Beginner

The basic process required to import cars from Japan

Purchasing a Car From Japan

Well done for checking out importing used cars from Japan. It requires a fair bit of research and patience to successfully import a vehicle from Japan to your destination, but it is worth the effort. Some do it so well that they make a business out of it. If you have time, you can read here why importing from Japan is so popular and successful.

Auctions or Stock?
There are several ways to purchase a car from Japan: car auctions, stock listed on Japanese websites or, rarely, direct personal purchases. Car auctions are understandably the most popular method due to their availability and lower prices. AUCTIONS are where the stock-listed cars come from! Provide Cars is a member of the Japanese car auctions, so we can purchase your dream cars directly from the auctions at the lowest prices for you.

Whether or not you’ve purchased the vehicle from the auctions or a dealer's stock, congratulations! If you have bought the car through us, you will receive an invoice within 24 hours, including the domestic transport fee. Next, the car must be transported from a purchased site to a designated yard near the port!

Selecting a Yard

Most of the car importers use agent export companies based in Japan (like us), so there is no need to ever worry or fuss over this step. But for the sake of understanding the process, we’ll discuss what happens while your vehicle sits in the yard.

The yard is a space near the port where your vehicle will be parked while it waits to be exported. The yard space is operated by a yard agent.

What is Yard’s role?
Yards are restricted areas used to park and prepare your car before it gets shipped out. While your vehicle is in the yard awaiting to be put on a boat, all the cleaning, certification, checks, and customs documentation are completed. This is WHY your vehicle must be taken to the appropriate yard that offers the services required to prepare your car for your country. Not all yards provide services specific to certain country regulations. Don’t worry, we arrange all of this.

How long can I leave my car parked in the yard?
You can store your vehicle in the yard as long as you like…. As long as you are willing to PAY for the storage! Most of the time, the car will sit in the yard for a few weeks before loading onto a boat. However, the car’s parking period can extend to more than a month for various reasons. This usually costs from 500 yen per extra day, after the first free month.

Domestic Transportation

Domestic Transportation, or inland transport, is the total cost of transporting the vehicle from the purchased site (auction) to the yard. The cost varies from 6,000 JPY (About 42 USD) when purchased close to a major port, to a crazy 80,000 JPY (564 USD) if purchased from Okinawa! This is due to the need to ferry the vehicle to the mainland to get to a main port.

Out-of-the-way transportation
At Provide Cars, we will let you know if it is expensive transportation when bidding on out-of-the-way auction sites. Of course, you can still bid on a vehicle from afar auction site; it’s just nice to be warned that domestic transport will cost more. Often, our clients lower their bidding prices to compensate for this. Often, cars can be ignored by the competition in far-off auctions. Even with more expensive transportation, this may still be worth the purchase.

Insurance
But what happens if something happens during the transport in Japan!?
These are very good concerns. All vehicles purchased from Provide Cars are insured domestically, so if anything were to happen, they would be covered.

Domestic Transport Time
Depending on where the auction site is, the transport can take from a few days to up to two weeks. Japan is experiencing a shortage of truck drivers. This is due to new restrictive laws on the number of hours a week drivers can work, an ageing population, a decrease in new drivers and economic reasons. At Provide Cars, our logistics team has long-term relationships with transportation companies, which can expedite these transport problems.

Organising Shipment: RORO, Containers and Marine Insurance.

Organising shipping and selecting the yard happen simultaneously. The exporting company in Japan needs to know which shipping companies would ship to which country, and which port it will ship from and which yard can make this possible. It gets even more complicated if you are considering container shipping, as the car needs to go to a vanning specialized yard.

Don’t worry!—we don’t expect you to know any of these! We have a wonderful, knowledgeable logistics and shipment team that organises all of this for you.

RORO shipment (Roll-on-roll-off)
This is the simplest method of shipping. Once the car has been processed and customs cleared, it is driven onto the RORO ship.

The freight of RORO shipping is either determined by the vehicle's size, or M3 (height x length x width in metres) or a set price per vehicle. The rate does change, so it is best to contact us for up-to-date cost.

Container shipping
Containers are often used to ship many cars at once or as an alternative shipping method when RORO freight becomes expensive. Non-movable cars that cannot be shipped by RORO can be shipped this way. Container shipping is an art of its own. It gets complicated with vanning, drayage, and THC. There is so much to discuss around container shipping, so we made a dedicated page for this. Click here to access it!

New Zealand and Australia
Shipping to Australia and New Zealand is a bit more complicated. Due to its strict border-clearance, RORO shipping needs to go through a quarantine declaration. Nothing to do with COVID, but more to do with pests and other biohazards.

Marine insurance
Some of our customers have very good faith in a captain's sailing ability. Other customers want extra assurance in case anything happens to their car. Having marine insurance for your vehicle during shipment is up to you, with all understandable rationale behind this. CIF shipping is always insured, but we also do FOB insurance when requested. Let us know if you want your FOB shipping insured.

Country-Specific Vehicle Preparation

As diverse as the world's countries are, so too are their regulations—a complex maze that businesses must master to thrive in the global market.

These rules are driven by all different rationale; political, geological, economic and others.

For example, New Zealand and Australia have biosecurity import regulations to keep them free from contaminants, pests, and diseases that can threaten their environment. This regulation requires heat treatment completed on the Japanese side prior to export during the winter months. Otherwise, sorry! Your vehicle cannot get onto the ship!

Another example: when exporting into Bangladesh, the vehicle requires JAAI certification to prove its legitimacy and start the Letter of Credit process.

Some preparations are completed in our office, others at particular service areas, and sometimes in the yard that offers country-specific preparations.

We think it's easiest and best for you to ask us directly about your country-specific requirements. Just email us or comment in the application form that you’d like to learn more, and we will be happy to assist you. You can also check out country-designated articles explaining import procedures.

▶Australia
▶New Zealand

Paperwork and Documentation in Japan

We have good news for you—you don’t need to worry about documentation processing in Japan; we do all of this. But if you want to know what documents need to be completed before export, keep reading along to gain some understanding.

Documents to do with Auctions
We will receive the invoice from the auction, so we must pay the vehicle's full price by the following business day. Recycling fees, car tax if the car is still registered, and consumption tax are also paid. Our company can claim all these fees back from the government; hence, YOU should not be charged anything other than the vehicle price itself! Once the payment is completed, we receive the documents, keys and the registration document, mailed from the auctions.

Deregistering the car and converting the registration into export documents
Once we receive the registration document from the auction, we can start de-registering the car through a mountain of applications, stamps and forms. The application is taken to the car registration office for de-registration and an “EXPORT DOCUMENT” application. The final product looks like the picture below.

This is an extremely important document, and only ONE can exist. In most countries, this document is used to register your car. Once you have completed all the payments, we will send you this original document.

Documentation for the port
Once we have the “EXPORT DOCUMENT”, we email a copy to the yard. This now allows the yard to apply for customs clearance.

Insurance
Before the boat departs, we purchase marine insurance for our CIF customers. If an FOB customer requests insurance, we can purchase for them as well.

Bill of lading
It sounds as though it should be called a “bill of loading,” not “lading,” but that is the correct spelling. The bill of lading gives the rights to the consignee (the person’s name on the bill) to the property on the ship being exported. There are three original copies. All you need is one.

Surrendered bill of lading
There is a risk of losing the bill of lading in the mail, so a safer method is to get it “surrendered.” All you now need is an emailed copy of this surrendered bill of lading. The originals no longer exist, as they have been surrendered to the shipping company.

Documentation sent by DHL
Once we know your payments are complete, we will send any documents needed for your specific country by DHL.

Receiving the vehicle at your port!

Hooray! Your vehicle has safely crossed the colossal ocean! You will have heard from the shipping agents when it is close to arrival, and if all payments has been completed, you will receive the bill of lading. You can now start getting your vehicle cleared with customs and registering it according to your country's regulations.

This part differs in each country. We think it is best to either ask us about this or ask your local agents who specialise in this.

Testimonials

If you read this far, goodness gracious, you did well. I’m sure you now have a bit more knowledge to add to your understanding of importing a vehicle from Japan. Remember, though, that you do not need to attend to all of the processes mentioned above, if you choose to buy from Provide Cars. We do a lot of this for you so you can relax and focus on the important things in your life.

Here are some of our client’s reviews of us, Provide Cars.

“We found the best possible partner for Japanese car purchases. English spoken agents and Ken did a great job on our first order, not only getting a great deal but also helping us out with the whole process. Even following up after car has been shipped. A pleasure to do business this way. Highly recommended.”

R Concepts

If you are ready to import a vehicle yourself, complete the application that takes less than 1 min, start bidding on your dream car!

Q＆A

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