Every imported Land Rover is tied to an eight-digit statistical code that Revenue returns from the ROS VRT enquiry — the link between your exact vehicle and the OMSP your Vehicle Registration Tax is charged on. With Land Rover, two things bend that lookup harder than usual: the money involved, and the fact that one nameplate can be a passenger car or a commercial.
Defender: station wagon or commercial hard top
The Defender is where the classification does the heavy lifting. Whether you look at a short-wheelbase 90 or a long 110, the body that sits on it decides everything: a hard top with no rear seats and a dedicated load area can qualify as a Category B commercial, while a station wagon with rear seating and side windows is a passenger vehicle. That single distinction, not the code, is what sets the rate table — and it is easy to get wrong because the two share a silhouette and often a chassis.
A Category B commercial is charged at a flat 13.3% of the OMSP with a €125 minimum, ignoring the CO₂ bands entirely; the station wagon runs the passenger CO₂ table plus the NOx levy, which on a heavy diesel can be a much larger figure. It is the same commercial-versus-passenger fork that catches importers of the Ford Ranger and the Nissan e-NV200 — get the category settled before you ever reach for a code, because it decides the whole calculation.
Range Rover Evoque: well-listed but trim-sensitive
The Range Rover Evoque sits at the opposite end of the difficulty scale — but that does not make it simple. Because it has been imported from the UK in high volume, its codes are thoroughly covered in ROS, so a lookup rarely comes back empty. The trap is precision, not availability. The early 3-door coupé and the 5-door are coded apart, the eD4 front-wheel-drive and the TD4 four-wheel-drive diesels split again, and trim moves the OMSP on top of all of it. Search "Evoque 2.0 diesel" and several honest-looking entries can appear where only one is your car, so match the body, drivetrain and trim line before you accept a figure.
High OMSP, high scrutiny
Land Rovers hold their money, and high open-market values invite closer attention. Revenue checks the code and OMSP more carefully on expensive vehicles precisely because the tax at stake is large, so a Range Rover Sport or a well-specified Defender is more likely to have its declared variant examined than a mainstream hatchback. That cuts both ways: an over-generous third-party lookup that lands you on a cheaper code will not survive inspection, and an OMSP set against a richer trim than yours will cost you.
If the OMSP looks inflated, the process is fixed and worth knowing in advance: you pay the VRT charged at registration first, then lodge a valuation appeal with evidence. The documents that actually move a figure are the Certificate of Conformity pinning the precise variant and CO₂, and comparable Irish listings for the same year, engine, trim and mileage. Where a car is so unusual that ROS returns nothing at all, the fallback is the vehicle not listed procedure, where Revenue fixes the details by physical inspection instead.
Land Rover code splits at a glance
The variant splits that most often catch Land Rover importers, with the trap to check before your NCTS appointment:
| Model | Variants with separate codes | Import trap |
|---|---|---|
| Defender 90 / 110 | Hard top vs station wagon, 90 vs 110 wheelbase, engine output | Hard top can be Category B (13.3%, min €125); a station wagon is a passenger car — classify before you code |
| Range Rover Evoque | 3dr coupé vs 5dr, eD4 vs TD4, trim line | Well covered from UK imports, but the exact body, drivetrain and trim still set the OMSP |
Land Rover VRT questions
Is a Land Rover Defender a commercial for VRT?
It depends on the body. A Defender 90 or 110 hard top with no rear seats and a load area can qualify as a Category B commercial, charged at 13.3% of the OMSP with a €125 minimum. A station wagon Defender with rear seats and side windows is a passenger vehicle on the CO₂ table plus the NOx levy. The classification, not the badge, decides the whole calculation.
What if Revenue's OMSP on my Range Rover looks too high?
You pay the VRT charged at registration first, then lodge a valuation appeal with evidence. A Certificate of Conformity fixing the exact variant, plus comparable Irish listings for the same year, trim and mileage, are the documents that move an OMSP. High-value Land Rovers draw closer checking, so the more precisely you can pin the variant, the stronger the appeal.
Does a 3-door Evoque have a different code from a 5-door?
Yes. The three-door coupé and five-door Evoque are coded separately, and the eD4, TD4 and petrol engines split again on top of trim. UK imports are high-volume so the Evoque is well covered in the ROS enquiry, but you still have to match the exact body, engine and trim to land on the right OMSP.