Carnet extension in Egypt

[the windleys]

Hi does anyone have experience of extending the Carnet in Egypt. They only give you one month on entry and we have had problems with our Landrover and we are running out of time on it. We heard that there was a 15 day leeway to exit the country has anyone heard of that and that we can pay a fine at the end of around 75 ep pounds per day.
many thanks
Colin and Diana

[itchyfeet38]

The grace period you are talking about is for your visa. It doesn't apply to your car. But extending your visa is pretty simple anyway... a couple of hours and a few forms in any large town.

We wanted to stay longer than the 4 weeks permitted on the carnet and I have to say it was a nightmare to extend. We went to Alex having heard bad things about trying to do it at Cairo airport. It turned out to be more expensive and more hassle than entering Egypt in the first place. It took 6 days - 2 to get a pass into the port and 4 days to process. Cost c £200 in total. Basically everything renewed, plates, insurance etc. Who knows if it was all necessary.

Much as I loved Egypt, I wouldn't do it again.

If you do it, don't do it at Alex. I'd give Cairo airport a try. Having deliberately avoided it on the basis of someone else's report their experience was definitely less painful than ours. Don't leave it until the last few days - it will become significantly more expensive.

[michnus]

try the airport, for some obscure reason they have a free hold for vehicles which nobody knows about at the airport.
We had to leave our bikes in Egypt for 6 months due to an accident and they have just ripped us 5000Egyptian pounds and did not listen to any excuse.

The license plate you have to renew at the the traffic department in Cairo, but is not such an issue if over time as the fine is relatively small.

[the windleys]

Again many thanks for your help.

We decided to try our port of entry as we were in Cairo and only 3hrs away from Port Said.
We extended our visa in Cairo 11.5 Egypt pounds one day (normally 2 days). We were given 3 months tourest residence visa no work allowed. Could have been done in Port Said cost unknown.
We drove the next day to Port Said and used our fixer Eslan tel 01289220002. It was completed in 5 hours.

Costs
500 egp for two months for the Carnet
500 egp for the Id, driving licence and insurance 250 egp per month ( we only wanted a month but they gave us two so tell them before it is stamped you may be able to reduce this)
400 egp in bakshish ( this was unexpected make sure you check the total costs before you arrive)
200 egp fee for fixer Eslan who collected us from our hotel.

We were told by the fixer Mr Abouda in Aswan we could pay 75 egp per day for each day of overstay for the Carnet plus 10 egp for a visa but we were worried that once we overstayed we would be at the mercy of the egyptian authorities and the costs would change.
Just a thought if you know you need a longer stay you could try and ask when you enter.

[wearthefoxhat]

This is probably a dumb question but, I assume you already had Egypt on your Carnet from the RAC. Or were you actually able to get a Carnet at the point of entry? Either way, I didnt realise there was a time limit - I thought the limit was just on the visas and the registration plates?

[the windleys]

Egypt only stamps you in on the carnet for 30 days the same as your visa and it is all in Arabic so you need to check. Which is against the spirit of a Carnet.Then due to our break down we had to extend. Both the visa and Carnet.
Hope this helps others. We are now back on track we hope!!

[itchyfeet38]

BTW we did try to get both visa and carnet stamp for more than 30 days on entry at Aswan. They wouldn't do either. It had to be 30 days. We were told we could extend the car papers for free but that turned out not to be the case (obvious in retrospect). It actually cost more to extend than to get into Egypt in the first place

As stated above if you do have to extend DON'T do it in Alex. In my experience the most diffcult port of entry by far. The Windley's had it fairly easy at Port Said and others we heard of were also better off doing it at Cairo airport.