At the start of 2025, French motorists are experiencing a further significant increase in the price of registration cards in many regions. Under the guise of financing the ecological transition, this increase arouses the indignation of many users and associations, denouncing unfair and poorly managed taxation.
A generalized and unequal increase
According to a survey published by What to Choose on January 14, registration fees increased by 11% on average in France, with peaks reaching +59.2% in Corsica, +30.4% in Normandy, or even +25% in the Grand Est. The reason given? The exemptions granted to electric vehicles, combined with the reduction in state allocations to the regions, are widening a deficit which the latter pass on to other drivers.
So, while 94% of motorists with thermal vehicles see their wallets heavily strainedthe remaining 6%, users of electric cars, benefit from a total exemption from regional tax. A situation which, according to the Drivers’ Defense League (LDC), is equivalent to “financing the ecological transition of others”.
An unjustified cost according to the Court of Auditors
In 2024, the Court of Auditors had already warned of the lack of compensation for tax exemptions for electric vehicles. According to its calculations, this exemption represented a loss of 68 million euros for the regions in 2023. With the increase in sales of electric vehicles, from 2% in 2019 to 17% in 2023, this drop in income becomes a real financial pit. In Occitania, for example, the shortfall was 19 million euros in 2024, a deficit which will reach another 12 million in 2025.
In addition to regional taxes, each registration card is subject to fixed administrative fees of 13,76 eurosincluding 11 euros for the production of the certificate (Y4 tax) and 2.76 euros for its delivery (Y5 tax). Problem: these costs would be greatly overestimated. According to the Court of Auditors, the real cost of producing and sending a registration card amounts to only 4,50 eurosi.e. a net profit of 9.26 euros per title for the National Agency for Secured Titles (ANTS). Worse still, although registration cards are now sent by regular mail – much less expensive than registered mail – shipping costs have not been reduced.
For Nathalie Troussard, general secretary of the LDC, this situation is unacceptable: “We are paying 205% of the real price to enrich a state agency, when these costs could be reduced in complete transparency. »
A double penalty system for drivers
This increase in the price of registration cards adds to a series of tax pressures already burdensome for motorists: increase in tolls, increase in fuel prices, and multiplication of low-emission zones (ZFE). These measures, often presented as ecological initiatives, in fact result in a constant increase in the bill for a majority of French people.
-While thermal drivers indirectly finance the transition to electric vehicles, they also have to bear artificially inflated administrative costs.
Faced with these injustices, the Drivers’ Defense League calls for a total overhaul of vehicle taxation. “It is time to stop penalizing thermal drivers for the benefit of a minority and to put an end to the opaque practices of state agencies”insists Nathalie Troussard.
In a context where the motorist has become a tax target of choice, this explosion in registration costs once again illustrates the excesses of a system which continues to erode the purchasing power of the French. If initiatives in favor of the ecological transition are necessary, they should not be to the detriment of a majority already asphyxiated by taxes and restrictions.
Photo credit: DR
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