Left hand drive car in Tanzania ?

Hi Jens,

Bringing your car with you to Tanzania might be a bad idea. Reason
1. The import duty, vat and other import charges might be very disappointing
2. Instead you could probably buy a good car from Tanzania
3. If you are planning to take it with you back when you want to leave tanzania, its not logical
4. If you want to dispose the same car here...would be very difficult as it being a left hand drive.
5. Getting spares for your car (incase of a breakdown) might be expensive and maynot be found here in tanzania.

You can drive left hand drive here in tanzania.

Hi Nevingomes
Great - thanks a lot for your usefull comment.
I'm so lucky that I don't need to pay import duty or taxes (diplomatic status).

The idea is/was to contact a Ford dealer in Tanzania, with the model-code, to hear if he could service the car.

When I know if we are gonna go or not, I will look into the duty-free rules in Tanzania so I can make up what's the best deal. Part of the deal with bringing the car with us, is that it is not easy to get rid of the car here in Vietnam where we live now, due to tax rules (one can import duty-free, but not sell the car on the free market within 10 years without paying some of the saved duty).
Depending on the rules in Tanzania ...... the car is 5 years old now.... disposing the car is not a big issue because it would be 10-11 years old then and we could give away for free or sell it cheap.

Jens

Hi Jens.

Lucky you. You should take advantage of your advantage and import your vehicle here. In that case you have to worry about shipping and clearing charges only. But I am not sure if an individual with diplomatic immunity can import duty free when they are only representatives of their office. These mission offices are exempted to import vehicle for their mission purpose. You need to check with your office for more details

nevin

Hi again
Yeah .... I think I'll take it with me. I can't imagine that we can't import tax-free as diplomats. Normally this is standard when you are an accredited diplomat in a country. But there can be differences about how to get rid of the car again - like here in Vietnam, where you can't re-sell it on the free market without paying tax/duty.

Well - lets see if we go. My main concern about driving is that I have never tried driving in the "wrong" side of the road ............... that's gonna be a challenge ;-)

jens

Hello again

Driving a left hand vehicle on left side traffic of the road can be like you said a challenge and confusing. It can be hard to make your head understand in the beginning. Once you exercise your brain I am sure you can overcome it. One other advantage you gona get is a green/ red color license plate (i think) for diplomats so you wont be troubled by traffic guys in dar. driving can be boring in dar roads and stressful.  anyways good luck!!

nevin