Shipping Your New Car from Overseas to the US

Summer time is the largest move cycle for the military. Most families want to rotate during the summer months due to children in school, and also because this is the time when the most job options are available to military members. Transitioning from overseas to the US is not as easy or comfortable as one may expect. Here are some things to consider when shipping your new car during this change.

If you purchased a new vehicle overseas from an authorized American services dealership then you did not pay sales tax at the time of purchase. You will then have to register the vehicle in the state which you are assigned. Upon registration the state will ask you to pay for the sales tax on the vehicle at that time, or your vehicle can't be registered. Each state varies in the percentage of new car sales tax. If you are lucky enough to be transferred to Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, or Oregon then there is no state sales tax and you register your vehicle without that added cost.

The highest sales tax rate is California at 7.25%; all others range from 4% to 7% sales tax rate. An example for transferring to Virginia after buying a new car in Germany for $25,000 would be an extra cost of (3%) $750 dollars at the time of registration. Therefore the process is simply deferred for the car sales tax until you reach a US destination. You need to be prepared financially for this cost because you are only allowed international plates on your vehicle for 30 days after receiving the vehicle from the ship yard.

Another thing to consider when you desire to purchase a new vehicle overseas and ship it home via the car maker's expense is the time involved. Several car manufacturers have special vouchers for service members to which the corporation will bear the expense to ship the vehicle home to the US for up to three years after purchase date. SAAB and Volvo are two that immediately come to mind, BMW will not. This sounds wonderful, and is an incentive for service members to purchase from such companies however, the time it takes to reach the US port can force the service member to have abundant rental car expenses. SAAB Corporation will ship directly to the customers close dealership, while others will only ship to the nearest port-leaving the customer to find a way to receive their vehicle.

After arriving in the US we paid out over $1,000 in rental car cost simply because our vehicle took so long to arrive in the US. It was not made clear to us that the car would not be shipped for two weeks after turning it in to the shipping company. Our understanding was that it would take only two weeks for it to arrive in the US. If we had paid the out-of-pocket expense and shipped the car ourselves then we would've still paid $1,000 but it would've arrived in two weeks, rather than the eight weeks it actually took to receive it. Even with all the shipping hassle we received a far better price on purchasing our new SAAB overseas than from a US car dealer.