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The seven costs every car pays on the way into Lagos, in dollars: FOB price, export handling, freight, insurance, the 2026 tax stack including the 4% FOB levy, port and clearing fees. Landed cost runs 1.5 to 1.6 times the FOB price.
A used car bought in China at USD 23,800 lands in Lagos at about USD 38,083 — roughly 1.6 times the price you paid. On that car, duties, levies and VAT come to USD 10,826, which is 41.7 percent of the CIF value. The number that matters when you build a business plan is that multiplier, not the sticker price.
An import is not one payment. It is seven, taken at four different moments, by four different parties, on four different bases. Most first-time importers budget the first one and meet the other six at Apapa. Here is the whole sequence, with what each part costs on a real unit we ship to Lagos.
The table below is a 2021 Toyota Hilux 2.8D 4x4 double cab — a vehicle we regularly export to Lagos — worked through line by line. The tax rates are Nigeria's published 2026 rates; the freight is a 2026 booking figure.
Read that table twice, because two of the rows are the ones people miss. The first is insurance: it is a small percentage of a number that is already large, so it feels like a rounding error, and then it is not. The second is the last one — port charges, certification, clearing and inland delivery add another USD 1,300 per car, and that money does not come back if you decide not to buy the car.
Nigeria charges eight separate lines on a used vehicle, and they stack. Two of them changed in 2026, and one of them is new enough that most material written before this year does not have it at all:
| Charge | Rate | Applied to |
|---|---|---|
| Import duty | 20% | CIF value |
| NAC levy, used vehicles | 5% | CIF value (was 15% until 1 July 2026) |
| FOB levy | 4% | the FOB price of the vehicle |
| Surcharge | 7% | the duty amount |
| ECOWAS ETLS | 0.5% | CIF value |
| Green Tax | 0% / 2% / 4% | CIF value, by engine size |
| VAT | 7.5% | CIF plus duty plus surcharge plus ETLS |
| Local charges | USD 1,300 | per unit: port, SONCAP, clearing, inland |
The line to look at is the FOB levy. Nigeria Customs moved from a 7% cost-of-collection model to a 4% Free-on-Board collection mechanism in August 2025, and the 2026 budget books NGN 1.264 trillion against it. It is charged on the FOB price of the vehicle, not on CIF, and every used vehicle pays it. On the car above it is USD 952 — about 4% of the FOB price, and money that simply does not appear in any rate table written before 2025.
The 2026 change that made the headlines is the other one: the NAC levy on used vehicles was cut from 15% to 5% on 1 July 2026. That is a real reduction and worth having. It is also smaller than it sounds, because the 4% FOB levy landed in the same period. The honest way to read the 2026 change is that the levy fell, the new levy appeared, and the net effect on a small-engine car is a few points of CIF rather than the halving the headlines imply.
Three things change the landed cost enough to decide whether a deal works, and only one of them is the price of the car.
The multiplier is not the same at every price. A 2020 Toyota Corolla 1.6L at USD 9,800 FOB lands at about USD 17,767 — a multiplier of 1.81 — because a 1.6-litre engine sits below the Green Tax threshold and pays none of it. A 2018 Land Cruiser Prado 2.7L at USD 16,900 lands at about 1.67 times. The band between the cheapest car in your plan and the most expensive one is where your margin actually lives.
This is also why the FOB price you negotiate is not the price that decides the deal. A USD 500 discount on the car is worth about USD 800 landed. What is worth more is a unit that lands in a lower tax band.
The table above ends at the yard. Three costs sit outside it, and all three are avoidable if you plan for them:
We have written the demurrage numbers up in detail, because they are the part of this cost that most often surprises a first-time importer — see demurrage and storage fees at Lagos for the full breakdown.
Three things. First, the exact figure your own shipment will carry: only a licensed Nigerian clearing agent can compute it, against the assessed value and the rate in force on your Form M date. We will give you a written FOB price and a CIF estimate within 24 hours of your brief, and it is an estimate, not a customs assessment.
Second, whether a specific car clears. A VIN that does not decode, a build year close to the limit, or a steering side that is wrong will stop a car at the port. We check the build year and the VIN before we quote, and we will tell you if a unit is close to the line rather than find out at Apapa.
Third, the price of the car itself. Freight moves with the market and is re-quoted on the day we book, and a used car's price moves with condition and with the Chinese domestic market. Everything on this page is calculated from today's figures, and every one of them moves.
A used car bought in China at USD 23,800 FOB lands in Lagos at about USD 38,083, which is 1.6 times the FOB price. Duties, levies and VAT account for USD 10,826 of that, or 41.7% of the CIF value. A smaller engine lands cheaper: a USD 9,800 Corolla with a 1.6-litre engine lands at about 1.5 times its FOB price, because engines under 2,000cc pay no Green Tax.
Eight lines: 20% import duty on CIF, a 5% NAC levy on CIF for used vehicles, a 4% FOB levy on the FOB price, a 7% surcharge on the duty amount, a 0.5% ECOWAS levy on CIF, Green Tax of 0% to 4% on CIF depending on engine size, and 7.5% VAT on the running total. Plan with 41.7% to 42.1% of CIF and treat it as a floor.
It is a collection charge introduced by Nigeria Customs when it moved from a 7% cost-of-collection model to a 4% Free-on-Board mechanism in August 2025. It is charged on the FOB price of the vehicle rather than on CIF, so it is not visible in any table that only lists percentage-of-CIF rates. On a USD 23,800 car it is USD 952.
No. It was cut from 15% to 5% for used vehicles on 1 July 2026 under the 2026 Fiscal Policy Measures, and from 20% to 10% for new ones. Any rate sheet quoting 15% predates July 2026. Note that the FOB levy was introduced in the same period, so the net change is smaller than the levy cut alone suggests.
Yes. Green Tax is banded at 2,000cc and 4,000cc: nothing below 2,000cc, 2% of CIF from 2,000cc to 3,999cc, and 4% of CIF at 4,000cc and above. Electric vehicles, mass-transit buses and locally assembled vehicles are exempt. On a USD 23,800 car the band alone moves the tax bill by more than a thousand dollars.
Ocean freight alone is USD 1,150 to 2,650 per car by RoRo, or USD 2,300 to 4,050 in a 20ft container. The voyage runs 35 to 45 days. Door to door, from approving a unit to a car cleared in Lagos, plan on six to eight weeks.
The federal rule caps used passenger vehicles at 12 years, counted from the year of manufacture, and Nigeria has no over-age penalty band: an over-age car is refused at the port and can be seized and auctioned. Be aware that Apapa and Tin Can Island have been enforcing a 10-year limit in practice, so a unit between 10 and 12 years old carries real risk of refusal in Lagos.
Not necessarily. Nigeria Customs assesses used cars against a VIN-based reference value that is often 20% to 50% above the invoice, and charges duty on that. A low purchase price does not lower your duty bill.
Consolidate. Two or three units in one container spread the freight and the export handling across all of them, and the per-car freight drops by several hundred dollars. The other lever is engine size: staying under 2,000cc avoids Green Tax entirely.
Port handling and storage, SONCAP and VehCAP certification, the clearing agent's fee, and inland trucking. Budget about USD 1,300 per unit for the local charges on top of tax, and add demurrage if anything delays the paperwork — free time at Lagos is 3 to 7 days depending on the carrier.
Send the model, the year range and the destination port. We reply within 24 hours with the units in stock that fit, a written FOB price per unit, and a CIF estimate for Lagos.
Send a sourcing requestReady to pick a vehicle? See what is on the water and ready to book in the live stock list, or compare engines, years and body types across the full model list we can source for you.