WeChat is the messaging app most Chinese suppliers use. Email reaches the same sales desk and works from any country.
Seven stages, what each one costs, and the five things that stop a container at customs. Read this before you place a first order.
The car is one line. Seven others sit on top of it. The ranges below are planning figures from 2026 bookings: freight is re-quoted on the day of booking, everything else is stable.
Set by model, year, mileage and condition. Each model page carries an indicative range.
Export declaration, commodity inspection, export licence, inland trucking to Nansha.
Guangzhou to Lagos: RoRo USD 1,150 – 2,650 per car; 20ft USD 2,300 – 4,050; 40ft USD 3,800 – 6,800. Other West African ports run USD 2,800 – 5,500 per 40ft. Transit 35 – 45 days.
0.7 – 1.2% of the vehicle value. Optional, and we do not ship a first order without it.
Terminal handling, discharge and storage. Similar at Lagos, Lomé, Abidjan and Douala.
Charged on CIF value by the destination customs. See the country page for the exact structure.
SONCAP for Nigeria, PVoC or CoC for Ghana and several francophone ports. Per shipment, plus product registration; ECTN is billed per bill of lading.
Per unit at the port, plus trucking to your yard priced by distance.
Consolidating two to four cars into one 40ft container is the single biggest saving available: per-unit freight drops by roughly a third.
A car we actually hold, priced to a real Nigerian port with 2026 rates. Swap the first line for your own car and the rest of the arithmetic holds.
Duty is assessed on the CIF value the customs service itself determines, not on the number above — which is why the answer is a range in practice. Plan with the multiplier, not with the exact figure.
That is about 1.6 times the FOB price. Hold that multiplier in mind when you price a car to your own customers: the car is the cheapest part of getting it to your yard.
You send the brief — model, year range, quantity, destination port.
We locate units in China and come back with options, photos and an FOB price per unit.
You approve a unit. Contract, deposit, 68-point inspection, photo and video report.
Export declaration, certification and loading at Nansha. Documents are couriered ahead of the vessel.
Ocean transit 35 to 45 days, then clearance at your port. Door to door, 7 to 9 weeks.
Almost every failed shipment we hear about failed on one of these, not on the car itself.
Nigeria 12 years, Ghana 10, Côte d'Ivoire 5, Mozambique 8, Cameroon no ceiling. Counted from the year of manufacture against the customs VIN database, not from what the advert says.
Mozambique and the East African markets require right-hand drive. An LHD car cannot be registered there and a conversion will not pass inspection.
SONCAP or PVoC has to be obtained in China before the vessel sails. Arriving without it means the container sits at the port while storage is charged daily.
Customs cross-checks the chassis plate against the invoice. A mismatch, or an odometer that disagrees with the service record, stops clearance.
The original bill of lading, invoice and certificate have to reach your agent before the vessel. Demurrage runs USD 30 – 80 per container per day.
Every car we export is left-hand drive, built for the Chinese domestic market. Nothing is converted: the steering rack, the wiring loom and the dashboard leave the factory that way. Every destination we serve drives on the right, so the car registers without a technical exemption.
Right-to-left conversions cut and re-weld the firewall. We do not buy, sell or ship a converted car.
Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Togo and Cameroon all drive on the right. A factory LHD car needs no technical waiver at registration.
Mozambique and the East African markets require right-hand drive. We say so before you order, not after the container has sailed.
Model, year range, quantity and destination port. One message is enough — we come back with the actual units and an FOB price.