The five lines
Every quote decomposes into the same five groups. If any one of them is missing from a price you have been given, it has not disappeared — it has moved.
- FOB: the car at the port of loading, before freight.
- Freight and insurance: the sea leg, plus marine cover.
- Customs duty and taxes: the destination’s charge stack applied to CIF.
- Port and agent fees: terminal handling, clearance, storage if a unit sits.
- Registration: plates, and in some markets an initial technical inspection.
Worked example: the same car, three destinations
Take a 1.5-litre saloon, four years old, at $12,000 FOB with $1,500 freight and $120 insurance. CIF is $13,620. The figures below are the arithmetic our landed-cost calculator performs, with each destination’s published charge stack applied in the order its customs system applies it.
| Destination | Duty and levies | Landed cost | Above CIF |
|---|---|---|---|
| UAE — 5% duty, 5% VAT | $1,396 | $15,016 | 10% |
| Saudi Arabia — 5% duty, 15% VAT | $2,826 | $16,446 | 21% |
| Ghana — 10% duty band, eight charges, 15% VAT | $5,066 | $18,686 | 37% |
| Nigeria — 20% duty, 5% levy, 7% surcharge on duty, 7.5% VAT | $5,089 | $18,709 | 37% |
Why Ghana and Nigeria cost almost the same, for different reasons
Nigeria looks worse on paper: duty is 20% of CIF against Ghana’s 10% band, and a 5% import levy sits on top. What closes the gap is that Ghana charges eight further lines — NHIL, GETFund, the COVID-19 levy, ECOWAS, the AU levy, examination, processing, and then 15% VAT on the whole stack — while Nigeria charges a 7% surcharge on duty only, 0.5% ETLS, 1% CISS and 7.5% VAT.
The practical lesson is that a headline duty rate tells you very little in these markets. Read the stack, and check which base each line applies to.
The lines people underestimate
Three costs recur in conversations after the fact rather than before it.
- The age penalty. In Ghana a passenger car above ten years adds 5% of CIF, and above twelve it adds 20% — on our example car that is a $2,724 difference, before VAT is applied to it. In Nigeria the twelve-year line is not a penalty but a wall.
- Engine size. Ghana bands duty by engine capacity, so a 3.5-litre unit lands in the 20% band instead of 10%. Nigeria adds a Green Tax above 2,000cc that reaches 4% at 4,000cc.
- The inland leg. Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and Bolivia are landlocked, and the truck is a larger line than the sea freight.
How to lower it legitimately
There is no honest way to make duty disappear, and the attempts — a declared value well below the market — invite a customs uplift plus a delay. What genuinely works is choosing the vehicle against the tariff.
Buy to the year, because age decides both prohibitions and penalties. Buy to the engine band, because in Ghana and Nigeria the size of the engine changes the rate rather than just the performance. Fill the container, because the freight per car halves once four units travel together. And route to the port that actually serves the destination, rather than to the one that looks closest on a map.
Questions this guide answers
- How much does it cost to ship a car from China?
- Freight depends on the lane and the method. RoRo is quoted per unit; a 40ft container carrying two to four cars is quoted per box and works out cheaper per car from about three units. A marine insurance line of a small percentage of CIF sits alongside it. Both are itemised in every quote.
- Is duty calculated on the price I paid for the car?
- On the value customs accepts, which is not always the invoice. Nigeria uses a VIN-based valuation system, Ghana works from the VIN and model year, and Peru checks against an official reference table. Freight and insurance are added to reach CIF, and then each charge applies to its own base.
- Do I pay import duty before or after the car arrives?
- After it arrives, before it is released. The certificate that gates release, however, has to exist before it ships — which is the sequencing mistake that leaves cars sitting at the port.