Classic autos & race cars

The two ages, and the gap between them

EPA and DOT do not use the same threshold, which is the source of most of the confusion in this market. A vehicle is exempt from EPA emissions requirements at 21 years old, provided it is in original unmodified configuration with its original engine. It is exempt from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards at 25 years old. The date that governs is the month and year of manufacture, not the model year and not the date of first registration, and CBP will look for it on the chassis plate or in a letter from the manufacturer.

A car between 21 and 25 therefore sits in a gap: clear of EPA, short of DOT. It cannot be imported for road use on age alone. It can come in through a registered importer for conformance work, it can come in under the show or display provision if the model qualifies as historically or technologically significant, which carries an annual mileage limit, or it can enter and stay off the road. We will tell you which of those you are in before you bid, if you ask before you bid.

The declarations

The filings are DOT form HS-7 and EPA form 3520-1, and the box selected on each is the entire substance of what is being declared. A 25 year old car uses the age exemption on the HS-7 and the corresponding exemption code on the 3520-1. A US-built car coming home uses a different box, and the evidence is the original manufacturer certification label still fixed to the door jamb. A car consigned to a registered importer uses another box again, and the importer has to be named.

These go in with the entry, not afterwards. A wrong box is not a paperwork slip, it is a declaration to a federal agency, and undoing it means an amended filing while the car sits on the dock accruing storage. If you want the general background first, our guide to importing a car walks through the sequence.

Competition cars are a request, not a checkbox

A vehicle imported solely for competition falls under an EPA exclusion, and it is not something a broker simply ticks. EPA expects the case to be made: what the vehicle is, what has been done to it, and that it will not be operated on public roads. Build time for that into the schedule. Teams that call us the week the car is loading are the ones who end up paying to store a chassis at the port. A car with genuinely no road use also needs a coherent DOT answer, because a competition-only vehicle is a different HS-7 position from a road car claiming an age exemption, and the two declarations have to agree with each other.

What it costs, and the change nobody expected

The ordinary duty on a passenger car is 2.5%. On a truck it is 25%, which is why the body style of a pickup, a van or a utility vehicle is worth checking rather than assuming. Motorcycles are lower again.

The Section 232 action on passenger vehicles and light trucks, in force since April 2025, is written by tariff subheading. It is not written by model year. Do not assume a fifty year old car falls outside it because it is old.

We check the annex against the specific subheading and the specific origin before you commit, because on a six-figure car the difference is not a rounding error. On later model years the gas guzzler excise can also apply. That one is an Internal Revenue liability rather than a customs duty, so it will not appear on your 7501, and it tends to surface at exactly the wrong moment.

Value is the field CBP looks at hardest

Declared values on private collector sales are easy to state and hard to verify, so they get scrutiny. Declare the price actually paid. If the car was bought at auction, the price actually paid is the hammer price plus the buyer premium, and the premium is dutiable. A restoration invoiced separately by the seller is part of the transaction if it was a condition of the sale. Understating a collector car is not a small offence, and the penalty exposure runs against you, not against the shipper.

Documents

• Foreign title or registration document, original, with a certified translation if it is not in English.
• Bill of sale or auction settlement showing what was paid, including the buyer premium.
• Full VIN, and the month and year of manufacture.
• Photographs of the chassis plate, the door jamb label if there is one, and the engine.
• Bill of lading or air waybill, plus the ISF details if the car is moving by ocean, which it usually is.

We take single cars. A one-vehicle import gets the same file, the same pre-arrival filing and the same review as a container programme, which is rather the point of hiring a broker for it.