Today (2022-07-15) we picked up our 2013 Chevy Volt hybrid from the Freeport harbor. Although it is cheapest to ship your vehicle over with the Balearia fast ferry, the service there sucks. They never answer the phone and their business hours are limited. However, I am told that if you play their game that they will ship your vehicle for less than $500 plus customs duty and fees of course.
Because we did not have the luxury of time to play games with Balearia, we contracted with Tropical Shipping to handle the transport. Tropical Shipping is pretty well known for taking good care of your vehicle and apparently ship them in a car carrier within the larger shipping container. Indeed, the volt made it to Freeport in pretty much exactly the shape that we dropped it off to them in Florida. On the receiving side, you also need an importation broker who deals directly with customs and handles other tasks associated with receiving the vehicle from Tropical Shipping, storing in a secure yard for pickup, etc.
This is where it gets interesting. Although Freeport Ship Services (FSS) have been in the business quite some time, some of their people are not well trained for situations which are a bit off the beaten track. You see, the Bahamas charges a whopping 65% tariff (customs duty) on Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle importation and the vehicle must be no older than 10 years. If we had simply trusted them to know their business they would have collected 65% and that would have been that.
But my wife Becky has done her homework on the Bahamian Customs importation site looking up tariff codes for every single little thing that we brought over. Many hundreds of items to be sure. And she had already learned that the old rate for hybrids like our Volt was either 0% or 10% but certainly not 65% for an ICE based vehicle. So where did this 0 "or" 10% thing come from? Well, the Bahamas Customs dept puts out a list of commonly imported items. And in the 2019 version of this, hybrids which cost less than $50k were listed with 10% tariff. This tariff was in addition to a $250 "environmental levy".
HOWEVER, Bahamian customs also maintains a website where you can look the codes up. We searched for hybrid passenger vehicle and then answered a few questions and were given a "Harmonized System" code (HS Code) per below.
The associated text indicates that the general rate for this tariff code is zero. In fact, they have a specific call out that exactly matches our Volt and the rate should be zero.
In any case, Becky talks to FSS and tells them that the tariff should, at most, be 10%. So FSS comes back and says the tariff will be 25%. We ask where that number came from but nobody can cite any source. But they know we are not happy with 25% number. So then FSS asks when we bought the vehicle and we say we have had it for about 3 years now. So they tell us to fill out Bahamian paperwork to sell it to ourselves at a price lower than what we paid several years ago in order to account for depreciation even though vehicles have actually appreciated since then. We paid about $16k out the door back then and FSS told us to put a value of $8k on it in this made-up sale. I suspect the "sale price" was conjured up in order to leave the duty at 25% but apply it to a lower valuation thus making us mostly whole. Becky still argued with the non governmental FSS lady that the tariff should be 10% on whatever the value of the vehicle was but FSS lady told us not to argue about it because "you are getting a good deal". So FSS submits the paperwork to customs with an $8k valuation and a 25% tariff.
My insight is that you can debate with local private companies but if you are smart you will be as polite and amicable as possible with government workers because they do not need to put up with people's opinions. They also tend to be fairly competent, more so than I would normally expect. So hash as much as possible out with the private company and only engage that last little bit with the government. So Becky got on the phone directly with Bahamian Customs and walked them though our tariff search process and they stated that the right HS code was 8703.60 and that the duty / tariff was only 10%. It is assumed that their Harmonization Code website has a typo of 0%... We were not willing to argue it with government customs lady.
The next day we contact FSS and ask when we can pick the car up and FSS tell us that customs has disputed the $8k valuation on the Volt. It seems they will knock a couple thousand off the landed value but not half. In other words, $800 duty (10% of $8000) on our excellent looking Volt just seemed like we were getting off too easy. And so I had resigned myself to pay 10% of our original purchase price on the used Volt, or $1600.
But then the next day Becky wakes up with a brainstorm. You see, the early Volts have a common problem where by the plastic bearing spacers in the main generator bearing disintegrate. The result is a loud high tech whine at low speeds but by all accounts it doesn't actually hurt anything. However, it is an unusual repair and we could not get anyone to quote it for less than about $6500 back in Austin. But I looked up the repair job as someone did it on Youtube and it looks like a 4-5 hour job.
So we bought the parts and then put them in the trunk of the car in case something actually broke from this issue which would require us to repair the bearing later. We then just drove it like that for more than a year with no issues except a loud whine at low speed. But our written quote for $6500 was pretty close to the amount we were asking Bahamian customs to reduce the original purchase price by. And so Becky then skillfully summited that paperwork to FPS as a way for them to explain why they thought it was OK to reduce the landed value by half. FPS submitted this to customs thus allowing them to save face as if they knew this all along. The customs agent was then able to explain management why someone brought a perfectly good car in for only $800 duty, and we drove our car out of there as fast as we could before someone decided to change their mind.
The total cost of shipping a 2013 Chevy Volt into Freeport, including freight (Tropical Shipping), receiving broker (Freeport Ship Services) customs duty of $800 and $167 for one day of on-island storage, was $4090.87. It arrived on-island on 2022-07-01 but was not available for release until 2022-07-15. This is a VERY LOW importation cost! The Bahamas absolutely disincentifies the importation of any vehicles. Also, a good deal of that importation cost seems to be lost somehow when trying to re-sell on the island. So if possible, sell your vehicle in the US and look for something suitable on-island. Facebook marketplace has some listings, slim though they may be.
If you simply cannot find any suitable vehicle that is already here, the tricks to get your vehicle imported as cheaply as possible are:
- import a hybrid vehicle.
- make sure it has some kind of major issue listed in a repair quote even if the issue is not serious. They will not deny entry simply because the vehicle does not run. In fact, the Bahamian guy who I bought my nice Silverado 1500 truck from bought it from a US auction as a salvage title (totaled in a crash) in order to import the vehicle with a much reduced duty (65% of $6000 vs 65% of 18000) and then he made all the body repairs locally in order to sell it. It drives excellent and everything works except the seat belt ratchet and the airbag. I'll fix the seat belt and forget about the air bag.
- list the vehicle as a hybrid passenger vehicle because terms like Chevy Volt do not automatically imply a hybrid vehicle
- take the time to read the rules and laws yourself because the locals are sometime spot on with the things they say and sometimes they are speaking authoritatively even though they are not sure or their info is dated.
Many people will gloss over this because they like their vehicle and want to keep it and to be honest many people do not know how to do percentage math in their heads. But they do understand dollar figures, so I will lay it out very clearly.
Let's say you have a nice used 2015 Lexus with an internal combustion engine worth about $30k. If you absolutely must have it on island, it will cost you approximately $3000 for the combination of freight (Tropical Shipping) and receiving broker (Freeport Ship Services). But then you can tack on a customs duty of $19,500. That comes out to a whooping $22,500 just to get your car over here. And that is cash on the barrel head. There are no financing options. Hopefully this example will show you why the importation of a pure ICE vehicle into the Bahamas currently makes absolutely zero economic sense.
In closing I do want to mention one final thing. A few months ago someone told me that they had read that the Bahamas is full of corruption with bribes to get things done being commonplace. This person was under the impression that the government was full of criminals with palms needing to be greased. I can say that in this process, nobody in any way requested or hinted that we could lower our fees or obtain any other special treatment by paying them off.
While not the most competent show on Earth, I saw no signs of 3rd world style corruption whatsoever. In fact, I have never seen that in the 3 decades that I have been coming here. These are good people, simple conservatives and mostly G_d fearing. I suggest that if you want to find criminals in government that you should start looking at your local government in your home town. And in the unlikely event that you don't find any there, just look at Washington DC where it's nothing but criminals and amorality: lying, thieving, homos, pedos/groomers, trannies, druggies. It's a who's who list of human abominations. Just try not to get any on you. But don't look for it here in Freeport because you will be wasting your time. Now, in Nassau it may well be a different story. Nassau is the DC of the Bahamas in many ways. But from a morality standpoint, Freeport reminds me of California in the 1970s back when it clearly was the best state in the union in aggregate. Today, not so much.
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