer but not each year as in NSW, not sure on requirement for other states though WA has always in past been regarded a a good state to do it, possibly because of being able to do it online but you would need an address in WA and in whatever state you were doing the ownership transfer.
So you ought to look at your travelling plans in regard to which state you will start in and might finish in and for how long you will travel and how much rego a vehicle has.
For instance, if you buy a vehicle in NSW with NSW rego for four months and find yourself in Darwin in four months time, you will not be able to renew your NSW registration as you are not there to get your RWC and hence you will have the cost of then getting the vehicle registered in the Northern Territory.
If you bought a vehicle in Queensland or Victoria, you could renew online from wherever you are but when/if you want to sell, you would have to look at the requirements re RWC and rego for whatever state or territory you were in.

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Nationality says Eurooean so might not have licence in English.

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Dog, for once I have to agree. If the link in the profile is indeed the OP, who knowa.

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Er, was on Android phone when I replied.
That was meant to read "European" in my reply above.

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Why not just say phone. And the lack of a letter didnt give a different meaning to the word.

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