Serving All of Ireland
You can import a car from Japan yourself. Plenty of people do, and the saving is real — often a few thousand euro. What is rarely set out is what you are taking on in exchange, and how quickly a single missing document turns that saving into a loss.
This page is an argument for using us, so read it with that in mind. It is also accurate, and the numbers in it are checkable.
“Direct” is not as direct as it sounds
Bidding at a Japanese auction requires a Japanese dealer licence. No private buyer in Ireland has one, and no amount of research obtains one. Everybody who imports from Japan goes through a licensed intermediary in Japan.
So the choice is not between using an agent and not using one. It is between an agent in Ireland that Irish law applies to, and an agent in Japan that it does not. That framing matters more than any fee comparison, and it is the part that tends to get discovered late.
The chain that has to hold
Between a winning bid and a set of Irish plates there are five things that must go right. Each is straightforward on its own. Each has a price attached to getting it wrong, and the prices are not small.
The two that cost real money
Proof of origin
Since 1 February 2026 a Japanese-built car enters Ireland at 0% duty. That rate is not automatic. It has to be claimed with a valid proof of origin from the exporter, filed with the customs declaration. Without it the rate reverts to 10%, and because import VAT is charged on the value including duty, the 10% drags another 23% of itself along behind it. On a car with a customs value of €15,000 that is €1,500 of duty and a further €345 of VAT on the duty.
An exporter who has not been asked for that document will not necessarily volunteer it, and by the time the omission surfaces the car is on a ship.
The NOx figure
Japanese domestic cars are not issued with a European Certificate of Conformity, so the CO2 and NOx figures have to be obtained from Japanese records before the registration appointment. Arrive at the NCTS centre without a NOx figure and Revenue applies the maximum for the fuel type: €4,850 on a diesel.
This is the most expensive avoidable mistake on the entire route, and it is avoidable with a phone call made at the right time by somebody who knows the call needs making.
Those two alone come to €6,695. On a car where doing it yourself might have saved two or three thousand, one missed document reverses the decision and the second buries it. This is what the phrase “a few thousand saved” is being weighed against.
The one that is not about money
A car bought from a trader in Ireland is covered by the Consumer Rights Act 2022. It must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, and if it is not you have a route to repair, replacement or refund, against a business you can drive to.
A car you imported personally from an exporter in Japan carries none of that in Ireland. If it arrives and it is not what the sheet said, your remedy is a dispute with a company in another jurisdiction over a used car, in a language you probably do not read. For nearly everyone that is not a remedy at all.
This never appears in a price comparison, because it costs nothing until it costs everything.
What we charge
Three payment options. The work is the same on all three — sourcing and bidding, export documentation, customs clearance, translation, and Irish registration. What differs is when you pay and what that timing costs.
| Option | Paid up front | Balance | Sourcing fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay in full | 100% | — | €500 flat |
| 70 / 30 | 70% | 30%, within 3 weeks of arrival | 5% |
| 50 / 50 | 50% | 50%, within 3 weeks of arrival | 10% |
The percentage is calculated on the CIF value plus landed costs such as duty and offloading — the total excluding VRT.
We would rather be plain about what that means than let a table imply the three are equivalent. On a car with a landed cost of €18,000 excluding VRT, the flat option costs €500, the 70/30 option costs €900, and the 50/50 option costs €1,800. Paying in full is substantially the cheapest, because the staged options move the funding risk onto us and are priced accordingly. If you can pay up front, do; the flat fee is there because it is genuinely the better deal, not as a headline.
VRT is never inside the fee. It is charged on Revenue's Open Market Selling Price for the car in Ireland, not on what it cost in Japan, and on the pay-in-full option it is settled at the time of delivery. Anyone quoting you an all-in figure without a VRT estimate for the specific vehicle has left out the largest single line.
What the fee is actually buying
Not a service charge for forwarding emails. The specific things it removes from your list:
- the customs declaration, and the duty and VAT that go with it;
- the origin documentation, requested at the point where it can still be obtained;
- the CO2 and NOx figures, sourced before the registration appointment rather than discovered missing at it;
- translation of the auction sheet and the Japanese registration documents;
- the NCTS appointment and Irish registration inside the deadline;
- and a seller in Ireland to hold responsible if the car is not what it was said to be.
Managed separately, the clearance and translation work alone generally involves paying an agent, and that cost is rarely included when people compare a self-managed import against a landed price.
When doing it yourself makes sense
It does, sometimes, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
If you have imported before and know the process, if you read Japanese or have someone who does, if you have an exporter you have already dealt with successfully, and if the car is unusual enough that you want to run the search yourself — then the saving is real and the risks above are ones you can actually manage. Some of our customers started that way.
What does not work is doing it for the first time, on a car that matters, on a budget with no room in it. That is where the few thousand saved becomes several thousand lost, and the only thing that made the difference was knowing which document to ask for and when.
What we do
We buy at Japanese auction on your behalf and handle shipping, customs, VAT, VRT and Irish registration, on one of the three fee structures above. Cars we have already brought in and registered are in current stock and can be bought like any Irish car. If what you want is not there, sourcing is how we go and find it.
How we choose which cars to bid on is set out in is the auction sheet enough, the mechanics of the route are in importing a car from Japan, and what happens after handover is in after you buy.
Common questions
Can I import a car from Japan myself?
You can, but not as directly as the phrase suggests. Bidding at a Japanese auction requires a Japanese dealer licence, so a private buyer overseas always works through a licensed agent or exporter in Japan. Importing yourself therefore means choosing an intermediary in another jurisdiction and taking on the Irish end personally: the customs declaration, the duty and VAT, the emissions documentation and the registration. It is legal and it is done regularly. What changes is who carries the risk when something is missing.
What does the 500 euro flat sourcing fee cover?
It is our fee on the pay-in-full option and it covers the work rather than the taxes: sourcing and bidding, export documentation, customs clearance, translation of the auction sheet and Japanese paperwork, and Irish registration. Duty, VAT and shipping are costs of the car itself and are separate. VRT is separate too and is settled at the time of delivery on that option.
What are the payment options and what do they cost?
Three. Paying in full up front carries a flat sourcing fee of 500 euro. Paying 70% up front with 30% due within three weeks of arrival carries a fee of 5%. Paying 50% up front with the balance due within three weeks of arrival carries a fee of 10%. The percentage is calculated on the CIF value plus landed costs such as duty and offloading, in other words the total excluding VRT. Paying in full is the cheapest option by a wide margin, because the staged options defer the cost onto us.
When is VRT paid?
VRT is never part of the sourcing fee. On the pay-in-full option it is settled at the time of delivery. It is charged on Revenue's Open Market Selling Price for the car in Ireland rather than on what the car cost in Japan, so it is worth having an estimate of that figure before committing to a particular vehicle rather than afterwards.
What happens if something goes wrong with a car I imported myself?
In practice, very little that helps you. Irish consumer law applies to purchases from traders in Ireland, so a car bought from an Irish dealer carries statutory rights that no document can remove. A car you imported yourself from an exporter in Japan carries no such rights here, and pursuing a business in another jurisdiction over a used car is not a realistic remedy for most people. That difference does not show up in the price comparison, and it outlives it.
Want the figure for a specific car?
Tell us the model and the payment option that suits you, and we will give you the landed cost with a VRT estimate rather than a range.
Ask us about a specific car