Most people asking what a car costs to bring into Nigeria want one percentage. There isn’t one. There is a stack of charges, and on 1 July 2026 the stack changed shape, because the Federal Government cut import levies and switched on a green tax in the same announcement.
The levy on your car went down. If the engine is big, something else went up. Which of those two facts matters more to you depends entirely on the vehicle.
What actually changed
Two moves, covering 127 tariff lines.
The levy cuts, as reported when they took effect: new vehicles from 20 per cent to 10. Used vehicles from 15 per cent to 5. Fully built passenger vehicles from 70 per cent to 40. Mass transit buses and electric vehicles were exempted from import duty altogether.
Then the surcharge, running from the same date and keyed to engine capacity rather than to price, age or badge.
| Engine capacity | Green tax |
|---|---|
| Below 2,000 cc | Nothing |
| 2,000 cc to 3,999 cc | 2 per cent |
| 4,000 cc and above | 4 per cent |
| Electric and exempt categories | Nothing |
Read that table twice. The dividing line is 2,000 cc and it is a hard edge. A 1,998 cc engine pays nothing. A 2,000 cc engine pays. Two cubic centimetres, and a bill.
Why this suddenly favours Chinese-market cars
China has taxed engine displacement for a decade, so manufacturers building for that market engineered their engines to sit underneath the thresholds. The result is a fleet of familiar nameplates carrying small turbocharged engines where the American or Gulf version has a large naturally aspirated one.
The Highlander sold in China is a 1,998 cc turbo four making 350 N.m. Seven seats, no surcharge. Every Q5 engine in the Chinese range is 1,984 cc, so none of them pays. The Accord is 1.5 turbo only. The CR-V is 1,498 cc. The C-Class L is longer in the wheelbase than the car you know and every engine in it is under two litres. The X3 is 1,998 cc with 216 mm of ground clearance printed on the certificate.
One exception catches people out constantly. A Q7 badged 45 TFSI in China is the 3.0 V6, not the 2.0 the badge suggests elsewhere. That puts it in the 2 per cent band, and importers misread it more often than any other Audi.
Two rules that end a deal before the arithmetic starts
Age. Used vehicles cannot be older than twelve years from manufacture. Importing in 2026, that makes 2014 your floor. Not 2013 because the car is clean, and not 2012 because the seller is confident. Customs counts from the year it was built, not the year somebody first registered it, and that distinction has cost people real money.
Steering. Nigeria drives on the right and normal registration expects left hand drive. Right hand drive vehicles face restrictions. This is a quiet argument for buying out of China rather than Japan or the UK, because Chinese-market cars leave the factory left hand drive. They are not converted. A converted car is obvious to anyone who knows where to look and it stays a resale problem for as long as you own it.
What the landed figure is made of
Nobody quotes you a car. They quote a number that is really six numbers in a coat.
The vehicle at source. Freight and insurance to Lagos, where roll-on roll-off and container are neither the same price nor the same risk. Duty, computed on the Customs valuation rather than on your invoice, and where Customs disagrees with your paperwork its figure is the one that applies. The levy at the post-July rate. The green tax, if the engine reaches 2,000 cc. Then terminal charges, clearing, agency and haulage, which is the part everybody underestimates and the part that grows if the car sits at the port while somebody argues about the valuation.
A duty calculator on a website cannot produce this figure and you should distrust the ones that claim to. They do not know the Customs valuation for your VIN, they do not know the rate on the day you pay, and they almost always forget the last item entirely.
The rate is not a footnote
Your supplier prices in dollars or yuan. You pay in naira. Between agreeing a price and clearing the goods sits six to eight weeks quay to quay on Lagos routes, plus one to two weeks of pre-shipment inspection and export work.
We quote in naira and say openly that the figure is revisable if the rate moves, because the alternative is quoting a number we already know we cannot hold. Anyone offering a fixed naira price across an eight-week import has either built in a very large cushion or has not thought about it. Our rate board carries current figures.
Tokunbo, or sourced to order
Tokunbo cars for sale in Nigeria with prices is one of the most searched phrases in the country, and the reason is obvious. It puts a car, a price and a phone number on one screen.
What you are buying there is the end of a chain. Somebody else chose the unit, carried the currency risk, paid the clearing and priced their margin in. What you cannot see is the history behind the car, or what was done to make it presentable the week you came to view it.
Sourcing to order turns that around. You say what you need, we find units that match, and you see the VIN, the mileage and the record on each before anybody commits. It is slower. On a small common car it is not always cheaper, and where a lot in Lagos genuinely beats importing we say so instead of talking you into a container.
Where it wins clearly is on anything specific. A seven-seater under 2,000 cc. A double cab that has to do real work, like the export Vigus with 430 N.m and low range. A fleet where every unit needs to be identical. Or a light truck you can order as chassis cab, dropside or cargo box on one platform, which is not something you stumble across at a dealership.
Five answers to bring us
Seats, and be honest, because seven-seaters cost more to buy and to run. Engine size, now that it is a tax band rather than a spec line. Two or four wheel drive, judged against the roads you actually use rather than the ones you use twice a year. The oldest model year you will accept, remembering 2014 is the floor. And whether this is one unit or several, because clearing and haulage per unit change with the count.
Bring those five and a rough budget and the conversation takes ten minutes instead of three weeks.
Rates and thresholds here reflect the July 2026 reform as reported when it took effect. Fiscal policy moves. We confirm the figures applying on the day your consignment is valued before any order is placed, rather than repeating a percentage from a page written months earlier.
Send us the car
Tell us what you want and we will come back with the landed figure in naira, every line itemised, the green tax shown separately where it applies. If the engine crosses 2,000 cc we will also tell you whether a different variant of the same car avoids it, because on several models one does.
The range is on the vehicles page, or you can just describe what you need on WhatsApp.
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