Is import duty charged on the price I paid, or on something else?

On the value customs accepts, which is not necessarily the invoice. Customs builds its own figure — in Nigeria through the VIN valuation system, in Ghana from the VIN and model year, in Peru against an official reference table — adds freight and insurance to reach CIF, and then applies each charge to a specific base. Some lines sit on CIF, some on the duty figure only, some on FOB, and VAT sits on everything stacked above it.

Why can a duty rate not be quoted as a single percentage?

Because the tariff in these markets moves with the HS code, the engine capacity, the model year and sometimes the vehicle age. Ghana bands duty by engine size and adds a separate overage penalty by age. Nigeria adds a Green Tax that is nil below 2,000cc and 4% at 4,000cc and above. A single headline percentage is wrong for most of the cars actually being shipped.

Which of these markets is cheapest to clear?

The Gulf. GCC duty is 5% of CIF across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, and Qatar and Kuwait have no VAT at all. Saudi Arabia’s 15% VAT is the highest tax line in the group, and its five-year age rule is the tightest restriction. West Africa is more expensive but far deeper in volume: Nigeria stacks duty, levy, Green Tax, surcharge, ETLS and VAT, and Ghana adds eight separate charges on top of a banded duty.

What is the largest avoidable cost in these markets?

The age penalty. Ghana charges 5% of CIF on a passenger car above ten years and 20% above twelve, so the same model can cost materially more to clear simply because of its model year. Nigeria’s 12-year cap is a hard barrier rather than a penalty: a unit over the line does not clear at any price. Buying to the year, rather than to the price, is what protects the margin.

Tools

حاسبة الرسوم الجمركية وتكلفة الوصول

احسب التكلفة الفعلية للسيارة بعد وصولها. اختر الوجهة وأدخل سعر FOB والشحن وبيانات المركبة، ليطبّق الحاسب بنية الرسوم في ذلك البلد بالترتيب نفسه الذي يطبقه نظامه الجمركي.

أرقامك

البلد

سعر FOB (دولار)

الشحن والتأمين (دولار)

التأمين (دولار)

سعة المحرك (سم³)

عمر المركبة (سنوات)

نسبة الرسوم الجمركية (%)

قابلة للتعديل عن قصد: تتغير الشريحة حسب رمز HS والمحرك والعمر، لذا استخدم النسبة التي يؤكدها مخلّصك الجمركي.

12 years. Nigerian Customs works to a hard 12-year cap; some agents still quote a 10-year reading, so the year is confirmed before money moves.

التكلفة النهائية التقديرية

قيمة CIF: $13,620
الرسوم الجمركية (20%): $2,724
Import levy (used vehicles) (5%): $681
Surcharge (7%): $191
ETLS levy (ECOWAS) (0.50%): $68
CISS / FOB levy (1%): $120
VAT (7.50%): $1,305
كل الرسوم ما عدا الجمرك: $5,089

التكلفة النهائية$18,709

37.36%% من CIF — حدود العمر ومسارات المطابقة وبنود الرسوم مأخوذة من أنظمة منشورة ويراجعها فريقنا، لكن الجمارك تقيّم كل مركبة على حدة. اعتبر هذه الأرقام أساساً للتقدير لا تقييماً جمركياً.

بيانات الرسوم

Duty and age limit by destination

Reviewed 24 September 2026

البلد	حد العمر	بيانات الرسوم
NigeriaWest Africa	Used vehicles carry a hard 12-year age cap, assessed at the port on arrival (some clearing agents still work to a 10-year readi...	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
GhanaWest Africa	Ghana Standards Authority rules apply by shipment date: vehicles shipped on or after 1 October 2026 need inspection in the coun...	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
Ivory CoastWest Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles and a COC or equivalent certificate of conformity must be in place before shipment.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
SenegalWest Africa	An age limit applies, and in practice units much older than about eight years are not accepted.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
Burkina FasoWest Africa	Clearance happens at the port of entry — Lomé, Abidjan or Tema — and the unit arrives by road.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
TogoWest Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles and a conformity certificate is required before shipment.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
GuineaWest Africa	An age limit applies and a conformity certificate is required before shipment.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
BeninWest Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
MaliWest Africa	Clearance takes place at the port of entry, most often Abidjan, Dakar or Tema, and the unit then travels by road to Bamako.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
Sierra LeoneWest Africa	Used-vehicle admission is relatively open, with a conformity certificate required.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
Cape VerdeWest Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles, and island logistics push the landed cost up sharply.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
LiberiaWest Africa	Used-vehicle admission is relatively open.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
GambiaWest Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
MauritaniaWest Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
Guinea-BissauWest Africa	Used-vehicle admission is relatively open.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
NigerWest Africa	Clearance takes place at Cotonou or Lomé and the unit continues by road to Niamey.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
UAEMiddle East	There is no hard age cap, though older units face stricter inspection and some insurers and re-export buyers will not take them.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
Saudi ArabiaMiddle East	Used vehicles must be no more than five years old excluding the year of import, so a unit imported in 2026 has to be model year...	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
JordanMiddle East	A November 2025 rule bans the import of accident-damaged cars, and electric vehicles carry a three-year age cap.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
IraqMiddle East	Federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region apply different rules, and the Kurdish region’s gates in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah are the l...	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
QatarMiddle East	Used vehicles generally need to be within about five years old, and conformity certification is required.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
KuwaitMiddle East	Used vehicles are generally subject to an age cap of about five years and a conformity certificate is required.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
OmanMiddle East	An age limit applies to used vehicles and a conformity certificate is required.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
LebanonMiddle East	Age and compliance thresholds are relatively permissive compared with the GCC.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
YemenMiddle East	Import thresholds are low, but there is no functioning letter-of-credit channel.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
BahrainMiddle East	An age limit applies to used vehicle imports and conformity certification is required.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
TurkeyMiddle East	Used-vehicle import requires authorisation and carries a high tax burden, so a used-car programme is only realistic where a spe...	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
SyriaMiddle East	Sanctions affect banking and shipping.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
IranMiddle East	Sanctions constrain banking and shipping arrangements.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
PeruSouth America	Used vehicles are admissible within age and mileage limits — about five years in practice — and the vehicle must be left-hand d...	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
BoliviaSouth America	Light vehicles up to six years and heavy vehicles up to eight years are admitted under DS 29836; accident-damaged and petrol-to...	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
VenezuelaSouth America	There is no single published age limit.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
EcuadorSouth America	An age limit applies to used vehicles, about five years in practice, and safeguard and quota measures change by decree.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
ParaguaySouth America	Used passenger cars up to ten years old are admitted under Ley 4333/2011.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
BrazilSouth America	Used-vehicle import is not a practical route.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
ArgentinaSouth America	Resolution 293/2025 is the opening to work with: 4x4 off-roaders and the specified industrial categories.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
ColombiaSouth America	Used imports require qualifying for an exception and are quota-constrained, so a used-vehicle programme only makes sense where ...	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
ChileSouth America	Used vehicles cannot be registered.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
UruguaySouth America	Used vehicles are admitted only by exception under Decreto 266/013, which requires a statement of necessity.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
DR CongoCentral Africa	Import requires compliance review through several agencies plus a full supporting document set.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
CameroonCentral Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles and a conformity certificate is required before shipment.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
CongoCentral Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles, and the CEMAC tariff applies on top of the conformity requirement.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
Equatorial GuineaCentral Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles and island logistics add to the cost.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
GabonCentral Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles, with conformity certification required.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
ChadCentral Africa	Clearance happens outside the country and the unit arrives by road; inland transit insurance is confirmed before dispatch.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
Central African RepublicCentral Africa	Clearance takes place at Douala and the vehicle travels on by road, with the inland route subject to the security situation.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
AlgeriaNorth Africa	Two channels exist.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
LibyaNorth Africa	A local import permit is required and every order runs on advance T/T.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
EgyptNorth Africa	Used-vehicle import is constrained by age and licensing thresholds, so this is treated as a new-vehicle market.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
MoroccoNorth Africa	Used-vehicle import is closed apart from a small number of exceptions; treat the market as new-vehicle territory.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
TunisiaNorth Africa	Used-vehicle import is heavily restricted; the market is served with new vehicles.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
SudanNorth Africa	An import licence is a prerequisite and hard-currency availability shapes what can be ordered.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
AngolaSouthern Africa	An age limit applies to used vehicles — about five to eight years in practice — and conformity certification is required.	هيكل الرسوم المنشور
MadagascarSouthern Africa	Used vehicles are admitted with a conformity certificate required.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية
EthiopiaOther LHD markets	Fuel-burning vehicles cannot be imported.	يُحدَّد لكل وحدة وفق التعريفة السارية

حدود العمر ومسارات المطابقة وبنود الرسوم مأخوذة من أنظمة منشورة ويراجعها فريقنا، لكن الجمارك تقيّم كل مركبة على حدة. اعتبر هذه الأرقام أساساً للتقدير لا تقييماً جمركياً.

Straight answers

How these charges actually work

Four things decide the bill: what customs says the car is worth, what it is built on, how old it is, and how the destination stacks its levies. The rest is arithmetic.

Is import duty charged on the price I paid, or on something else?: On the value customs accepts, which is not necessarily the invoice. Customs builds its own figure — in Nigeria through the VIN valuation system, in Ghana from the VIN and model year, in Peru against an official reference table — adds freight and insurance to reach CIF, and then applies each charge to a specific base. Some lines sit on CIF, some on the duty figure only, some on FOB, and VAT sits on everything stacked above it.
Why can a duty rate not be quoted as a single percentage?: Because the tariff in these markets moves with the HS code, the engine capacity, the model year and sometimes the vehicle age. Ghana bands duty by engine size and adds a separate overage penalty by age. Nigeria adds a Green Tax that is nil below 2,000cc and 4% at 4,000cc and above. A single headline percentage is wrong for most of the cars actually being shipped.
Which of these markets is cheapest to clear?: The Gulf. GCC duty is 5% of CIF across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, and Qatar and Kuwait have no VAT at all. Saudi Arabia’s 15% VAT is the highest tax line in the group, and its five-year age rule is the tightest restriction. West Africa is more expensive but far deeper in volume: Nigeria stacks duty, levy, Green Tax, surcharge, ETLS and VAT, and Ghana adds eight separate charges on top of a banded duty.
What is the largest avoidable cost in these markets?: The age penalty. Ghana charges 5% of CIF on a passenger car above ten years and 20% above twelve, so the same model can cost materially more to clear simply because of its model year. Nigeria’s 12-year cap is a hard barrier rather than a penalty: a unit over the line does not clear at any price. Buying to the year, rather than to the price, is what protects the margin.