Hi everyone, i am very new to this,not been on or in an internet forum before,so it is all new to me(us).... my Thai wife and myself are still living in tasmania (don,t hold that against me tho lol) australia at the moment but intend on moving to Thailand and building our Thai mansion on a few rai of land we (she) have in ROI-ET in the next few years and I am asking for advice on transporting my much loved BMW car to thailand,my wifes brother (still in thailand) says that the import duties imposed by thai gov is very very expensive and would make it prohibitive to import a used car to thailand,firstly I would like to find out the cost of importation for a large car ie BMW 735il V8 engine if that makes any difference ? it would be transported at the same time as the rest of our furniture and personal effects.
another concern of mine is if everything is sent to thailand containerised ......how is it transported to Roi-Et,as when I lived ththere I didn,t see any containerised transport.
so is freight unloaded from containers then trucked to inland areas like Roi-ET ?
any advice would be very much appreciated.
It makes me feel so very good inside that by marrying my thai wife and helping her financially I(we) are also helping her family too !......and I am very happy to have given my wife the great experience of living and working in another culture(australia),to be able to help her family way beyond her wildest expectations, to have a much more sustainable life and existence in thailand and as you would be well aware this would otherwise be impossible to achieve for them. It really gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside !
ps I also enjoy a beer too ! cheers chris harvey

Hi Chris,

Importing cars in Thailand is extremely expensive. You will find information here:

www.customs.go.th/Formality/PersonalVehicles.pdf (Thai)
www.asiatradingonline.com/shippingcars.htm (English)

However, your Thai wife might be able to import some stuff duty free, I believe for one year after her arrival in Thailand.

A foreigner can do it too, if he has a 1 year work permit or 1 year visa.

There are many shipping companies and the normally offer DOOR to DOOR service. A friend of mine had half a container from UK to Roiet, without any problems. But if you import yourself, or your wife, without having a kind of custom agent or company, you will have to deal with the authorities in Bangkok to liberate your container.

Your should have a look at the CUSTOM websites:

www.customsclinic.org/


Admin.

Hi Thanks very much, boy oh boy is that thai customs tax system on imports confusing or not lol.....but i might register the car in her name to help in the conveyance hopefully,and yes we will use an agent I have some freinds in shipping in hobart so maybe they can give some advice also.......and it doesn,t mention any engine above 3,000 cc so where do I stand there ? no class or category? looks like I have alot more homework to do on this!...and they did deliver furniture and personal effects in a container to Roi-Et from bangkok or whichever port did they ?
cheers very much aussie chris