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The Gov­ern­ment has ex­tend­ed the max­i­mum age to eight years for cer­tain im­port­ed ve­hi­cles and tight­ened el­i­gi­bil­i­ty rules for elec­tric ve­hi­cles, un­der amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act tak­ing ef­fect in 2026.

Le­gal No­tice No. 477 amends the Fourth Sched­ule to the Act, in­creas­ing the al­low­able age of ve­hi­cles in key cat­e­gories from three years to eight years. The change ap­plies to pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing ve­hi­cle im­por­ta­tion and reg­is­tra­tion and takes ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

The amend­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly widens the pool of used ve­hi­cles el­i­gi­ble for im­port, al­low­ing ve­hi­cles up to eight years old from the year of man­u­fac­ture, in­stead of the pre­vi­ous three-year lim­it. The same eight-year thresh­old is al­so ap­plied to re­lat­ed pro­vi­sions in Ap­pen­dix A of the sched­ule.