Serving All of Ireland
Since late 2023, attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have pushed most carriers off the Suez route and around the Cape of Good Hope instead. The detour adds roughly ten to fourteen days to an Asia–Europe voyage, and because those extra days occupy ships that would otherwise be carrying something else, it removes capacity from the market as well.
The result has been Asia–Europe rates running well above where they sat before the disruption, and schedules that are harder to rely on.
Most coverage stops there. For anyone importing a car into Ireland, the more useful part is what happens next — because a freight increase does not arrive on your invoice at face value.
Freight is inside the tax base
Customs duty and VAT are not charged on what you paid for the car. They are charged on the customs value: the cost of the vehicle, plus insurance, plus the freight to bring it here.
So the sequence runs like this. Freight goes up. The customs value goes up with it. Duty at 10% is calculated on that larger number. Then VAT at 23% is calculated on the total including the duty that was just added.
Multiply it out and the figure is fixed by the rates themselves: 1.10 for duty, then 1.23 for VAT, which lands at 1.353. Every extra euro of freight costs roughly €1.35 by the time the car is on Irish plates.
That assumes 10% customs duty. On a Japanese-built car cleared with a valid origin certificate the duty is 0%, so freight is taxed once rather than twice and the multiplier falls to €1.23. On a European-badged car bought in Japan — an Audi or a BMW, built in Europe and therefore not Japanese-origin — it stays at €1.35. Either way it is above 1, which is the whole point: freight is never just freight. The full breakdown is here.
A worked step. Take the example from our costs guide: a car at €7,000 with €1,300 of shipping. If freight rises by 30%, that is €390 more on the shipping line's invoice — but around €528 more on the landed cost, once duty and VAT have been applied on top of it.
The charge that does not move
There is one piece of good news, and it is a substantial one.
VRT is unaffected. Vehicle Registration Tax is charged on the Open Market Selling Price — Revenue's estimate of what the car would sell for in Ireland — using the vehicle's CO2 band. It has no relationship to what was paid to move the car. A ship that went the long way round does not raise your VRT by a cent.
On a typical import, VRT and the NOx levy are the largest single tax line. That the biggest charge is insulated from freight is why disruption of this kind, while real, has not been the catastrophe for imported car prices that the headline rate increases might suggest.
The waiting is the other half
Cost is the part people model. Time is the part that actually changes plans.
Longer voyages and less reliable schedules mean an estimated arrival date is a genuine estimate rather than a promise. A sailing can be missed, a transhipment can slip, a port can be congested when the ship gets there. Two or three weeks of movement in either direction is ordinary in this market, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling certainty they do not have.
This is why we publish an ETA on every in-transit vehicle and treat it as what it is. It comes from the shipping line, it is our best information, and it can move.
What a delay does not change. If you have reserved a car and the ship is late, your price stands. The figure agreed at reservation is fixed, and a schedule slipping is our problem rather than a reason to revisit what you pay.
Where this is heading
Carriers began testing Suez transits again in early 2026, and a handful of voyages went through without incident. A broader return did not follow: most capacity has stayed on the Cape routing, and the industry expectation has repeatedly slipped.
When a large-scale return does happen, most analysts expect rates to fall — shorter voyages release ships back into a market that already has more capacity than cargo. There is also a widely flagged transition problem, where vessels arriving through a shorter route at the same time congest European ports for a period.
What nobody can give you is a date. This has been forecast, revised and forecast again more than once. We would rather say that plainly than pretend to a schedule.
What it means if you are buying
- The freight component is a smaller share of an import than people assume, and the largest tax on the car is not exposed to it at all.
- A quoted price from us already contains all of this. Freight, duty and VAT are settled on our side before the car is offered to you.
- Treat arrival dates as estimates, from us or from anyone else. If a firm date matters to you, buy something that has already landed.
- If you are importing privately, freight is one more variable that can move between your budget and your invoice — and it moves with a 1.35 multiplier attached.
Common questions
Does higher shipping cost increase the tax on an imported car?
For duty and VAT, yes — both are charged on a customs value that includes freight, and VAT is charged on the duty too. One extra euro of freight adds about €1.35 to the landed cost.
Does it increase VRT?
No. VRT is charged on Revenue's Irish valuation and the car's CO2 band. What the shipping cost has no bearing on it.
Why are voyages taking longer?
Most carriers are routing around the Cape of Good Hope rather than through the Suez Canal, which adds roughly ten to fourteen days to Asia–Europe sailings and absorbs vessel capacity.
Will it get cheaper?
Probably, when carriers return to Suez at scale — shorter voyages release capacity into an oversupplied market. The timing has slipped repeatedly and we would not guess at a date.
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Every in-transit vehicle with its current estimated arrival date.
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