Chile Forum

Admin,
many thanks for that clarification. My Residente Temporario was issued in November last year - although I did not resettle until December. Which date do you think the twelve months would start from? Also, do you think the items would have to actually land / arrive by that date to qualify?
Two other questions if you dont mind. (i) where as I am classified as a foriegn national moving to Chile my wife would be treated as a returning citizen. Do you know if different rules would apply for my wife (maybe that is where I got the three months from)? (ii) I have always understood that the opportunity to (permanently) import a used vehicle only applies to a returning citizen (e.g. my wife) and not to a foreign national moving to Chile. Is that your understanding?
Regards, WorldCitizen

These two examples given are quite common, true. However, when a container is stored in the port due to not presenting Chilean Customs with the proper documentation on time, the port will charge obsene amounts of money for storage.

In regards to the second example, a good rate per kilo shipped by airplane inside chile is 4.00 per kilo. The airlines charged based on volume or weight depending on which is greater. There is an industry standard weight per mt3 which if your cargo superseeds, you will be hit with high-density charges.

As a international shipping professional, the two situations given do not seem out of the ordinary. My best advice is to contract a company in the country you are living in to give you DOOR TO PORT service and contract a Chilean company separately to give you PORT to DOOR service. That way you have more control and you deal directly with the people in contact with your goods.

Hi!! Just Joined The Forum Today!!! This Is Exactly What I Needed!!! People That Have Moved To Chile And Have Shipped Cars There!!! My Wife Is Chilean and i'am American!!! We Are Moving To Chile In April Of Next Year And Would Love To Have Any Information On Shipping A Car And The Customs Fees!! Some Say My Wife As A Chilean Can Bring A Car For No!! Fees!!! Does Anyone Know How This Works!!! Thanks Tommy&Vicky

How about digital pianos. I have a digital piano I want to bring with me when I move. Does this fall under the same area as electronics? Does it make more sense to not bring computers and just purchase them there. What if they are business computers for a business I'm going to establish? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Tommy&Vicky,
I am no expert but I understand the rules are:
- in general second hand cars cannot be imported into Chile (the older cars from the US all end up in Central America, so I hear);
- there are very few exceptions to this general rule, but the most useful is returning Chileans are allowed to bring back a car with them;
- the concessison only applies to Chileans who have genuinely been out of the country with few visits back to Chile (and dates of entry and exit are all logged by the border police on a computer data base);
- the rule seems to be that at the time of import you must not have been in Chile for more than thirty days in the prior 12 months;
- the fact that the returning resident may have had twelve clear months out of Chile at a previous time is of no value. It is the last twelve months they look at;
- if you qualify, you still have to pay IVA - it is only the import duty that is waived;
- one of the twists is that customs base the IVA assessment on the value of the car as purchased, regardless of when bought;
- we got round that rule by my wife "selling" the car to me and then me "selling" the car back to my wife - complete with formal registration and invoice etc;
- there is no ro-ro services to Chile, so you are looking at a container. We were quoted between US$3,000 and US$5,000 (part or full container) for a small vehicle (Jeep Wrangler) from Los Angeles.
All in all, with the IVA and the freight cost and the other documentation costs it is not entirely clear whether it is worth it - it is marginal and may come down to whether you can obtain the same model here in Chile (spec levels in the US are generally higher) and how attached you are to the vehicle.
We would have gone ahead, despite the costs, but were denied the right to import because we failed on the 30 days rule.
WorldCitizen

I am just going to say this once, to clarify to most people who are reading hope in to this thread :

FORGET ABOUT IMPORTING CARS TO CHILE!!!!

SUPER FORGET ABOUT IMPORTING USED CARS TO CHILE!!!!

For 99.9% of all people moving to Chile, there is almost no circumstances where importing a car makes economic sense. Unless you are dealership and plan to bring in several hundred cars, you will waist lots of time and money one way or the other vs. just buying a car in Chile.

The reason I am so bluntly stating this is the few unusual exceptions discussed here and around the Internet, almost never ever apply to most foreigners and it gives them a false sense of hope. I do not know how many hours I have spent on the phone with people planning to move to Chile that insist on trying to import a car to Chile because they read about a rare exceptions on the Internet of people returning home or whatever. Those people spent a good deal of money also.

I know, I know. I am going get lots of people that insist on doing the 'but my car is special'. YOUR CAR IS NOT THAT SPECIAL!!!

IF it is that special (e.g. Ferrari limited edition), it still makes no economic sense by the time you get done paying all the taxes.

I played with the customs agents with a car for years until someone realized what I was doing.

The cost of importing a luxury vehicle (or any vehicle) in the $75,000 range, brand new less than 100km appeared to almost double the cost of the vehicle, I thought I could stand 40-44% (IVA plus 20-25%) bump but not 100%. It doesn’t look like 100% until you go through it, it looks like 40-45%.

A friend who has a house on the coast near mine imported a new Mercedes Mclaren on the understanding it would cost 30-40% he had it in Valpo when he loaded it back up on a boat and sent it back. He was even threatened by the import agent (who saw his 10%??? fee disappear in a $5000 container) with export duty on a car that never entered the country, he was not happy, he now knows why there are so few exotic sports cars in Chile.

A good rule of thumb when calculating the import of car (and just about anything else) is double what you paid for in the States or wherever, before you get to drive your first mile. I could see it, when everything is said and done in certain circumstances spending triple. Food for thought, for those considering importing.

Another thing that I don't believe anyone here is aware of is that Insurance companies in Chile are very hesitant to insure imported cars, because they don't want to be on the hook for also importing special parts should you get in an accident.

To add to Admin's comments.

Neither foreigners nor dealers can permanently import and register used vehicles into Chile but returning Chileans are permitted to. They can do so free of import duties but with IVA payable on the "CIF" price (cost of purchase plus costs of freight and insurance). I know of several Chileans who have made use of this provision but it generally only made sense with vehicles purchased in the USA (where cars are better specified and prices are lower than Canada or Europe). Furthermore, the cost advantage of doing so has eroded since Chile lifted the progressive luxury car tax in 2007, such that the number of Chileans that make use of this provision has now dropped down to only one or two a month (or so the customs office in Valpraiso told us).

As I said in my previous blog, we looked at it very closely and it would have made sense for my wife to import our Jeep Warngler into Chile even though the cost difference was not significant for two reasons: (i) it was a 2004 vehicle we had owned since new whereas buying a used vehicle from a dealer or privately will always be a risky process; (ii) the car had every extra available in the US market and was therefore much better spec'd than the Wranglers imported new into the country by Jeep Chile (engine size, automatic transmission, cruise control, GPS etc). The sole reason we did not go ahead was because my wife was not deemed to be a returning Chilean, by vitrue of the fact that she had spent more than 30 days out of the previous 365 in Chile.

Does anyone know about shipping things back to the U.S.? I went to Chile Correos today to ask and they said 30 kgs would cost 134.663 CLP. Even if I could reduce my tonnage to 15 kgs, it would be 70 something. Does anyone know of alternatives? It's mostly clothes, though I would also like to ship my Macbook too (since I'll be traveling in S.Amer. for a few months). It doesn't matter how long it takes to get home, I just need it home and unbroken.

Another alternative is leaving my stuff here and flying out of Santiago. Does anyone know of possible places to store stuff for a few months? Thanks!

You could look in the newspaper for a bodega. People rent their storage rooms under all those buildings.

I noticed a self-storage type place just off the Pan-Americana in Santiago a couple weeks ago. Pretty sure it was on the east side of the highway north of Almaneda, how far north I can’t remember (not very good directions I know, but I wasn’t really paying attention to it when we passed buy).

Not sure what the security and rent is like put that could be an option to consider.