Road vehicles plated under the Motor Vehicle Standards Act of 1989 (MVSA) approval must be supplied by 30 June 2023 – the end of the transitional period.  From 1 July 2023, all road vehicles must be entered on the Register of Approved Vehicles (RAV) before they can be provided to the market for the first time.

However, there may be an unavoidable reason this has not happened, for example, you received an import approval, but the vehicle was not plated before 30 June 2023 due to a delivery delay, or a number of MVSA-plated RVs are in dealership yards and not yet provided.

The Department have released the Guidance note – Adding a road vehicle manufactured and/or imported under the MVSA to the Register of Approved Vehicles to explain the processes for entering an MVSA-plated road vehicle onto the RAV if you find you still have plated vehicles on hand after 30 June 2023.

Once the RVS transitional period ceases on 30 June 2023, entities (individuals or companies) providing vehicles in Australia for the first time must ensure their vehicles meet the applicable ADRs (i.e. for low ATM trailers, they have been assessed as meeting to the latest version of VSB 1, currently Version 6) before they can be entered on the RAV and provided for use in transport on public roads. Trailers that were plated under the MVSA will not be exempted from this requirement if they are first provided after 30 June 2023.

Entities that provide low ATM trailers in Australia should factor this limit into their plans for transitioning business operations to the RVS legislation. It is strongly advised that approval holders should transition as soon as they can to minimise MVSA plated vehicles in market post 30 June 2023 to avoid potential issues in submitting vehicles onto the RAV.

It is important that all VTA holders are in communication with their retail outlets to ensure any MVSA product in market is on the RAV at 01/07/2023.

For further information, please visit the Department’s RVSA-dedicated Contact Us page and submit an online enquiry.