The Real Story On The Returning Thai Citizen/resident Customs Duty Exemption For Importing A Car

[submaniac]

The question of whether there exists an exception to the high Thai import duties allowing a returning Thai citizen/national/resident to import a car with no or little duties was previously asked in another thread. It has also popped up on occassion on other posts/questions. So rather than hijack another thread, and to provide information that can be picked up easily on a 'search', I will post a separate thread on the topic based upon my own PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE and experience. There is alot of hearsay on the subject, so I am going to tell you what my OWN experience has been.

There is a belief that a returning Thai citizen/national can bring in 1 car with no or reduced customs taxes, so long as they owned, registered it, and used it in another country. I.E. a student studying abroad or any other Thai national can bring back their car through this loophole. As far as I know, this is either not possible or so difficult to take advantage of that the average Thai national cannot use it. (In otherwords, you gotta be really connected to be able to do it--so unless you are a member of Thaksin's family, it probably ain't gonna happen.)

I personally have been trying to figure out how to do it for approximately 6 months now, and have had no success thus far. My uncle wanted a Hummer H2. The Hummer is his dream car, and yes, he is a rich enough guy that he could buy one in Thailand. However rich guys believe that customs duties and taxes are throwing away money, and he would rather use the price difference to invest in land or other equipment to make him more money. Let's put it like this, the Hummer is a toy, not a legitimate 'investment'. Hence trying to get around customs. He was going to use the exception buy one in my name, have me drive it around in the states for a year or two, and then ship it over to Thailand.

My response when he asked if he could buy me a free Hummer to drive around, "Sure, anything for my favorite uncle." So hence began our attempts to figure out how to use this loophole. So I contact ramashipping http://www.ramashipping.com/ (I am including the website so if you don't believe me, go ask for yourself). Rama is the main shipper in California/Los Angeles, and is the shipper that most of the (fairly large Thai population) uses.

When I contacted them, their response was "Yes, at one time you were able to ship a personal car to Thailand if you were a returning national and had owned the car in the United States. They stopped doing that about 4 (now 5 years) ago. We have heard some people are able to still do it, but we do not know how." Now keep in mind that Rama quoted me about $3,000-4,000 USD to ship a car, so I think they would be sufficiently *motivated* to give me information that would want to use their services, and since this is their only business, they would also be up on what the law is.

After, Rama, we each made independent efforts to use our 'contacts' to see how to use this loophole. We contacted our friends and family, including people in the Thai government. (And yes, we do have connections.) The response is "yes, I have heard that you could do that. But I don't know how it is done. You need to talk to someone else who knows more about it than I do. Try so and so." So we go to so and so, and they say the same thing. To date, no one has been able to give me an exact reference to what regulations allow you to do it, or the actual forms I would need to fill out to do it.

I also then asked my father about this, since he knows people who regularly ship to Thailand. His response was "yeah, I know someone at church who shipped her car to Thailand. It was an old Mercedes. She ended up having to pay like $20,000 in taxes when it reached port." Uhhhhh....great.

Anyways, at this point I do not know how it is done, and don't know how to do it. I still believe it *can* be done, but not by 'regular' people, and you need a 'high up' in government to use the loophole. 6 months and we have still got nothing to show for our inquiries. I am still looking into but it's too much of a headache for anything more than a casual inquiry. Given the fact that risking having a $50,000 car impounded and sold at auction once it reaches Thailand, I am still...ummm..."Hummerless".

For those of you reading this, if you know how to do it, or think I am wrong, then by all means tell me. I will gladly eat crow for a free Hummer. And if anyone does not believe me, feel free to ask for yourself. But keep in mind that we have both been dilligent, and motivated to find out the truth on the loophole. My uncle really is a rich guy, and really does have connections, and he couldn't figure it out yet. Me, I want the use of a free luxury car, so you know I want it to happen too. But it hasn't happened yet.

If I manage to do it, I will post on this forum how, the regulations, and the forms necessary. Otherwise as it stands, this 'loophole' looks like a 'no go'.

[Sojourner]

The question of whether there exists an exception to the high Thai import duties allowing a returning Thai citizen/national/resident to import a car with no or little duties was previously asked in another thread. It has also popped up on occassion on other posts/questions. So rather than hijack another thread, and to provide information that can be picked up easily on a 'search', I will post a separate thread on the topic based upon my own PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE and experience. There is alot of hearsay on the subject, so I am going to tell you what my OWN experience has been.

There is a belief that a returning Thai citizen/national can bring in 1 car with no or reduced customs taxes, so long as they owned, registered it, and used it in another country. I.E. a student studying abroad or any other Thai national can bring back their car through this loophole. As far as I know, this is either not possible or so difficult to take advantage of that the average Thai national cannot use it. (In otherwords, you gotta be really connected to be able to do it--so unless you are a member of Thaksin's family, it probably ain't gonna happen.)

I personally have been trying to figure out how to do it for approximately 6 months now, and have had no success thus far. My uncle wanted a Hummer H2. The Hummer is his dream car, and yes, he is a rich enough guy that he could buy one in Thailand. However rich guys believe that customs duties and taxes are throwing away money, and he would rather use the price difference to invest in land or other equipment to make him more money. Let's put it like this, the Hummer is a toy, not a legitimate 'investment'. Hence trying to get around customs. He was going to use the exception buy one in my name, have me drive it around in the states for a year or two, and then ship it over to Thailand.

My response when he asked if he could buy me a free Hummer to drive around, "Sure, anything for my favorite uncle." So hence began our attempts to figure out how to use this loophole. So I contact ramashipping http://www.ramashipping.com/ (I am including the website so if you don't believe me, go ask for yourself). Rama is the main shipper in California/Los Angeles, and is the shipper that most of the (fairly large Thai population) uses.

When I contacted them, their response was "Yes, at one time you were able to ship a personal car to Thailand if you were a returning national and had owned the car in the United States. They stopped doing that about 4 (now 5 years) ago. We have heard some people are able to still do it, but we do not know how." Now keep in mind that Rama quoted me about $3,000-4,000 USD to ship a car, so I think they would be sufficiently *motivated* to give me information that would want to use their services, and since this is their only business, they would also be up on what the law is.

After, Rama, we each made independent efforts to use our 'contacts' to see how to use this loophole. We contacted our friends and family, including people in the Thai government. (And yes, we do have connections.) The response is "yes, I have heard that you could do that. But I don't know how it is done. You need to talk to someone else who knows more about it than I do. Try so and so." So we go to so and so, and they say the same thing. To date, no one has been able to give me an exact reference to what regulations allow you to do it, or the actual forms I would need to fill out to do it.

I also then asked my father about this, since he knows people who regularly ship to Thailand. His response was "yeah, I know someone at church who shipped her car to Thailand. It was an old Mercedes. She ended up having to pay like $20,000 in taxes when it reached port." Uhhhhh....great.

Anyways, at this point I do not know how it is done, and don't know how to do it. I still believe it *can* be done, but not by 'regular' people, and you need a 'high up' in government to use the loophole. 6 months and we have still got nothing to show for our inquiries. I am still looking into but it's too much of a headache for anything more than a casual inquiry. Given the fact that risking having a $50,000 car impounded and sold at auction once it reaches Thailand, I am still...ummm..."Hummerless".

For those of you reading this, if you know how to do it, or think I am wrong, then by all means tell me. I will gladly eat crow for a free Hummer. And if anyone does not believe me, feel free to ask for yourself. But keep in mind that we have both been dilligent, and motivated to find out the truth on the loophole. My uncle really is a rich guy, and really does have connections, and he couldn't figure it out yet. Me, I want the use of a free luxury car, so you know I want it to happen too. But it hasn't happened yet.

If I manage to do it, I will post on this forum how, the regulations, and the forms necessary. Otherwise as it stands, this 'loophole' looks like a 'no go'.

The ability to import a "used car" into Thailand is based on the Thai owner meeting the following requirements. He or she must have owned the car for 18 months or more, have an international drivers license and be returning from living abroad where the car was purchased. In other words the car is dear to them as they were using it while living abroad. This being said, before they can ship the car they must get permission from the Ministry of Commerce in Bangkok. The form number slips me at the moment but that's where you have to go. If they see fit, they will give you a letter allowing you to import the car. Then your shipping agent needs to contact Customs in BKK to pave the way for the shipment. This does not exempt you from taxes but the amount paid can probably be negotiated with the Customs officers.

[submaniac]

Hi Sojourner,

Yes, you are correct, but that's not the import reg I am talking about. The Thai import regs are here:

http://www.customs.go.th/Customs-Eng/Perso...Nme=PersonalPer

But even under that, if you are a citizen and have owned the car, you still have to pay over 200% (depending on age of car, etc.) in taxes/customs duties. It used to be that you didn't have to pay ANY taxes on, at least significantly reduced taxes. Under the current regime, yeah, if you are a Thai citizen you can import the car you had abroad...but you have to pay the taxes so that it unfeasible and cheaper just to buy another car in Thailand.

The entire point of the exercise was trying to reduce the taxes/customs duties on importing a car. The point I am getting accross is, well, it's probably not going to happen. ANd it is not worth the effort to import a car. That is all. This is in reference to this post:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=169297

[torrenova]

Hasn't this Hummer story ben up here before or am I experiencing deja vu ?

[LivinLOS]

Yes it did come up and at the time the OP stated how his family was connected and could / already knew how to make it happen IIRC.. No poke at the OP, its a shame, I looked into a similar idea when my Thai missus came back to Thailand with me. We concluded early on she was not a important enough person and it wasnt going to happen.

Its probably easier to move to malaysia, invest in the my second home program, buy a 50k house (its still your asset) and import a high end merc s600 or something into Malaysia. Once with malaysian plates you can drive it into Thailand for 6 months at a time. for the multi million baht saving its the cheapest way I can see of buying those 15m + kind of cars.

BTW I am suddenly seeing Hummer H3 popping up on Phuket.. Wonder how much an H3 is locally ??

[submaniac]

Hasn't this Hummer story ben up here before or am I experiencing deja vu ?

Yup, the hummer story came up, and yup, at the time we thought we could do it. Seriously, uncle does import export, and also knows customs officials so we thought we could slide that one right through easily. Then when we tried to do it, many months later, our 'connections' did not pan out, and we are still trying to do it.

Since I had posted in the past about it, and because I may have given people thoughts in their head, I should provide a proper update. And say, well, 'nevermind' we couldn't do it. Sorry for bringing you up and then bursting your bubble.

P.S. if it had worked, I think alot of people (with Thai wives at least) would have been happy as they could have imported vehicles without duty.

[raro]

The ability to import a "used car" into Thailand is based on the Thai owner meeting the following requirements. He or she must have owned the car for 18 months or more, have an international drivers license and be returning from living abroad where the car was purchased. In other words the car is dear to them as they were using it while living abroad. This being said, before they can ship the car they must get permission from the Ministry of Commerce in Bangkok. The form number slips me at the moment but that's where you have to go. If they see fit, they will give you a letter allowing you to import the car. Then your shipping agent needs to contact Customs in BKK to pave the way for the shipment. This does not exempt you from taxes but the amount paid can probably be negotiated with the Customs officers.

This is the correct answer!

Same applies to foreigners who want to import their cars together with their personnel effects. It is possible, but a major head-ache and you face high duties.

Being in the shipping business for a while, I do not know of one single case that actually made the import. Enquiries we get at least once a month...

[Dakhar]

I had a beautiful M3 I sold before comming to this... haven. I left it because of the fact that importing it was virtually impossible due to the monkey style of business/customs and it was a left hand drive.

Hope she is doing well with her new owner.

[Gearhead13]

Hasn't this Hummer story ben up here before or am I experiencing deja vu ?

Yup, the hummer story came up, and yup, at the time we thought we could do it. Seriously, uncle does import export, and also knows customs officials so we thought we could slide that one right through easily. Then when we tried to do it, many months later, our 'connections' did not pan out, and we are still trying to do it.

when your 'connections' didn't pan out, I'm sure you guys followed up on it. What was their excuse?

[steelepulse]

Hasn't this Hummer story ben up here before or am I experiencing deja vu ?

Yup, the hummer story came up, and yup, at the time we thought we could do it. Seriously, uncle does import export, and also knows customs officials so we thought we could slide that one right through easily. Then when we tried to do it, many months later, our 'connections' did not pan out, and we are still trying to do it.

when your 'connections' didn't pan out, I'm sure you guys followed up on it. What was their excuse?

I have a few friends which have been in the car biz in BKK for over 15 years and a long time ago I inquired about sliding one in and they said that a car is the only thing they know of that really can't be slid in with a nice backhander. Pretty much anything else is possible, but not a car.