Sending Your Car to Ukraine

[Kevin]

I will be posting this in two parts. Part I will deal with the shipping of the car and Part II will deal with the arrival of the car.  I will be focusing on what is required to drive your own car in Ukraine. 

Part I.

I chose the company http://www.meest.us/ since I was basically a Ukrainian company that I have dealt with in the past to ship my car for me. I also bought a used Pontiac 2006 Aztec on Ebay from a dealership close to Meets office in New Jersey so I wouldn't have to drive one all the way from Florida.  

For starters you will need a clear title to ship the car and it will get stamped by customs and returned to you or delivered with the car. 

When it arrives in my case Odessa Ukraine you will need to show the title, a current tag, registration and proof of Insurance. 

In My case I will be using my Florida Tag and Registration and a Ukraine based insurance company.  I also place the car title is both my wife name and mine. 

Some problems that I expect to see already.

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• Legal: I have to get a local attorney to complete legal document to allow my wife to drive and my father-in-law. The law states that as the primary owner I am responsible for all drivers. So if I allow another driver to drive the vehicle I have to show legal liability in case he/she has an accident.
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• Taxes. The law allows me to drive my car for up to one year on my Florida tags without paying an import tax. The import tax is based on the engine size and it is very high. For my $8000.00 Aztec the tax is around $17,000.00.  Twice the cost of the car so you can guess, I will be taking it out of the country at the end of the year.
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• Tag. One of the problems with having a Florida tag on the front of the car is there is no tag on the back of the car and every police officer is going to stop me when the see the strange tag or lack of one.  One of the options I have as a property owner and business owner in Ukraine is to get a local tag for about $500.00 I will of course be doing this just so I don't get stop so often. There is another America in Kherson with Florida tags and he did get stop allot for the first month but doesn't have any problems now.  I plan to travel though out Ukraine so I will take the $500 option.  [/*]

Comment: Most often people don't bring their own cars in Ukraine because of the high import taxes. But you will see people bringing in High value cars such as hummers and Mercedes because the tax is based on engine size and a $17,000 tax on a $50,000 hummer you can still make money by selling it for $90-$100k on the open market.   

I do have the option to drive it out of the country every year and back in to renew the tag and I will post in Part II any other options that I find out along the way. 

My vehicle will arrive in Odessa on May 15th. I will let everyone know what happens.