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Three truck types, two tariff headings and a 20-point levy gap. Landed cost worked out on a HOWO 6x4 from USD 18,000 FOB, plus the 10-year age line and what to inspect before you wire a deposit.
Most buyers in this market start by choosing a truck and only ask about duty afterwards. On commercial vehicles that order is backwards, because in Nigeria the tariff heading is worth more than the difference between two competing trucks.
The Nigeria Customs Service published its monthly newsletter in July 2026 covering the new fiscal measures. In the technical session the agency explained the reduced levies — ten per cent for new vehicles, five per cent for used — and then added a sentence that almost nobody quotes: trailers and truck heads under Heading 87.16 will attract a 25 per cent levy to encourage local manufacturing.
Read that against the general rate. A used cargo truck classified under 8704 carries the five per cent used-vehicle levy. A tractor head or a trailer classified under 87.16 carries twenty-five. Twenty points of CIF, on a class of vehicle where CIF is already five figures.
| On the same HOWO 6x4 tipper, USD 18,000 FOB | Levy 5% (heading 8704) | Levy 25% (heading 87.16) |
|---|---|---|
| CIF Lagos (FOB + export + freight + insurance) | 22,523 | 22,523 |
| Duty 20% of CIF | 4,505 | 4,505 |
| NAC levy | 1,126 | 5,631 |
| Green Tax 4% (engine over 4,000cc) | 901 | 901 |
| Surcharge 7% of duty | 315 | 315 |
| ETLS 0.5% of CIF | 113 | 113 |
| 4% FOB levy | 720 | 720 |
| VAT 7.5% | 2,059 | 2,059 |
| Port charges, inspection, clearing, inland delivery | 2,600 | 2,600 |
| Landed in Lagos, all charges | USD 34,862 | USD 39,367 |
The gap is USD 4,505 on one truck — 25 per cent of the FOB price, for the same vehicle, the same engine, the same sea freight. It is not a penalty and it is not negotiable at the port: it is what the heading says. If you are buying a tractor head to pull trailers, price it at the 25 per cent levy before you agree a price, not after.
Nigerian buyers usually describe the work before they describe the truck, and the work decides the type. These are the three that come up on almost every enquiry we get.
These are the same numbers we would put in a quotation, calculated on a single unit per type, RoRo freight to Lagos and port charges included. They are indicative FOB ranges for export-grade used units — a specific VIN with a specific hour meter is quoted in writing after inspection, and the quotation is what you book with.
| Type | Engine | FOB (USD) | CIF Lagos (USD) | Landed (USD) | Landed ÷ FOB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOWO 6x4 tipper | 9.7L | 18,000 | 22,523 | 34,862 | 1.94× |
| HOWO 6x4 tractor head | 9.7L | 16,000 | 20,907 | 32,518 | 2.03× |
| Rigid cargo truck 10 t | 6.9L | 12,000 | 15,857 | 25,086 | 2.09× |
| Light truck 3 t | 2.8L | 7,000 | 9,797 | 15,604 | 2.23× |
Two things in that table are worth stopping on. The light truck lands at a higher multiple than the tipper — 2.23 against 1.94 — because freight and port charges are per unit, not per dollar of value, so they weigh more on a cheap truck. And every one of these sits at or above 41 per cent of CIF in tax, because a heavy truck engine is over 4,000cc and pays the top Green Tax band of four per cent.
If you are pricing a truck against a passenger car — a Hilux or a Land Cruiser doing the same site work — the landed-cost table for the ten best-selling models in Nigeria, worked out on the same tax parameters, is in car prices in Nigeria. The comparison is worth making on paper before you choose a type, because a loaded pickup and a three-tonne light truck are closer in landed cost than most buyers expect.
And whatever you buy, how it physically gets to Lagos is a separate decision from which truck it is: a 6x4 will not fit in a container at all, which changes both the freight and the CIF that the tax is calculated on. That arithmetic is in shipping a truck to Nigeria.
Nigeria sets a shorter age ceiling for commercial vehicles than for passenger cars — ten years against twelve. The federal rule and what the Lagos terminals do in practice have not always matched, and we have not seen a gazetted text for either figure, so we plan to the tighter number and leave headroom.
The mistake that actually strands shipments is smaller and more common: buying a truck described by its registration date rather than its build date. A unit first registered in 2017 can be a 2015 build, and by the time it has crossed the water for five to six weeks it is two years older than the paperwork suggested. Read the plate on the chassis, not the registration book.
A used Chinese truck at eight years old is a machine with a working history, and the history is what you are buying. On the units we handle, these are the six checks that decide whether a truck is worth quoting.
In Nigeria the running cost of a truck is decided in the workshop, not on the spec sheet. HOWO (Sinotruk) has the widest parts network of the Chinese marques in West Africa, which is why it dominates the used tipper trade even where a Shacman or a FAW is the better truck on paper. If your workshop already stocks one brand's filters and brake chambers, that brand's truck will earn more than its rival — and it will resell faster when you are done with it.
A used HOWO 6x4 tipper of export grade runs about USD 18,000 FOB in China and lands in Lagos at roughly USD 34,862 all-in — duty, levy, Green Tax, surcharge, ETLS, the 4% FOB levy, VAT and port charges included. That is about 1.9 times the FOB price.
Because of the levy. Used vehicles generally carry a 5 per cent NAC levy, but trailers and truck heads under heading 87.16 were set at 25 per cent in the 2026 fiscal measures, to push local assembly. On the same USD 18,000 truck that is a difference of about USD 4,505.
Ten years for commercial vehicles, against twelve for passenger cars. Lagos terminals have been stricter than the federal figure in practice, so we plan to ten and prefer units five to eight years old. Measure from the build year on the chassis plate, not the registration date.
Not a 6x4. A tractor or tipper stands about 3.9 metres tall and the inside of a 40ft high-cube container is 2.69 metres, so it ships RoRo or on a flat rack. Light trucks under about 2.6 metres can go in a container; see the shipping article for the dimension arithmetic.
We can ship a first-service kit with the unit — filters, belts, brake chambers and a set of injector washers — in the same shipment or in a following container. Tell us the model and we will price the kit separately so you can see what it costs.
Send the work the truck has to do — tipper, tractor head or rigid, typical load, typical route — and we will come back with the units that fit, a written FOB price per unit, and the landed cost to Lagos calculated on that exact truck under both headings so you can see the levy difference before you decide.
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.
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.