Importing and selling motorcycles in Central America
 

Hi,

My friend and I bought two XR190Ls in Mexico where we had them titled in our name, but plated in a Mexican friends name. We are looking to sell them in Central America around January but don’t really know the process for importing bikes or, depending on the country, if we need to and if so who would be best to sell them to.

It would be great if anyone who has imported or sold a foreign vehicle in any Central American country could share their experience or contacts so that we can attempt to do the same. As of now we are open to any country and will try to build the trip around whichever one is easiest to import/sell in.

Thank you!

That's going to be difficult! Technically not legal at all without paying all the import taxes and duties. And then it's not in your name, so I suspect you'd have a hard time convincing the authorities that it's ok for you to sell some else's bikes!
Does STOLEN jump out? Cause that's what they're going to think.

Traditionally when you enter a Central American country they stamp the bike details into your passport, and you can't leave without it!

IF they don't stamp the details in YOU MIGHT THINK you can get away with selling them for parts to a shop, but that IS ILLEGAL and you won't like Central American jails. And you might think you got away with it, but discover when you go to get on the plane that it's now all in the computer. Oops. Jail.

I would recommend a rethink - and a loop back to Mexico.
Someone may have recent positive experience, but I'd be very surprised.
Sorry for the bad news, but this has been discussed here before. Always check ALL the details BEFORE buying bikes.

The ONLY RELIABLE way to buy and sell a bike in most countries is to resell IN THE SAME COUNTRY. There are of course probably a few exceptions, but they can change anytime.

Apologies if the post was not clear before, the titles and all other documents are in our name except for the registration, which is in my Mexican friends name who I have a photocopy of their ID and can call if we run into any complications. In any case, I think we can legally import them, I’m not really too worried about that, I was just looking for someone who knew the rules for each country or had experience with it so we can try to evalúe what the best option might be. For example, we looked up that in Guatemala, you can just do it at the border and the cost for our bikes would be about $800 each (it’s based on a number of things including value of the bikes, ours were 3k usd each new which ends up being 800 in import fees).

In terms of selling then, it seems many people have done this even if they didn’t import them, it was just at a discount to a local who knows the system and isn’t concerned about going to jail. Have you heard of them actually tracking that when you arrive at the airport even if they don’t stamp your bike in? I did check all posts related to this and couldn’t find anyone who seemed to have personal experience with that happening, so I am still looking for primary source information on that to confirm it. It seems a lot of people post about buying bikes down here, but there is almost no primary source info for what they do with them after, so it could be they just sell it to a local.

A loop back to Mexico is certainly an option we are considering and have thought about even before we bought the motorcycle, we just wanted to make sure we have all of our options open to us. Yes I did do all my research, as I mentioned, I looked at all the posts on here and even made a couple new ones, but it seemed to me there was no good info about actually importing the bikes and what that looked like for each country so I am asking the question again with this post.

The factura is in your name and the tarjeta de circulación and insurance policy is in the name of your friend? Is that correct?

Everything is in our name except for the tarjeta de circulación (license plates). Those are in my Mexican friends name.

Doing a Mexico Guatemala Belize Mexico loop in 2 days time ons bike registered in a
 

I hop this isn't too much off-topic ... I am on the road and hope to do a Mexico Guatemala Belize Mexico loop in 2 days time on a bike registered in a Mexican friends name. I hope to use a letter of authorisation from him to cross borders. Will this work?

Yes you can
 

You can sell your bike legally in Guatemala , if you pay duties and taxes . Once that is done, it will be removed from your passport ; over the years I bought several bikes from travelers . But it's not done in a couple of hours on the border and don't expect to get a good price for your bikes .
Title on your name and registration on somebody else ... sounds very strange!
You can also leave the country legally without your bikes but you MIGHT have a problem if you ever return .

Guaterider, what is the process for importing the bikes in that case? I read we can do it at the border, are you just saying that it will take a long time to do that at the border, or are you saying we have to go somewhere else?

The bike has to be evaluated by custom in order to define the value , then you can go to the bank and pay duties and taxes (cash only) . For all this you should take a custom broker for all the paperwork .
Next step you have to pay and get the licenses plates at the SAT (IRS) ; this usually takes several days .
Now you can have the bike removed from your passport .
Now you're good to sell the bike, this needs to be done with an attorney.
You could also sell the bike before all this , but if the buyer doesn't do all the paperwork right , you'll be stuck with the bike in your passport.