Importing Used Goods and Vehicles: What Tanzania Charges for Age

This page is the used-import operating file: how age, conformity and declared value translate into the assessment a second-hand consignment meets at Dar es Salaam. It is not a freight quotation and not a substitute for the live tariff and excise schedules.

• Three taxes on one entry: duty, VAT and excise
• Clearing goods lawfully: import and export compliance
• The certificate before loading: PVoC and TBS conformity
• The declaration itself: TANCIS import declarations

As at 14 September 2026. The mandate sits with TRA Customs on tra.go.tz and, for standards, with tbs.go.tz. This file rests on the East African Community Customs Management Act 2004, the excise tariff in Cap. 147, the Standards Act Cap. 130 and the Road Traffic Act Cap. 168.

Age is priced on the Mainland, not prohibited

The eight-year rule traders repeat in WhatsApp groups is a Kenyan standard, not a Tanzanian statute; a budget built on it collapses at assessment. The Mainland works three quieter instruments: an excise line banded by the age of the vehicle, a conformity regime that tests roadworthiness before loading, and a customs value the officer derives rather than accepts.

The band and its rate sit in the excise Fourth Schedule. This page freezes no percentage against a build year, because the figure that decides a budget is the one on the schedule in the week the assessment issues. Print it before wiring money to an auction house.

Screen the trade before you screen the container. A foreign-owned company intending to retail second-hand clothing stands close to the activities reserved for citizens by GN No. 487A of 2025, and no customs entry cures that. Settle ownership at BRELA, or BPRA in Zanzibar, first.

The charges on a used import, and the order they stack

The cascade matters as much as the rates. Duty computes on the landed cost, excise on that cost plus duty, and VAT on everything beneath it. Understating freight therefore discounts four charges at once, which is why officers press hardest on the freight figure behind a cheap invoice.

Customs value is an argument, not an invoice

Used vehicles are valued from TRA reference data (make, model, body type, cylinder capacity and year) depreciated from a new-unit figure. A purchase invoice is a starting position. The valuation methods and their order are set by the Community customs Act’s Fourth Schedule, which puts transaction value first and lets the officer move past it where the declared price is unsupportable.

To defend a low figure, lodge the auction sheet with its grade, the export certificate carrying the chassis number, the bill of lading and genuine freight invoices as one file at the valuation desk. A listing screenshot produced at the counter after assessment changes nothing and costs a week.

Conformity clears before the ship sails, and some goods never clear

Second-hand consignments need a certificate of conformity issued in the export country under the Bureau’s pre-export verification arrangement, and a used vehicle needs a roadworthiness inspection there by an appointed agent. Cargo that loads without either meets destination inspection instead: laboratory time at the port, a surcharge, and storage running while samples are tested.

Some classes are not a pricing question at all. Used tyres for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles sit on the prohibited schedule to the customs Act, and used undergarments beside them. Read the live Second Schedule before buying mixed stock. Used medical devices answer to TMDA, radio equipment needs TCRA type approval, and scrap can meet a radiation clearance from the Atomic Energy Commission.

Change of residence: the one vehicle the Fifth Schedule releases

The Fifth Schedule to the customs Act relieves personal and household effects, and a single motor vehicle, for a person genuinely changing residence into the Partner State. That vehicle must have been owned and personally used abroad by the applicant for at least twelve months before arrival. Buses and minibuses seating more than thirteen passengers, and load carriers above two tonnes, fall outside it.

It is granted on evidence, not intention: a foreign registration document in the applicant’s own name spanning that period, a residence permit, and passport movements showing the household actually moved. A unit registered abroad in a company name fails at once, and selling soon after release converts the relief into an assessment.

The sequence the desks actually take

1. Screen the goods before payment: reserved activity, prohibited schedule, and any sector permit the item attracts.
2. Classify to the tariff heading: rate follows what the item is, not how worn it is.
3. Obtain conformity in the export country: certificate for the goods, roadworthiness inspection for a vehicle, both before loading.
4. Appoint a licensed clearing agent: only an agent licensed by TRA may lodge the declaration for you.
5. Lodge the TANSAD in TANCIS: within the twenty-one days the Community customs Act allows after discharge begins, with bill of lading, invoice and certificates attached.
6. Answer the valuation query in writing: with auction sheet and export certificate, before the assessment hardens.
7. Pay on one control number: duty, excise, VAT and levies settle together, and release follows payment, not promise.
8. Register the vehicle: card and plates at the motor vehicle registration desk before it moves on a public road.

The papers this file needs

Bill of lading or air waybill; commercial invoice and packing list; certificate of conformity; roadworthiness report for a used vehicle; the export certificate showing the chassis number; the auction sheet where one exists; freight and insurance invoices; TIN and, for a company, the registry extract and VAT certificate; any sector permit; and, for the relocation relief, a full year of foreign registration history.

Reconcile chassis and engine numbers across bill of lading, export certificate and declaration before lodgement. One transposed character buys a physical verification, a correction and a week of demurrage.

Illustrative arithmetic on a used consignment

Illustrative arithmetic, not a quotation. Take a container of used office furniture, customs value TZS 40,000,000 landed at Dar es Salaam, classified in the 25% band.

• Import duty, 25% band: TZS 10,000,000
• Railways Development Levy at 1.5%: TZS 600,000
• VAT base, being 40,000,000 plus 10,000,000 plus 600,000: TZS 50,600,000
• VAT at 18% on that base: TZS 9,108,000
• Falling due at entry: TZS 19,708,000, before port storage, agent and transport

A vehicle runs that cascade with an excise line inserted between duty and VAT, enlarging the base beneath it. Two units of identical value can land far apart on capacity and build year alone.

Recent movement: a fourth tariff band and a reserved list

The Community’s 2022 tariff review added a fourth duty band at 35%, above the old 25% ceiling, and several finished consumer lines now sit in it. GN No. 487A of 2025 then fixed the activities reserved for citizens, reaching small-scale resale rather than the entry itself. Finance Acts have re-cut the excise schedule under Cap. 147 more than once since 2016: which is why an age band quoted from memory is worth nothing at the counter.

Where this file stalls

• A purchase budget built on a foreign age rule, with the excise band discovered at assessment
• A container loaded without a conformity certificate because the supplier said it was unnecessary
• A declared price the valuation desk rejects, unsupported by auction sheet or export certificate
• Chassis or engine numbers that disagree between the shipping documents and the entry
• A relocation relief claimed on a car registered abroad to the applicant’s employer
• Demurrage and storage running as separate clocks, neither pausing for a customs query

Zanzibar: one customs union, two revenue authorities

Customs is a Union matter: the same Community instrument and external tariff apply at Malindi as at Dar es Salaam, and TRA Customs collects duty at both. VAT and excise are not Union taxes. A consignment entered for home use in Zanzibar meets the islands’ own VAT Act at a standard rate of 15% and their own excise position, administered by the Zanzibar Revenue Authority.

Movement is where importers lose money. A vehicle cleared into the islands and later shipped across is a fresh Mainland entry, and the difference between the two tax positions falls due before Mainland plates will issue. Standards there answer to the Zanzibar Bureau of Standards, so a Mainland certificate does not speak for an island entry.

Mandate-holders this file does not replace

TRA Customs owns classification, valuation, assessment and release, and its motor vehicle registration desk owns the card and the plates. The Bureau of Standards owns conformity and appoints the inspection agents abroad. TMDA, TCRA and the Atomic Energy Commission own their own consignment classes. The Ports Authority runs the storage clock, the shipping line runs demurrage. BRELA or BPRA decides whether the importing company lawfully exists.

Zatra prepares the file, structures the entry and coordinates those desks. It does not classify goods for the authority, issues no certificate, and gives no assurance of a release date. Professional fees appear only on /pricing/, never mixed into a duty computation.

What to confirm before you act

• The current excise band for that exact build year and cylinder capacity
• The tariff heading and rate for the goods as classified, not as described in the invoice
• Whether the item appears on the prohibited or restricted schedule
• Whether a sector permit is needed before purchase rather than after arrival
• Whether the intended trade touches the 2025 reserved-activities notice
• Which revenue authority’s VAT applies at the port of entry you have chosen
• Whether the seller can produce an export certificate matching the chassis number

Each answer sits on a live schedule or register, not in a forum thread. Get them in writing before the goods sail, after discharge, the storage clock argues on the port’s side.