Lost certificate of conformity: how to obtain a duplicate

Lost, never received, or left with a third party?

Three very different situations lead to the same point: you do not have the document.

• Lost. You had it and it disappeared during a move or a change of owner. This is the simplest case.
• Never received. The vehicle was bought used and the certificate never followed. By far the most common case, and it says nothing about the vehicle’s regularity.
• Left with a third party. Rental company, leasing company, employer, dealership: the document is filed somewhere and nobody has a reason to dig it out.

In all three cases the solution is the same: ask the manufacturer for a fresh copy, using the chassis number. This is not a photocopy: it is a document reissued from the type-approval data.

The ten-year rule, the real sticking point

This is the only serious limit, and it surprises many owners. Article 36 of Regulation (EU) 2018/858 requires the manufacturer to supply a duplicate to the owner of the vehicle, but only for ten years after the date of manufacture. After that they have no obligation and are no longer required to keep copies.

In practice many manufacturers still respond beyond that point. But the answer is no longer guaranteed and the turnaround becomes unpredictable. That is why we put the question to the manufacturer before issuing a quote: you know where you stand before paying anything.

Mind which date applies: it is the date of manufacture, not of first registration. A vehicle built at the end of one year and registered the following spring has aged several months more than its registration document suggests.

What we need from you

• The chassis number (VIN), 17 characters. This is the indispensable item.
• The foreign registration document if you have it: it carries the VIN in field E and confirms the date of first registration.
• The make and model, to route the request to the right department.

Copy the VIN character by character: it never contains the letters I, O or Q, which are easily confused with 1 and 0. A single wrong character and the manufacturer will not find the file.

How long, and at what price

The turnaround depends entirely on the manufacturer, not on us or any other intermediary: they hold the data and they alone can issue the document. It ranges from a few working days at the quickest brands to several weeks at those that go through a national importer.

The detail brand by brand is on our price list and in our turnaround guide. A few brands frequently involved in duplicate requests:

Is a duplicate worth the same?

Yes. The document reissued by the manufacturer describes the same approved characteristics as the original: there is no “second-class certificate”. What matters to the authority is that it comes from the manufacturer or their authorised representative.

Conversely, no provider can “produce” a certificate of conformity. A document created anywhere other than at the manufacturer is a forgery, with the criminal consequences that attach to it. Our job is to obtain the real document, not to make one.