The affair made some headlines: cars resold second-hand will also be subject to the penalty from 2026. Just like new vehicles. And with, as a bonus, the application of a penalty weighted by the age and mileage of the vehicle. It must be said that the sentence found in the summary of the PLF 2025 is enough to sow doubt: “In 2026, a retroactive penalty will apply to the registration of any vehicle that was not subject to a penalty on first registration”. But what exactly are we talking about? It is not possible to escape the penalty in France unless you are part of the meager list of exemptions. Clearly, there are very few vehicles which would normally have to go through the “malus” box at the time of their first registration in France and which did not go there. However, this short sentence was enough to create general confusion by giving rise to the fear of a “retroactive” penalty on all used cars which will be sold from 2026. But this will obviously not be the case.
Only a few special cases
As we already explained in our previous article on this somewhat special aspect of the PLF 2025, it was above all a question for the State of restoring a little order in the calculation of the reduction of the penalty for imported cars. Clearly, any car arriving in France from abroad must pay a penalty (as is already the case currently), but this time, several criteria will come into play for the sake of fairness. The novelty is actually there.
As for the so-called “retroactive” penalty on used vehicles, which will be put in place from January 1, 2026 if the PLF is validated as it stands, that’s a completely different story. In fact, it was enough to read the summary of article 9 carefully: “from January 1, 2026, all used vehicles for which the CO2 penalty or the mass penalty has not been levied upon first registration will be subject to the penalty if they are subsequently subject to registration while the non-taxation conditions are no longer met“. The end of the sentence is very important, and this is where the subtlety comes into play.
Requested by us, the Ministry of Finance confirms our interpretation of the article: only people who buy vehicles from motorists who have been subject to a penalty exemption will pay the CO2 penalty and the weight, with the reduction linked to the age of the vehicle. Clearly, if you buy a vehicle after January 1, 2026 from a person with a disability and you are not disabled yourself, you no longer meet these famous “non-taxation conditions”. You will then have to pay the penalty which was actually never paid. The main categories which will be subject to a retroactive penalty will be the following:
- exemption of vehicles for holders of disability and similar cards (article L. 421-69 and L. 421-80)
- exemption of diplomatic vehicles (exemption provided for by doctrine and which results from the fact that diplomatic registrations are not considered to be of a permanent nature)
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