“Japan Cars UK Ltd” is a company based in Wembley, London.
We are specialist in exporting/ importing motor vehicles between Japan and UK.
We can help to import/ship vehicles from Japan into UK and to register them to DVLA.
There are 2 different way for importing vehicles into the UK permanently.
Personal Imports (moving home from Japan to UK)
To whom want to bring own personal car to UK from Japan : If you are moving from Japan to UK, you can import your own car with no paying tax(VAT and duty) and no worries to IVA inspection. To qualify this, you must meet all of these conditions:
1. you’re moving your normal home to the UK
2. your normal home was outside the EU for a continuous period of at least 12 months
3. you’ve owned and used the vehicle for at least 6 months outside the EU
4. you’re going to keep the vehicle for your personal use for at least 12 months.
If you meets above conditions, please contact us before you exporting your car from Japan. Please write about your car model/car year/place to live in Japan.
Commercial Imports (Normal Imports)
This is normal way to import cars into UK.
It is exempt from IVA, if imported car is over 10 years of age. It means you need only MOT and notification regarding paying Import Tax to register the car in UK. So, it is not difficult to get registration if the car is over 10 years.
If the car is within 10 years of age, the vehicle must meet IVA standards(UK approval specification). Also, commercial imports meets ‘Normal IVA’ which involves a more detailed inspection and extra standards more than Personal Imports.
About import TAX
You have to pay VAT and duty through customs when you import any vehicle from Japan. The import duty rate of car is 10% and the import VAT is 20%. You can calculate import duty and VAT as follows:
Import Duty of car: 10% x (vehicle price + shipping cost)= Amount of Duty in UK (Non reclaimable)
Import VAT: 20% x (vehicle price + shipping cost + Duty in UK + admission fee(￡75) (VAT is reclaimable if you import under VAT registered company.)
Got confused? To simply calculation, the total import tax is: 33% x (car value + shipping cost).
(*Classic-Historic cars : The rate of import duty is reduced. Please ask us more about.)
What we can do for an import car is:
Buying a vehicle in Japan
We will introduce a trusted agent in Japan. They may help to find a car as you requested and export from Japan.
If you have already found the car in Japan, but the car owner/car shop doesn’t know how to export it, we can help to export it.
We will be happy to help to import cars from Japan if the car is over 10 years of age.
Import works
-Custom Clearance works for commercial vehicles/ personal import into UK.
-To get a Japanese registration document (Export Certificate)
-To translate Japanese documents to English.
-To report the arrival of vehicle to HMRC (to get Notification of Vehicle Arrival (NOVA) )
-to secure your car. (make car insurance for your car from landing to registering).
Fixture/Modification for obtaining IVA/MOT /UK approval
-Fixing indicator/winker/headlamps/fog lamps.
-Getting an MOT
-Getting an Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA)
-Change a Speedometer from km to MPH.
-to solve any other issues for IVA/MOT.
Registering an imported vehicle in UK
-to make an application to be registered to DVLA.
-to make UK legal number plates.
What we cannot do is:
-Importing a new car or nearly new car to UK (less than 6 months from Date of 1st. registration in Japan),because it is almost unable to pass IVA inspection.
-to guarantee to pass IVA test for an import car under the category of commercial import, although we have 100% pass rate for our own imports/ import cars under the category of personal import. If a vehicle is unable to pass the IVA, you cannot register the car to DVLA unless the car is over 10 years of age. You need to buy a car at your own risk. (Please see the following explanation what is IVA?)
- What is IVA?
- IVA is a UK National approval scheme for import vehicles by DVSA. The IVA scheme checks that vehicles constructed for non-European markets comply with UK law and it helps make sure that they are safer on the road. If an import car is within 10 years of age, the pass certificate of IVA is necessary to be registered in UK.
—Well, the Japanese manufactured vehicles are safe on the road and their quality is top in the world, but why the UK request to check them strictly?
–Actually, the IVA scheme has a hidden object. It stands to prevent from Japanese used cars coming into the UK market. If UK do not allow to import a car from Japan, it breach WTO rules. (So, you can freely import a car into UK and the gate is open for any imports.) However, the IVA stands as the barrier when the import car to be registered in UK. The IVA scheme is trying people and traders to not bring vehicles from Japan into UK.
We know what kind of import cars are able to pass IVA under today’s rules. However, the IVA rules changes frequently, are made by an organization who protect UK market from Japanese invasion.They could change the rule for import cars in near future. (The rule might change during your car arriving to UK and it might never allow your car to get IVA certificate.)
So, that is why we cannot guarantee to pass IVA test for the commercial imports.
Thus, we do not recommend you to import unless the car is over 10 years.
- I imported a car by myself. May I ask you its modification for MOT/IVA?
- Yes, please write us about your car(eg. model, year) and tell us what kind of modification you will need.
- I have imported a car from Japan, but got a fail IVA test. Can you help me?
- We may help you. Please write us the reason to fail IVA. Telling you in advance, if you were required to get a letter from a manufacture, we may not help to get it.
- I am interested in importing new model of Japanese car. I understood the risk regarding IVA.
- We may help you to import it and to get IVA…but will never guarantee to pass IVA test under the category of commercial imports. You need to buy your vehicle at your own risk. Still you want to import the car with accepting a risk of failure to pass IVA test and never getting UK registration, please contact before you buy a car in Japan, because some kind of models are never able to pass IVA under the category of normal import.
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