Serving All of Ireland
Importing a car from Northern Ireland
On paper this is the cheapest route onto Irish plates: VRT only, no duty, no import VAT. Whether you actually get it rests on documents you need to see before you hand over money.
Used Irish car, or Japanese import?
The honest answer turns on one question more than any other — whether you can wait. Here is the comparison without the sales pitch, including the third option most buyers never consider.
Is the Japanese auction sheet enough?
A Japanese auction sheet is the most honest condition report in the used car business, and it is still not the whole answer. Three things it does not tell you about a car, and what we do about them before we bid.
Which sourcing fee should you pay?
Three ways to pay, and one variable between them. Paying in full costs a flat €500 — the cheapest sourcing fee we know of in Ireland. Here is what each option costs, and how to choose if you cannot pay it all at once.
Why import through us?
You can do this yourself, and some people should. Here is what you take on in exchange, what it costs when a document is missing, and exactly what we charge.
Why our cars arrive sooner
The wait on a Japanese import is not the ocean. It is the queue in front of it — and in the current market that queue is where the months go.
The cars we walk away from
Most of the work of importing is not buying. It is rejecting — sheet after sheet, car after car — and being willing to come home from an auction with nothing.
Import it yourself, or reserve one already on the water?
Both routes end with a Japanese car on Irish plates. They differ in who carries the risk between here and there — and in whether the number you started with is the number you finish with.
How shipping disruption feeds into your import bill
A longer voyage does not just cost you time. Because freight sits inside the customs value, every euro added to the shipping bill is taxed twice before the car reaches you.
What it really costs to import a car from Japan to Ireland
Four separate charges, assessed by two different authorities at two different moments, each calculated on a different number. Once you see the order, the arithmetic stops being frightening.
Why a car still on the ship costs less
The same vehicle is cheaper while it is still on the water than on the day it arrives. That is not a countdown gimmick — it reflects who is carrying the risk, and for how long.
After you buy
Handover is where most dealer relationships quietly end. It is the point at which ours starts costing us something — which is exactly why it is worth writing down.
Japan or the UK?
Two routes, and since February 2026 the tax arithmetic has stopped being close. The remaining case for Great Britain is real, but it is narrower than it was.
Importing a car from Great Britain
Since January 2021 a car from England, Scotland or Wales is a third-country import. The question that decides the bill is not where you bought it — it is where it was built.
Importing a car from Japan
Four charges land on a Japanese import, and one of them changed in February 2026. Here is the whole sequence in order, including the points where money is quietly lost.