Importing a Car into Zambia (2026): How ZRA Actually Calculates the Duty

Your invoice price does not decide your duty

The most expensive misunderstanding in Zambian car importing is the assumption that duty is a percentage of what you paid. Buyers negotiate hard in Japan or Dubai, land a cheap invoice, and expect a cheap clearance. Then the assessment comes back at a number that has nothing to do with the deal they struck.

For most used vehicles, that is exactly how it works. The Zambia Revenue Authority publishes a Specific Duty Rates on Used Motor Vehicles schedule, and for the vehicles it covers the duty is a fixed amount in kwacha attached to a tariff line, not a percentage of your purchase price. A hatchback of a given engine size and age carries the same figure whether you paid a lot or a little for it.

That cuts both ways. A bargain purchase does not buy you a bargain clearance. But a car bought at a fair price is not punished either, and, crucially, you can work the tax out before you commit a single dollar, because the number is published in advance. Very few costs in Zambian life are that knowable ahead of time. Most people simply never look.

How the schedule is built

ZRA's schedule is organised first by age, then by body type, then by engine capacity.

• Part A: motor vehicles from 2 years up to 5 years
• Part B: motor vehicles aged above 5 years

Within each part the rows run by tariff heading: buses and vehicles carrying ten or more persons, then motor cars and station wagons, then goods vehicles, which means single cabs, double cabs, panel vans and trucks by gross vehicle weight. Passenger vehicles are split into sedans, hatchbacks, station wagons and SUVs, and each of those is split again by engine capacity into bands: not exceeding 1000cc, 1001 to 1500cc, 1501 to 2500cc, 2501 to 3000cc, and above 3001cc. Petrol and diesel are listed separately. Used motorcycles have their own short table, again split at the five-year line.

Find your row and you have your number. The practical implication is that two things move your bill more than anything else: engine size, and whether the car is over five years old. A 2500cc SUV does not cost a little more to clear than a 1500cc hatchback of the same age. It costs substantially more, because it sits several bands higher on a schedule that steps up sharply with displacement.

Notice also what the schedule does not contain: a cut-off. Zambia's schedule prices vehicles above five years rather than refusing them, and the document carries no published age ceiling, unlike several countries in the region that simply ban older imports. Confirm the position before you ship, but the design of the schedule assumes older cars will keep arriving.

What the schedule figure already includes

This is the part that saves people from double-counting, and ZRA states it plainly on the face of the schedule. Quoting the note from the July 2022 edition:

"THE ABOVE VALUES INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING: 1. CUSTOMS DUTY, EXCISE DUTY, VALUE ADDED TAX (VAT), MOTOR VEHICLE FEE, ASYCUDA PROCESSING FEE AND MOTOR VEHICLE SURTAX"

So the grand total in the schedule is not "the customs duty" with VAT still to come. It is six charges rolled into one figure. If a quote adds 16% VAT on top of a schedule figure, that quote is wrong.

The motor vehicle surtax inside that bundle is the age-related component. It is the charge that makes an older car more expensive to clear, and in earlier editions of the schedule ZRA applied it only to the above-five-years band. That is why the Part B numbers sit where they do.

There is one charge the bundle deliberately leaves out, and ZRA flags it:

"THE ABOVE VALUES DO NOT INCLUDE CARBON EMISSION SURTAX; IN ORDER TO FIND THE AMOUNT PAYABLE, IMPORTERS ARE REQUIRED TO ADD TO THE ABOVE GRAND TOTALS THE CARBON EMISSION SURTAX DEPENDING ON THE ENGINE CAPACITY"

The carbon emission surtax, and a number the internet gets badly wrong

The carbon emission surtax is a small, flat kwacha amount by engine band. On ZRA's July 2022 schedule it ran:

Those amounts are revised from time to time. The 2019 schedule carried K70, K140, K200 and K275 for the same four bands. Treat the table above as the shape of the charge and confirm the current amount on the schedule in force when you clear. We are not publishing a 2026 figure we could not read off ZRA's own document.

What matters more is the order of magnitude, because several import-duty "calculators" and blog guides currently circulating state the carbon emission surtax as K50,000 for a car under 1,500cc, rising to K200,000 for a large engine. That is wrong by roughly six hundred times. The real charge is a two- or three-figure kwacha amount, the price of a decent lunch, not a deposit on a house. If a calculator hands you that number, everything else it tells you is suspect too. Use ZRA's own motor vehicle calculator or the published schedule, and treat third-party tools as a sanity check only.

ZRA adds one further warning on the schedule that is worth taking literally: other government agencies may impose their own fees under their own Acts. The schedule is the tax position, not the total cost of getting the car onto the road.

Cars under two years old are valued the other way

The specific duty schedule starts at two years. A vehicle newer than that is assessed the ordinary way, on value for duty purposes (VDP), and here your invoice does matter.

ZRA defines VDP as the price actually paid or payable for the goods, plus insurance for the transportation of the goods, plus freight, plus any other costs incidental to the importation up to the port of entry in Zambia. That is the CIF concept: the car, the shipping and the marine insurance, landed at the border.

From there the charges stack in order. Customs duty applies to the VDP. Zambia's tariff runs in three broad bands, roughly 0 to 5% for capital equipment and raw materials, 15% for intermediate goods and 25% for finished goods, with the exact rate set by the tariff line rather than by category feel. Excise duty then applies to selected goods, motor vehicles among them. Finally VAT at 16% is charged on the customs value plus the duties and any applicable excise, not on the invoice alone. That layering is why a percentage quoted against the invoice always understates the landed cost.

Do not guess the customs and excise percentages for your specific tariff line from a blog. They are set in the National Tariff Book, and a wrong tariff line is the single most common cause of a clearance that costs far more than budgeted.

Clearing: the USD 2,000 line

ZRA splits consignments by value, and the line falls well below the price of any car.

• Consignments with a CIF value above USD 2,000 are large-value imports. Clearance must be done on a Bill of Entry (Form CE 20) through the customs electronic processing system, and a licensed clearing agent is required.
• Consignments in the roughly USD 1,000 to USD 2,000 range are small-value and do not require an agent.

Any imported car is comfortably over the line, so budget for a clearing agent's fee as a certainty rather than an option. Agent fees are commercially negotiated and vary widely by border post and by how much documentation work the agent has to do. We are not publishing a rate, because there is no published rate. Get two or three quotes in writing before you ship.

Your agent will need the documents that accompany freighted cargo: the invoice, the bill of lading, the export certificate and de-registration papers from the country of origin, and any permits for controlled goods. Add to that an Interpol motor vehicle clearance from the Zambia Police, the check that the car you bought was not stolen somewhere else. Arrange it early. It is the step most likely to strand a car at the border while storage charges run.

The costs that land after ZRA

Duty is not the finish line. Before the car is legally on a Zambian road you still face:

• RTSA registration, including a fitness or roadworthiness inspection for a used vehicle, and number plates.
• The motor vehicle licence, commonly called road tax, payable to RTSA on a recurring basis.
• Motor third-party insurance, which is compulsory under the Road Traffic Act No. 11 of 2002, section 86. Driving without it is an offence, not a risk you get to choose. If you have not compared cover, start with our car insurance comparison and understand the difference between Act Only, Full Third Party and Comprehensive before you buy the cheapest line on the page.
• Transport from the border to Lusaka, the Copperbelt or wherever the car is going, plus storage charges if clearance drags.

A budgeting method that survives contact with the border

Build the number in this order, on paper, before you pay a deposit:

1. Purchase price in the source currency, converted at a rate you can actually get, not the mid-market rate quoted online.
2. Freight and marine insurance to the port of entry.
3. The schedule figure for your exact body type, engine band and age bracket, read off ZRA's current schedule.
4. Carbon emission surtax for your engine band.
5. Clearing agent fee, from a written quote.
6. Interpol clearance, RTSA inspection, registration and plates.
7. First year's insurance premium, from a real quote rather than an estimate.
8. Inland transport, plus a contingency for storage if the paperwork stalls.

Then compare that total against the price of the same model already registered in Zambia. Sometimes importing wins. Often, once steps three through eight are honestly filled in, it does not, and the person who does this arithmetic before shipping is the one who avoids a nasty surprise at Nakonde or Kazungula.

Paying for it

The awkward feature of importing is that the tax falls due in a lump, at the border, in kwacha, before you own a usable car. Vehicle finance is generally advanced against a vehicle the lender can take security over, which a car still sitting in a container is not yet.

That means duty is usually cash. Work out what a repayment on the balance would look like with our vehicle finance calculator, and pressure-test whether the whole plan fits your income using the affordability calculator. If you are thinking of an unsecured loan to cover clearance, price it honestly first with the personal loan calculator and compare what is actually on offer on our personal loans page. Borrowing at a high rate to pay a tax bill is how a good import turns into a bad year. If VAT on a business import is part of your picture, the VAT calculator will show you the 16% layer on its own.

Frequently asked questions

Is duty based on what I paid for the car? For used vehicles two years and older, no. ZRA applies a fixed kwacha figure from the specific duty schedule, based on body type, engine capacity and age band. For vehicles under two years old the invoice does matter, because duty is assessed on value for duty purposes, meaning the price paid plus freight, insurance and incidental costs up to the port of entry.

Does the schedule figure include VAT? Yes. ZRA states that the schedule totals include customs duty, excise duty, VAT, the motor vehicle fee, the ASYCUDA processing fee and the motor vehicle surtax. Only the carbon emission surtax is added on top.

Is there an age limit on importing a car into Zambia? ZRA's schedule prices vehicles above five years rather than excluding them, and carries no published age ceiling. What age does is raise the cost, through the motor vehicle surtax sitting inside the older band. Confirm the current position before shipping.

Do I need a clearing agent? For any consignment with a CIF value above USD 2,000, yes. Clearance goes on a Form CE 20 through the electronic system and an agent is required. Every imported car exceeds that threshold.

Why do online import calculators disagree with each other? Because most of them are not reading the current ZRA schedule. Several are circulating a carbon emission surtax figure inflated by about six hundred times. Where a tool's output differs from the published schedule, the schedule wins.

What is the cheapest legitimate way to reduce the duty? Choose a smaller engine. The schedule steps up by engine capacity band, so a 1500cc car and a 2500cc car of the same age and body type sit in materially different places. Very little else in the structure is within your control.

Last reviewed: September 2026. General information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Duty schedules and surtax amounts are revised, so confirm current figures with ZRA before you commit money.