Keeping a Vehicle on the Road in Monaco: Annual Sticker and Technical Inspection

Registration is annual in Monaco

This is the single fact that catches out drivers arriving from France or Italy, where a registration document is issued once and lasts the life of the car. A Monegasque registration expires on 31 December of the current year. What keeps it alive is the estampille, the small blue sticker in the corner of the rear plate that shows the year the vehicle is valid to.

The cycle runs like this:

1. Beginning of September — the Service des Titres de Circulation sends every registered owner an invoice for the following year.
2. Before 31 December — you pay it. Online at teleservice.gouv.mc/estampille/, or by cheque or postal order to the STC at 5 Promenade Honoré II, bloc B, 98000 Monaco.
3. 1 January — if payment has not been received, the vehicle is struck off the registration file and is no longer authorised on the public highway.

Getting it wrong is not a parking-ticket kind of mistake. The car is off the register, and putting it back on means a regularisation procedure at the counter and a €72 fee under the 2026 tariff (Ministerial Order 2025-709).

What the sticker costs

The zero rate for fully electric vehicles is Monaco's most concrete driving incentive, and it compounds: an electric car costs €69 to register instead of €122, and nothing at all to keep registered thereafter. Note that it is 100% electric — hybrids pay the ordinary rate.

Companies registering a véhicule de service of the passenger-car type pay a far heavier annual sticker on a fiscal-horsepower scale: €408 up to 8 CV, €1,018 from 9 to 16 CV, €1,526 from 17 to 25 CV and €2,034 from 26 CV upwards. Commercial vehicles and heavy goods vehicles stay at €53.

The technical inspection, and why the French rhythm is wrong

Monaco runs its own visite technique at its own centre, and the intervals are not the French ones. Vehicles are sorted into categories:

So the ordinary case — the private car most readers own — is four years, then three-yearly, not the two years often quoted. Taxi and chauffeur vehicles under a year old are exempt from the first inspection.

How the appointment works

You do not have to track the date yourself: the STC writes to you four months before the due date shown on the registration certificate. Book online through the vehicle testing centre's teleservice, by post enclosing payment, or at the reception desk. Slots run from 7.45 am to 5 pm, with booking between 9.30 am and 5 pm. Bring the original registration certificate and the appointment form, plus any bodywork or modification certificate for the vehicle.

Fees on the 2026 schedule: €72 for a vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes PTAC, €108 above that or for public passenger transport, €22 to rebook after an unexcused absence or late arrival. Rescheduling is free if you give at least 24 hours' notice.

After a pass, a sticker is affixed to the registration certificate and the report gives the new due date. Major faults must be repaired and the vehicle re-presented within two months; dangerous faults within two weeks.

Changes during the life of the vehicle

Most other operations are handled at the same counter, by appointment, and are inexpensive:

• Amending the certificate — change of address, change of name — €23
• Duplicate certificate after loss or damage — €23
• Duplicate plate, front or rear — €23; a full set — €46
• Transferring or retaining a registration number — €140
• Registration or removal of a lien (gage) — €18
• Certificate for scrapping a vehicle — €18
• Certificate for registering the vehicle abroad — €18, or €67 bundled with a temporary WW registration
• Postage of a certificate or plate rather than collecting it — €8

A non-resident registration attached to a Monaco second home is renewed annually like any other, but the renewal file has to be refreshed each year with a recent electricity bill or rent receipt and a copy of a valid passport.

Where this fits

Getting the vehicle onto the register in the first place — eligibility, the STC001 file, imports and the registration fees — is covered in Registering a vehicle in Monaco. The driver side of the equation runs on a different clock: a foreign licence must be exchanged within a year of becoming resident, as explained in Exchanging a foreign driving licence, and the Monegasque licence itself works differently from the French one — see The Monegasque driving licence.

For everyday driving in the Principality, Driving in Monaco and Parking in Monaco cover the road network, the tunnels and the public car parks.