The easiest way to renew your rego

The easiest way to renew your rego

If you own your own car, you have to shell out several hundreds of dollars to keep your car on the road.

Save time when renewing, and get back on the roads quickly and easy.

PAYING YOUR REGO: THE EASY WAY

The Department of Transport have recently updated their methods for paying your rego, but it’s still a pretty old-fashioned process.

In the past, you would receive your notice to renew your registration, take it to the post office and pay it. You can still do that, but if you don’t want to spend time waiting in line there or at a Department of Transport office, you can use BPAY, renew your registration over the phone, online or by post.

A new way to pay is through direct debit – where the cost of your rego will be automatically taken out of your account 21 days before expiry at every 3, 6 or 12 months. There are no fees charged, and this is a convenient way to have your rego renewed automatically. Of course if the direct debit fails, you’ll have to find another way to pay your registration.

There are also part payment options available from third parties such as RACQ and ForgetReg that set up an account to specifically budget for your rego costs each year.

The RACQ’s Vehicle Registration Planned Payment Scheme which lets you deposit money into an account specifically for your rego, which – once you’ve saved up over six or twelve-months will pay the balance onto your renewal notice to reduce the up-front cost. This helps you to budget on a more consistent basis, but one downside is you have to physically deposit money into the account at the post office.

REGISTERING YOUR VEHICLE

In Queensland, registering your vehicle is fairly simple. As long as your vehicle has a safety certificate, previously known as a roadworthy certificate (RWC), you can register a vehicle.

If the vehicle has never been registered before, you’ll also be charged a duty fee and a fee for new set of numberplates. The duty fee can be waived if you’ve registered the vehicle before (anywhere in Australia) or are gifting it to a family member (excluding siblings, in-laws, aunts or uncles.) You also don’t have to pay for new numberplates if you have personalised or custom plates issued in Queensland.

When you apply for a new registration, you have to pay for six or twelve months, but once your car is registered – you can set up a direct debit with the Department of Transport and Main Roads to take your registration out every three months. This may be more convenient to break the cost up into smaller amounts.

CONCESSIONS ON REGISTRATION

There are very few concessions for registrations; the most widely applicable would be for seniors and pension cardholders. However, there are concessions for business vehicles used in certain industries like mining, local government, charities or community service or primary industries.

A full list of concessions is available online, but generally concessions are for vehicles used for a specialist purpose.

REGISTERING A CAR FROM INTERSTATE

Registrations in Queensland aren’t transferable between states, so if you’re thinking of buying a car from another state, or bringing your car into Queensland – know that it’s more complicated for you to register your car.

First, you have to get it inspected by a Queensland approved inspection station for a safety certificate (you can’t submit the safety certification from interstate), as well as having any extra inspections or certifications rechecked (such as if a LPG tank is fitted, or any modifications have been performed.) Next, you can bring it into a Department of Transport office, in order to surrender your plates and register the car in Queensland and depending on how much registration is left, you can apply to have the remainder of the interstate registration refunded.

If you had personalised plates from interstate, you will have to contact the relevant state transport department (e.g. Department of Roads and Maritime Services in NSW, Department of Transport in NT etc) to see if you can keep them.

Motorama is an approved inspection station, so if you need your safety certificate done – the expert service technicians can see if you’re ready for the road, or check with you whether you want your car repaired and serviced by a dealership network that sees over 30,000 vehicles a year.