Living in China

Car fanatics moving to China can be forgiven for wanting to ship their beloved automobile over with them. Unfortunately the process isn’t an easy one, and may end up being just plain impossible.

First off there are restrictions on the type of car you can ship to China. Vintage and classics are out - nothing older than twenty years is welcome. It’ll also need to be left-hand drive.

You can also expect to get stung for a healthy chunk of the car’s value in taxes, unless you can demonstrate that you’re legally here long term - a residence permit or foreign experts certificate. This actually gave rise to a tax scam whereby foreigners with those documents get paid for shipping ‘their car’ to China.

Once you’ve shipped the car to China, you are then not able to sell it on for a period of time - the length of which varies according to who you speak to.

If you’re still interested in importing your car, good luck - find a friendly import agent, or chase up the customs authorities.