Buying and selling a car

[Alex Dra]

We are two Swiss citizens currently travelling overland from Switzerland to Iran and Central Asia. So far we have travelled by public transport but after renting a car in Georgia we started thinking about buying one to have more freedom to go to places which are difficult to reach by public transport. So if we find a way to make this possible, we would like to buy a car in Armenia and continue with it to Iran, Turkmenistan, Kasachstan and Kyrgyzistan.

We see that it will take a lot of paper work to get the car into Iran, but we think this will be doable. Our main question at the moment is: will it be possible to sell the car in Kazachstan or Kyrgystan? Since Armenia as well as Kazachstan or Kyrgystan are part of the Eurasian Economic Union, will it be possible to sell the car without having to pay heavy import taxes? This would be our main reason for buying the car in Armenia and not Georgia, would you agree that Armenia is a better option? And what would it mean for the number plates, will we have to send them back to Armenia?

Our dearest thanks for any helping advice and opinion!
Cheers from Tbilisi

[steven]

This is a good question and a clever plan. I don't know how it work out in practice, the Eurasian Union is a construction designed for Russian benefit, not for other countries, so I am not sure how it would work. You can try asking Ryan from Iron Horse Nomads, he might know as he has a lot of experience importing cars into Kyrgyzstan.

[jacoub]

Hi there

There are two possible solutions:

As long as you don't need the number plates and car documents back

1) sell the car to another person by exiting the boarder and by them re-entering in to KZ or KG (Временный ввоз/вывоз)
2) sell it to anyone as long as you do not intend to come back into KZ or KG with a car again, even if you do come back to visit by plane ect or crossing the boarder without a car its fine.

3) Or import it, but depending on the car the year and engine if its older than 10 years will not be worth it.