myfundas

Hi All

I will be relocating to Malaysia in January 2014. I have a 6 year old car which I would like to import into Malaysia. The value of the car in the UK is much lower than Malaysia (its worth 3x the value in UK according to carlist.my). I would like to know how much tax I would have to pay but am not sure where to look. The Royal Malaysian Customs website is a pile of crap and my emails are not being answered to. Anyone out there knows the process and cost? I have established the cost of shipping a car from Uk comes to around £1200. So well within budget.

Thanks

Raj

Bluenose1

Hi Raj, and to BE!

This question has been raised a few times and there are certainly a few threads on the subject. Firstly it all boils down to what type of visa you have. If you're on MM2H then no problem. No taxes. If you have any other sort of visa then:

You start off with the invoice value of your car. Then you add the cost of shipping, plus the insurance cost of shipping. That gives you the "landed" cost in Malaysia.

To that total, there are then 3 additive taxes/duty. I cannot remember which way round they are off the top of my head, but I did give a fairly succinct answer in another thread.

You take your landed cost and add 10%. To the new total, you add duty which is up to 105% depending on the engine size (I think Duty starts around 85%). Lastly, you take the new total and add another 30%.

You will have to register your car in Malaysia and then it cannot be sold within 3 years of its arrival here.


Unless you are on MM2H then it is very rarely worth it to import your own car. The bit I am unsure of is if you have bought a second-hand car in the UK that is a few years old, whether they use the price you paid (assuming you still have the invoice) or a new-list price (assuming that type of car is still made) or what. Never had to put it to the test! The rules just state "the invoice price".

EXAMPLE: Invoice cost of car: £15,000.00
Shipping Cost: 1,200.00
Insurance to ship: 350.00

LANDED COST: 16550.00
10% 1655.00
SUB TOTAL 18205.00
DUTY (2.5L) 105% 19115.25

SUB TOTAL 37320.25
30% 11196.07

TOTAL TO IMPORT £48,516.32 (for a car that cost £15,000 in the UK). Which is why the car in Malaysia is roughly 3 times the price in the UK!

At (say) RM5.20/£ = RM 252,284.86

Hope that helps you, Raj.

Hovite

Hi Raj, worth also reading this site - http://www.miti.gov.my/cms_matrix/co...b3edb-686eb8ad. Shipping agents should also be able to advise. My wife wanted to import her Focus but we changed our minds when we worked out the cost.

bakedbean

Great info Bluenose and staggering figures hope raj is doing MM2H.

Bluenose1

I hope Raj is too! Yes, they are staggering. IIRC the (up to) 105% is Import Duty and the other 2 are taxes, one of which I believe is sales tax. Also, I believe that Malaysia is doing away with the 10% at some point in the relatively near future, but the other 2 remain, so not much cheaper!

myfundas

Thank you all for your replies. I am actually relocating on a spouse visa so there is no benefit in me importing my car from the UK. I might have considered it on the MM2H scheme but then again its only worth it if you have a high end car. My car is a 6 year old Merc, it would be sad to sell her for next to nothing here in Blighty so I was really tempted to bring her over but the numbers dont quite stack up.

Bluenose1

Tell me about it! I bought a 3 year old Jaguar XF in May 2012. 3 months later I was made redundant. A short time after that we decided that the best option was to move out here. That's when I looked into the possibility of bringing it here. I could probably have sold it here for maybe RM300-350K but the not being able to sell it for 3 years plus the import cost (the Jag was a 3L, hence the 105%) put the mockers on that. In the end, I had to "sell" it back to the dealer I bought it from, AND give him £3K (he actually wanted £4K!) for him to take it from me! Broke my heart, not to mention putting a big dent in my wallet!

myfundas

Dunno Blunenose but I would have thought the Jag XF would fall in the high end spectrum and would have been worth shipping over. One side of me thinks if I take my car over and pay excess duty etc and keep it for atleast 4 years and then sell it I will eventually recoup my cost. I finally managed to speak to a Mr Chew in Malaysia customs and he has offered to do the calculation for me. I will keep you all posted.

myfundas

I finally heard back from Royal Malaysia customs and wanted to update you all on the customs duty payable for my car. This is the response verbatim:


Valuation is based on specification given. The valuation was done on 23.12.2013 where the exchange rate was 4.4686. Docket price is in EUR.

Brand / Model: MERCEDES BENZ / C180K
Year :2006
CC: 1796

Customs CIF Value on 23.12.2013 : RM 19,530.51

Import Duty @ 30% : RM 5,859.15
Excise Duty @ 75%: RM 19,042.25
Sales Tax @ 10% : RM 4,443.19
Total Duties / Tax : RM 29,344.59

The vehicle has been valued accordingly based on the age and usage of the vehicle in the country of exportation. The depreciation rate and discount on usage of the vehicle are based on the current order and circular.

Works to about £6K. The Argus Price for my car is £5K if sold privately in UK. Total cost excluding shipping works out to £11K. I found a similar spec for this car on carlist.com.my for RM70K. So if I include shipping costs the price works out the same. I am seriously thinking of bringing her over but I need to get an AP (import permit first) and then I need to find a good shipping agent and get some decent quotes !!

Raj

Bluenose1

Oh gosh. Perhaps I have misunderstood the calculation then. My apologies if I have misled anyone. It certainly wasn't intentional! I can see where the fatal flaw was in my calculation. I added the landed cost into the equation, as that was how it was explained to me! It would appear that was a mistake. In my example it would bring the cost of import down to R55,640 or thereabouts. That would have been a much better prospect, although it would still have required me to pay £11K (well, £8K if you exclude the loss I made on selling it in the UK) up front. You live and learn!

However, the price that customs are quoting you as the base value to start the calculation doesn't look as if it has included the shipping plus insurance costs in, only the actual valuation before shipping? However, if you can get it in at that price, then go for it!

Bluenose1

Wanted to edit my post, but don't have the option!

I've re-calculated my figures, based on the way myfundas showed the customs calculation and it would actually be:

Cost of car: £19,000.00
Shipping 800.00 (based on the quote I received)
Insurance to ship 200.00 (I think this was the figure I was quoted, but it may well have been more)
LANDED VALUVE £20,000.00
Assumed Exchange Rate £1 = RM5.20 (I know it's a bit more now, but I'll use this for the example as it's roughly what it was when I looked into it)

So, Landed RM 104,000
Import Duty 30% 31,200.00
Excise Duty (>2.5L) 105% 141,960.00 (it's 105% of 104,000 + 31,200)
Sales Tax 10% 27,716.00 (10% of 104,000+ 31,200 + 141,960)
TOTAL TAX & DUTY RM 200,876.00 (or £38,630.00) Plus another RM5,200 to ship/insure. So it would still have been exorbitant! In addition, I would not have qualified anyway because as well as not being able to sell the car within 3 years of arrival, according to everything I saw and was told, you have to have owned the car for 3 years prior to importing it into Malaysia.

bakedbean

Raj, there was a guy on my2home not so long ago who imported his car to Malaysia and recommended an agent. I'll see if I can find a link tomorrow and put on here.

RedDragon2008

So how does this MM2H work? if say I wanted a 2014 mulsanne

bakedbean

Raj, I've just been searching the my2home site. There's certainly a lot of info on there but unfortunately, the guy who has imported and used a forwarding agent in KL, just says to contact him (email). Anyway....if you wish to read and email the guy, here's the link...
http://www.my2home.info/index.php/to....html#msg35020

Bluenose1

Hi RedDragon,

I'm sorry, I am not here on MM2H but on the LTSVP so I do not really know all the ins-and-outs about importing a car under MM2H. I do believe that there is no import duty or tax when you do import one. I also think that you have to do it within a certain time of obtaining MM2H (possibly 12 months) and as far as I know you can only ever import one car under the scheme.

Bakedbean among others is on MM2H and can help you (or at least point you in the right direction) much better than I. It might also be worth looking at the link BB has provided in her reply to Raj.