Build date proof › Citroen
How to prove a Citroen's build date
The attestation de datation states a production date and is the document French authorities accept for collection registration. The price is the problem - we found EUR 220 and EUR 60 from credible sources and could not reconcile them.
Routes, best first
The manufacturer's own date-of-manufacture label
Build dateThe single best evidence there is, and it is free. Look for it before you pay anyone anything.
- issuer
- The original manufacturer, at the factory
- cost
- Free
- time
- Immediate
- you supply
- Nothing but a torch and a phone camera.
States when the car was built. This is the date every import rule is measured from.
Limits and gaps
A JDM-market car normally has no date-bearing label at all. Its caution plate carries model code, chassis number, engine model and paint and trim codes - and no date.
NHTSA puts this first: the 25-year period runs from the date of manufacture, and the agency looks for that date on a label permanently affixed to the vehicle by its original manufacturer. Everything else on this site exists because that label is missing. Photograph the driver's door aperture, the passenger door aperture, the engine bay bulkhead and the centre pillars before you conclude there isn't one.
Checked against the issuer's own page issuer page · full detail
Attestation de datation (dating certificate)
Build dateThe attestation de datation states a production date and is the document French authorities accept for collection registration. The price is the problem - we found EUR 220 and EUR 60 from credible sources and could not reconcile them.
- issuer
- L'Aventure Peugeot Citroen DS
- cost
- Sources conflict badly: the 2022 tariff lists EUR 220 for the dating attestation and EUR 190 for the certificate of conformity, while a 2023 first-hand account reports paying EUR 60. Check the shop.
- time
- About three weeks to receive the scan by email
- you supply
- A demanding file: dated photographs of the engine bay, dashboard, chassis plates, brakes, tyres and headlight markings, plus chassis and engine numbers, tyre specifications, signed ID and proof of ownership.
States when the car was built. This is the date every import rule is measured from.
Limits and gaps
Around 5 per cent of applications are rejected for non-conformities such as an engine swap, and around 30 per cent arrive incomplete. The separate 'birth certificate' at about EUR 30 is described by L'Aventure itself as being just for fun and has no legal value.
Their shop sits behind bot protection, so confirm the price before you commit to the photography session.
Partly confirmed - read the caveats issuer page · full detail
Certificate of Conformity (CoC)
No date of manufactureProves nothing about age, and is actively misleading: a CoC issued today for a 1997 car is dated today.
- issuer
- The manufacturer
- cost
- Typically EUR 100-250 from the manufacturer
- time
- Weeks
- you supply
- The VIN.
Carries no date of manufacture. Useful for other things; useless for proving a car's age.
Limits and gaps
The CoC carries the VIN, type approval, dimensions, masses, engine, emissions, tyres, brakes and colour. The only date on it is its own date of issue.
US shipping guidance sometimes lists a certificate of conformity including the production date as acceptable. Read that clause carefully - the words doing the work are 'including the production date'. A bare CoC has no production date on it.
Checked against the issuer's own page issuer page · full detail
EU registration certificate (V5C, carte grise, Zulassungsbescheinigung, libretto)
No date of manufactureStates first registration, not manufacture. First registration is normally later than the build - sometimes by more than a year. That gap is the whole problem.
- issuer
- The national registration authority
- cost
- -
- time
- -
- you supply
- -
Carries no date of manufacture. Useful for other things; useless for proving a car's age.
Limits and gaps
Council Directive 1999/37/EC, Annex I, defines the harmonised codes. (B) is the date of first registration and (I) the date of the current registration. There is no harmonised code for date of manufacture anywhere in the annex.
Individual member states may add national fields the directive does not harmonise, so check your own document. But no EU-wide manufacture-date field exists.
Checked against the issuer's own page issuer page · full detail
The Build Date Proof Pack
This page tells you which document to order. The pack gets it ordered — and tells you what to do when the answer is that no document exists.
- A ready-to-send request for every archive, in the language it wants
- Exactly which numbers to photograph, and where they are on the car
- What to ask the seller for before you pay the deposit
- The fallback ladder when the manufacturer has no records
- What US, Canadian and Australian officials each accept as proof