After 40 years of travelling to Thailand on Military Expeditions, vacations, medical leaves etc etc - I am finally making the move to live permanently here - I want to import a container with some household items, and two rare 2009 Ridley Limited Edition motorcycles - a Ridley 750 Twin LE and a 2006 900 Auto-Glide Cruiser (the one that started the fight with Harley Davidson) - both are Automatic transmissions. No pink sunglasses here, I know it would be hard to get these worked on, I have shop manuals for both and a running spare parts inventory. My question is what are the import liabilities on these bikes, I have all paperwork, registrations, bill of sales, etc etc etc. If anyone knows of a dependable freight forwarder to bring my household items in AND my Motorcycles the info is greatly appreciated.

Please hold the rhetoric about the Auto Trannie's, too many IED's and Airborne jumps make it hard for this old horse to clutch & shift anymore - I like to Ride. Thanx in advance

Please make this topic a sticky. There is thousands to choose from.

Be sure you know an exact amount if possible for duties. I tried to ship a 2002 Harley Deuce in, and the duties alone were twice what the bike was worth in the US, not counting shipping. The next obstacle is the paperwork and DMV. How do you prove a negative? The bike was all original but what if they didn't approve of something and rejected it? They go over it with a fine toothed comb checking serial numbers on frame, engine, etc., and any tiny thing can get it rejected. I finally decided it wasn't worth the risk or hassle.

There are some solutions with which duties are drastically reduced. Something to do with disassembling/reassembling. Plenty info on it in the TV news section....

Try importing the bikes through a motorcycle dealer, they know all the ropes and can better advise you.

you also know you may get hit for import tax on your house hold effects as well, unless your coming in to work

Take the bike apart. Ship parts separately. Taxes are way less.

Getting the bikes into the country may be the easiest part.

To get them street legal you would need a green book and to get that you will need them to pass an emission test. That can set you back up to 100,000 baht for each bike with no money back if they fail.

Sure you can ride around a large part of Thailand with no problems until the wrong place, wrong time, wrong cop and your bike gets confiscated.

Sorry but forget about it, you will not know what your duty is going to be until it arrives and then you are at the whim of the Customs Officer that is assigned to your shipment. If they or someone in the office wants your bikes they will price the duty so high you will have to abandon it, and then they or their friends will buy it at a Customs auction

And even if you get through the customs hurdle listen to what others are telling you about registering it

Import taxes:

http://www.customs.go.th/wps/wcm/connect/custen/individuals/importing+personal+vehicle/importingpersonalvehicle+

In most cases it's cheaper to sell all your stuff an buy new stuff here in Thailand,unless you have to much money to waste, just go ahead.

I had a new car 12month's,sold that in Aus for 10 G less and bought a new car here. If I would have Imported the car it would have costed me the price of the car in Aus plus at least an other 100% plus

I think rare bikes like this would be hard if not impossible to fine in Thailand

As the Department of Special Investigation is presently looking into all the high end cars that have been imported with little tax paid, I am sure they will then check into motorcycles that have been brought in as parts and re-assembled with only 30% tax paid on the components..

A better way to be able to bring your bike here may be on a temporary import, visa run to a border for the bike every 3 months but no taxes on entering the country as you are not technically importing the bike. I know of some people who have had bikes here for 4-6 years with this method.