Need help with Georgia-Turkey border situation & additional European border questions
 

We’ve recently started a long motorcycle trip involving countries in Eastern Europe/Western Asia and are in a tight spot and could use some guidance from those who know.

We are two US citizens who bought two motorcycles in Tbilisi Georgia. We purchased the motorcycles in our names and were given: plastic vehicle registration card, paper sales/purchase document. We carry International Drivers’ Permits.

We intend to travel to the following countries, roughly: Turkey, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan. Our plan is to end the trip in Georgia and sell the bikes back there.

:helpsmilie:Our current tight spot: We endeavored to cross the Georgia-Turkey border today and encountered an issue that our motorcycles are not registered in the country of our residence (here is the rule: “persons who are resident in a territory other than Turkey can import their vehicles for private use registered in their country of residence.”). Ultimately, a nice border agent offered us a 15-day transit visa. This is sufficient to get us across Turkey but we both would like more time on this passage, as well as to return through because we intend to circle back to Georgia after Turkey.
The company who sold us the motorcycle said that folks in our position have been able to do trips like this without problems in terms of crossing borders, but they also remembered today that they failed to instruct us to obtain an “export declaration”. They say that this would avoid the problem we encountered today, and they think we will also encounter additional border problems if we don’t obtain this before traveling onward.

:smartass:Our questions to the experts:

• What is this export customs declaration? Is this necessary only for getting the bikes out of Georgia, which we’ve already done, or will we also need it elsewhere on this trip?
• Will it actually solve our problem obtaining a tourist visa in Turkey? E.g. will it create some sort of exception to the rule that the vehicle must be registered in my country of origin?
• Are there other carnets or papers we should be working on in advance to prevent similar issues at future borders in the aforementioned countries?
• Once we’re in EU countries, should border crossings be more straightforward?

Your last question first: most EU countries, certainly those in Schengen, have no internal border checks at all - it is the same as crossing from one US state into another. But for your list, only Slovenia and Hungary are in the Schengen zone. (And Greece I guess, but it has no land border with any Schengen country, only ferries and flights.)

In practice, I can't imagine any country other than those bordering Georgia actually caring about the export declaration, as long as you have proof of ownership of the vehicle.

How are you intending to get from Romania to Armenia? I expect the Black Sea ferries are not running because of the war, so you're pretty much stuck going back via Bulgaria and through all of Turkey into Georgia (the Turkey-Armenia land border seems to be closed), and into Armenia from there.

Thank you for the information! In fact, our original plan has always been to loop back through turkey before getting to Armenia, so that whole sequence is fine with us. It sounds like you are saying that our lack of an export document should not pose a problem for the rest of our journey, so it sounds like our current plan is sound. Definitely open to any additional comments from anyone else! Thank you so much!

Sorry I can not answer your questions but one thing I think is important to find out:
You mention an export document; are you here talking about officially exporting it out of Georgia?
If so, then you will have a problem selling the bikes back in Georgia because then you would have to import them first or find a buyer who wants to import them. And importing a vehicle usually involves paying a lot of money.

Update: we got into Bulgaria without a hitch whatsoever. Border agents didn't even ask about insurance (they seemed more interested in asking questions about the bikes themselves). If we encounter the same issue at the Turkey border when we return, we plan to simply overstay our visa and pay the fines, because they sound affordable (I forget how much it was, but when the border agent told us, we shrugged it off as reasonable).