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A 6x4 tipper stands 3.9 metres tall and a 40ft high-cube container is 2.69 metres inside. The dimension arithmetic, what each shipping method really costs to Lagos, and why the cheapest freight quote raises the duty.
When a truck quotation comes back with an ocean freight line that looks too cheap, the first thing to check is not the rate. It is whether the method being quoted can physically load the truck.
This page is about the moving, not the choosing. If you have not settled on a type yet — tipper, tractor head or rigid cargo — the levy difference between those three is worth reading first, in used trucks for Nigeria, because it can be worth more than the freight.
A 40ft high-cube container measures about 12.03 metres long, 2.35 metres wide and 2.69 metres high inside. A 6x4 tipper or tractor head with a high-roof cab stands around 3.9 metres to the top of the air deflector, and about 2.5 metres across the mirrors and wheels. It does not go in. Not with care, not with a bigger crane — the box is 1.2 metres too short and the door opening is narrower than the truck.
What does fit is a light truck: under about 2.6 metres tall and 2.3 metres wide, which is most 3 to 5 tonne Chinese light trucks. A 40ft high-cube will take one of those complete and, in some configurations, two smaller ones. That is why a light truck quotation can be per-container while a tipper quotation has to be per-unit.
A passenger car is a different problem: three cars share a 40ft high-cube comfortably, so the container economics work and the per-unit freight is a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand. That route is covered in shipping a car from China to Lagos. Do not carry a car rate across to a truck quote — it is the single most common mismatch we see in enquiries.
| Method | What it suits | Rough ocean freight to Lagos | Transit |
|---|---|---|---|
| RoRo (roll-on, roll-off) | Complete, driveable 6x4 tippers, tractor heads and cargo trucks | USD 3,000 – 4,500 per unit | 28 – 42 days |
| Flat rack | Over-height units, non-runners, trucks with fixed tall bodies | USD 5,000 – 8,000 per unit plus lashing | 30 – 45 days |
| 40ft high-cube container | Light trucks only, below about 2.6 m tall and 2.3 m wide | USD 1,800 – 3,500 per container | 28 – 35 days |
The freight numbers move with bunker prices, season and how full the west Africa service is running, so treat them as bands, not rates. The ordering between them is stable though: flat rack costs the most because the box carries one truck and no deck space is shared, RoRo sits in the middle, and container is cheapest only for the light truck it can actually hold.
One practical point on RoRo: sailings to Lagos are not daily. On secondary services they can be monthly, and waiting for the next vessel adds fifteen to thirty days to the total. If a delivery date is fixed — a contract, a season, a tender — book the slot before you buy the truck, not after.
Nigeria assesses duty on CIF value: cost, insurance and freight. The freight you pay is part of the number that gets taxed. That is true everywhere, but on trucks it is worth more, because freight is a bigger share of the value than it is on a car.
On our USD 18,000 tipper, ocean freight and insurance add 4,523 to the CIF base. Duty, levy, Green Tax, surcharge, ETLS, the 4% FOB levy and VAT then come to about 9,739 — roughly 43 per cent of CIF. A saving of five hundred dollars on freight reduces the tax base by five hundred dollars and the tax by about two hundred. It does not halve the cost of shipping, and it never makes flat rack cheaper than RoRo for a unit that fits on RoRo.
Where a cheap freight quote does real damage is when it assumes a method that will not load. The truck is bought, the deposit is paid, and the shipment is re-quoted as a flat rack at two to three thousand dollars more — after the price to your customer has already been agreed. Ask which method, and which vessel, before you treat a freight number as real.
A tipper is 8 to 9 metres long and does not share space efficiently. If you are moving several units, the cost per truck falls because port handling, SONCAP inspection and the clearing agent's fee get shared across the consignment, while the ocean freight itself stays roughly linear. We quote single units and multi-unit consignments separately for exactly this reason — the second and third truck are cheaper to land than the first, and a quotation that ignores that is not giving you the best number it could.
No. A 6x4 tipper is about 3.9 metres tall and 2.5 metres wide; a 40ft high-cube container is 2.69 metres high and 2.35 metres wide inside. It ships RoRo or on a flat rack. Only light trucks under about 2.6 metres will go in a container complete.
RoRo runs roughly USD 3,000 to 4,500 per unit, flat rack USD 5,000 to 8,000 plus lashing, and a 40ft high-cube container USD 1,800 to 3,500 — but that last one only applies to light trucks. Rates move with fuel and season; ask for a named vessel and a sailing date.
About 28 to 42 days at sea to Lagos on RoRo, plus loading and discharge, plus roughly one to two weeks of clearance once the documents are complete. Allow nine to eleven weeks door to gate, and more if you miss a monthly sailing.
Rarely. You save freight and pay for dismantling, lashing, reassembly labour in Lagos and the risk of a badly rebuilt truck. For a complete driveable unit, RoRo is almost always the better answer.
Yes. Duty is assessed on CIF — cost, insurance and freight — so the freight you pay is part of the taxed value. Cutting freight reduces the tax a little, but it never offsets a shipping method that cannot carry the truck.
Send the model, the quantity and the port you clear at. We will come back with the method that can actually load it, a named vessel or sailing window, and a landed cost to Lagos that includes the freight in the duty base rather than hiding it outside.
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This page gives you the vehicle and the tax rate. The full landed-cost breakdown shows FOB, freight, insurance, duty and clearing, line by line.