Shipping second hand personal car to Mauritius

Hi
Have you checked out: https://www.expat.com/forum/108-16-tran … itius.html

I think you will find all the answers to your questions on it, and quite recent ones too

I was going to bring my car to Mauritius from the UK 4 years ago but it will have been just over 4 years old when it arrived here (4yrs and 3 months) and so I was not allowed to bring it

Good luck

Hi Rosiewestie,

Thank you for the guidance and input in this forum, its much appreciated for the Neewbies

Please may I request the contact details of the shipping agent or freight company that you know who may assist me further.

Kind regards,

Hi

I have researched this topic somewhat. Although I do not have all of the figures available to quote, I can summarise the literature i have read from various sources. Most of the experiences I have read detail the following:

Yes 100% of the value of the car. HOWEVER- the "value" is at their discretion. What you paid for the car and/or its book value is irrelevant. This has resulted in a car being valued at double its real value. The yes there is a VAT component.

After the various calculations I did, I worked out that it would NEVER be cost effective to bring a vehicle from South Africa. I will be pricing vehicles while im in Mauritius this month and will post findings.

Good Luck

Hi 6mboyjam,

Thank you for the feedback, please keep me posted on your findings.

Hi PrishCat,

Please read the below testimony which could be of guidance to you:

"Before moving to Mauritius we lived in the UK, where the price of everything is a click away on the Internet. For example, our 2003 Citroën Xsara Picasso was valued at £2,400 (or Rs 120,000) by Parkers (parkers.co.uk/cars/used-prices/). Relative to Mauritius, cars are cheap in Europe. Unfortunately doing research on the cost of cars in Mauritius is not such an easy exercise.

The shippers told us that exporting our car would add only £500 to the total shipping cost. Once a car arrives in Mauritius, it is valued by Customs whereupon import duties and VAT are applied to that valuation. In our case it was:
- Rs 240,000 (Customs' valuation of the car - note that it is almost twice the UK Parkers value)
Therefore, Customs duties and taxes levied were:
- Rs 132,000 (55% import duty)
- Rs 56,000 (15% of Rs 372,000, being the value plus import duty)
- Rs 54,000 (first registration and road tax)
= total of Rs 242,000 paid (vs. a car that is worth Rs 120,000 in the UK)

Then again, a small second-hand city car costs in excess of Rs 400,000 from dealers in Mauritius. Chances are that we would have ended up with one of those if we did not import ours from the UK. Alternatively, it would have taken a lot of money, time and effort to find the same type of car as the Citroën. To rent a small car costs around Rs 25,000 per month, so you also need to add that to the total cost of importation.

There are administrative issues to be aware of. Even if your clearing agent has all the paperwork in place the clearing process will only commence upon physical arrival of the car. The Mauritian authorities will then contact the origin country's authorities to ascertain that the car is not stolen. Seemingly such requests are processed quickly in the UK. Our car was released 20 days following delivery of the container although we have heard that cars originating from certain countries (including South Africa) can take substantially longer to clear. Also, the Mauritian authorities will issue you initially with a temporary licence as the permanent version can only be obtained once the car is insured. Unfortunately the temporary licence is valid for three days only and as the insurance process takes longer than this, we had to apply for a second temporary licence which meant another trip to Port Louis. In the process we also discovered that under a temporary licence you are not allowed to transport passengers (a bit tricky if you have to do the school run) or use the vehicle at all on Sundays.

Manual second-hand cars are difficult to come by in Mauritius. Pretty much all second-hand cars are imported from Japan where vehicles tend to have automatic transmissions. Ultimately the choice of cars is limited if you are looking for value for money. Double-cab trucks/bakkies incur only 10% import duty. It seems that many expat families end up with a double-cab and a little Nissan, a good barometer of value for money in Mauritius. Only ship your car over if your car if you have a special reason or a double cab. It is touch-and-go whether it is worth the money and effort to import a 'conventional' car.

Also note that cars (not trucks/bakkies) with engines larger than 1,600cc attract 100% import duty."

we did the exercise, and found it was cheaper to buy a new vehicle in Mauritius that ship one over. also the cost of shipping is exorbitant, never mind the taxes.

Fireworks C wrote:

Before moving to Mauritius we lived in the UK, where the price of everything is a click away on the Internet. For example, our 2003 Citroën Xsara Picasso was valued at £2,400 (or Rs 120,000) by Parkers (parkers.co.uk/cars/used-prices/). Relative to Mauritius, cars are cheap in Europe. Unfortunately doing research on the cost of cars in Mauritius is not such an easy exercise.

Your car is over 10 years old? On the MRA website it states imported cars have to be under 4 years old, is this still correct?

7.What are the conditions for importing a second-hand car?
Any person wishing to import a second-hand car should seek a valid import permit from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection prior to the importation.The age of the car should be not less than 18 months and not more than 48 months at the time of the shipment.

Also, is there a problem with getting spare parts and repairing cars which they don't have in Mauritius? As I would like to import a Ford Galaxy (7 seater car), but never seen one of these in Mauritius.

Thank you for any advice.

Diana

FWIW: Fireworks C wrote:
Please read the below testimony which could be of guidance to you

and what followed are in quotations from beginning to the end. He is quoting someone,  whether that poster is on EBor some other forum and we don't know when the author of that msg came to Mauritius.

That's the danger of copy and paste without a reference !