Used cars imported into Czechia show 16–22% more kilometres than Czech-registered cars of the same age and fuel

What we measured

Before a used car from abroad can be registered in Czechia, it is normally checked at an inspection station, and the inspector writes down its odometer reading. Carlytics analysed these import checks of passenger cars in the Czech Ministry of Transport's public inspection records.^[1]

• The records. The Czech Ministry of Transport publishes the records of inspections at inspection stations as open data. Each record carries the date, the inspection type, the country the car was registered in before, its first registration date and the odometer reading taken by the inspector.
• Import checks. A used car previously registered abroad gets one of two checks. The first is the technical inspection before registration, a full inspection. For a car from another EU or EEA country or Switzerland, it is required when, under Czech rules, the car would already be due a periodic inspection (for an ordinary passenger car, four years after its first registration if it has had no periodic inspection since, or two years after its last periodic inspection abroad) or when its last foreign inspection cannot be documented. Cars from any other country always need it (Act No. 56/2001 Coll., § 5a, in force since 1 October 2018).^[3] Otherwise an evidence check is enough: the station checks that the car and its identification data match its documents. We use both.
• Origin. The country of previous registration is recorded from January 2024. The profiles and the country table therefore cover January 2024 – July 2026. The ten-year view of import ages uses the register (see section 4).
• One car, one import. Each car is counted once, at its first import check in the period.
• Age is the time between the car's first registration anywhere and the import check.
• Odometer is the reading the inspector recorded. We use medians (half of cars are above, half below), because a few very high readings would pull an average up.

How complete is this?

• For 2025 our import checks cover 135,665 cars. The Czech Ministry of Transport's open data from the Road Vehicle Register show 141,436 used passenger cars (category M1) first registered in Czechia after import that year (our count from the register).^[2] Matched car by car on the VIN, 94–95% of them had an import check in our data (the range comes from two matching rules).
• The register gives an average age at import of 10.5 years, counting cars up to 50 years old as we do. Ours is 10.3 years, and every age band matches within 1.1 percentage points.
• The cars we miss are mostly older: of the roughly 7,000–8,000 registered imports without a matching check, only 13–15% were under three years old.

Results

1. The imported used car in 2025

2. Where they come from (January 2024 – July 2026, 346,280 cars)

The table lists countries with at least 1,000 cars. It shows median age and median odometer at the import check. Km per year = odometer ÷ age, for cars at least 2 years old.

Confidence intervals for every cell are in the detailed tables below. For the four largest countries the median odometer is known to within about ±1,500 km.

What stands out:

• Two kinds of import. Cars from Austria, Switzerland and Poland are old (median 12–14 years). Cars from Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg are young (median 5.4–6.4 years).
• Young origins, more kilometres at the same age. The young origins show more kilometres than German cars of the same age: about 24% more for Denmark, 12–14% for Belgium and the Netherlands, 3% for Luxembourg. The km-per-year column favours young cars, which cover more distance per year everywhere. Cars from Denmark arrive at a median age of 5.4 years with the same median odometer (147,100 km) as cars from Germany at 10.1 years.
• Italy and Poland send the highest-mileage cars among the large origins: 30.6% of Italian and 47.2% of Polish imports show 200,000 km or more. At the same age, Polish imports show about 22% and Italian about 14% more kilometres than German ones.
• France sends younger, lower-mileage cars than Germany (median 122,100 km at 6.8 years).

3. Imported vs first registered in Czechia, at the same age

For cars first registered in 2015 or later, we compared the odometer at Czech periodic inspections in 2024–2025. Each car contributes one reading, from its latest inspection day. The two groups are cars that came in through an import check (191,463) and cars first registered in Czechia (1,086,399).

Cars first registered in Czechia are inspected at 4, 6, 8 … years, while imports reach the inspection at any age, so ages are matched to the month. The two km columns are the typical readings for the imported cars' exact age mix.

Weighted across ages, imported cars show 1.36 times the kilometres (95% CI 1.36–1.37).

Part of that is fuel. Imported cars are far more often diesel (67% against 40%), and among Czech-registered cars a diesel shows about 1.8 times the kilometres of a petrol car of the same age. Comparing like with like, imported diesels show 1.16 times (1.16–1.17) and imported petrol cars 1.22 times (1.21–1.23) the kilometres of Czech cars of the same fuel and age.

The gap is largest for young cars and narrows with age. At ten years imported diesels still show about 7% and imported petrol cars about 17–18% more.

4. Ten years of imports: the share of cars aged 15 or more nearly doubled

For the ten-year view we use the Road Vehicle Register, not our inspection records: it holds every used passenger car first registered in Czechia after import, whichever check it took.^[2]

• The share aged 15 or more nearly doubled, from 12.5% of used imports in 2015 to 23.8% in 2025.
• The typical import did not get older. The median age at import stayed at about 10 years (9.9 in 2015, 10.0 in 2025, and between 9.9 and 10.7 in every year). The share under three years old also rose, from 4.9% to 8.2%: imports spread towards both ends of the age range.
• Odometer readings over time: one route only. The register has no odometer. Our inspection records give readings over ten years only for cars that took the technical inspection before registration, and that route's share of used imports fell from 92–93% in 2016 to 72–73% in 2025 (matched on the VIN against the register). Its cars also got older than imports overall (median 10.2 → 11.1 years, against 9.9 → 10.0 in the register). Among these cars the median reading stayed between 155,500 and 160,300 km in every year from 2015 to 2025. Because the route covers a smaller and changing share of imports, this is an observation about that route, not a trend for imports as a whole, and we draw no conclusion about how the kilometres of imported cars changed.

What this means if you are buying

• Expect more kilometres. An imported car typically shows more than the typical Czech-registered car of the same age and fuel: about 16–22% more, and about 1.4 times as many at four years old.
• Know the usual reading. The typical import is ten years old with close to 150,000 km. A reading far below what is usual for the car's age and origin (table above) is a reason to ask for service records from the country it came from.
• The record is only as good as the odometer. The reading in these records is what the inspector saw when the car arrived. A reading that was lowered before the car reached Czechia is recorded as the lower number. Check a car's history in the country it came from as well.

Limitations

• Readings, not truth. The odometer is recorded as displayed. If it was altered before import, the record shows the altered number. Figures on this page may therefore understate true distances, especially for origins where that is more common. We cannot measure how often that happens here.
• Who is counted. Import checks cover 94–95% of the used imports registered in 2025 (matched on the VIN against the register). Cars under 3 years old make up 8.4% of our data and 8.2% of registered used imports; the cars we miss are mostly older. Cars imported but never registered, and cars registered without any inspection-station check, are not included.
• Ten years: ages from the register, odometer readings from one route only. The register counts a car as a used import when its first registration abroad is earlier than its first registration in Czechia; cars later exported or scrapped stay in the register and are counted. Before 2024 our inspection records do not show the evidence-check route or the origin country, so the ten-year odometer readings cover only cars that took the technical inspection before registration. That route's share of registered used imports fell from 92–93% in 2016 to 79–80% in 2021 and 72–73% in 2025 (matched on the VIN against the register). Its median age at import rose from 10.2 to 11.1 years while the register's stayed at about 10, so the cars on that route changed over time. We therefore report no odometer trend for imports. About 6–8% of cars at this inspection in 2024–2025 were previously registered in Czechia (re-registrations). The current rule for this inspection (§ 5a) dates from 1 October 2018; our inspection series shows no break at that date (monthly counts, median age and age shares run smoothly through it).
• Imported vs Czech comparison. "First registered in Czechia" can include some cars imported young through the evidence check before 2024 (not identifiable in the records); this makes the gap look smaller, not larger. Each periodic inspection appears as two same-day records (technical and emissions); fuel is taken from the emissions record and is known for about 99% of cars. Czech cars are measured at their periodic inspection and imported cars at theirs, which in 2024–2025 is often logged on the day of the import check. Czech cars are compared with all Czech-registered cars at inspection, not only those offered for sale.
• Age depends on the first-registration date on the foreign papers. In a hand check of 60 cars, two had first-registration dates 5–7 months apart in two records.

Detailed tables

Country table with 95% intervals

All import checks, January 2024 – July 2026.

"km vs Germany at the same age" = Σ n_country(a) × median_country(a) ÷ Σ n_country(a) × median_Germany(a), with a = whole years of age and cells with ≥ 30 cars in both groups (covering at least 91% of each country's cars). The interval comes from 300 bootstrap resamples. The value is descriptive and is not tested. It is stable when age is matched by half-year or quarter instead of year (e.g. Netherlands 1.13–1.14, Denmark 1.24–1.25).

Imported vs Czech: pre-registered estimator and correction

The pre-registered estimator matched whole years of age and read fuel from the last record in file order. An independent review showed that both steps bias the result, so the published estimator matches ages to the month and reads fuel from the emissions record. All three are shown:

With fuel from all records, the diesel share is 67.4% of imported against 39.6% of Czech-registered cars. Among Czech-registered cars, diesels show 1.71–1.86 times the median kilometres of petrol cars at each age from 4 to 10.