Hi Michael,

Many thanks for your comprehensive details in this post. Clearly you have actually done this before (multiple times apparently), and that is exactly what I was looking for on this site. I need to find someone who literally looked into the eyes of a Customs Officer and successfully retrieved their bike in Toronto. But my situation has a slight snag requiring a few details and questions:

When your bike arrived, did you simply hand over your documents (registration, insurance, proof of ownership, etc.) to the agent and they looked them over and checked the VIN on your bike? Or did they enter the VIN into a computer to locate your machine? My (hopeful) entry into Toronto from Paris is complicated as follows.

I own the bike, purchased in the UK 15 years ago (F650GS), registered in my name at a UK address. But I live in Southern California, hold a US passport and US drivers license. The bike has never been to North America and obviously I’m not a Canadian Citizen. No Canadian paperwork, passport, license, etc.. My intent is to airfreight the bike from Paris to Toronto, ride it directly to the US border crossing, and ride across the US to California. So I have two problems: First with the Canadian Customs agent at the airport, and second with the US Customs agent as I try to enter the States. It sounds like I have to convince the Canadian agent that I’m not importing the bike to Canada at all, simply transiting Toronto for a few hours. Not sure how I can “prove” this to anyone, but that’s my goal. Then I have to convince the US Customs agent that the bike requires a temporary importation for 12 months…, which will be a challenge.

As you stated, it’s very likely the Customs agent will not be familiar with temporary import situations. And they will almost certainly never have had a US citizen bring a UK bike (which the US citizen owns but has been touring the UK, EU and North Africa intermittently for the past 15 years). I shudder to think what they’re going to do when they see me, if I even get as far as Toronto. But I have to make this work somehow. (My UK rider friends say I should just sell the bike in the UK and walk away. I’ve ridden it to many amazing destinations and don’t want to abandon it. There is much to explore in the US.)

Is there a way to converse with you offline and possibly engage your “services” to help me figure out how to approach this dilemma? I have an additional complication that I must solve at the US border, and if you’ve actually crossed the border to ride in the States you can help me answer some questions on that topic as well.

Is there a way we can connect offline?

Many thanks -

Chip
Southern California

Pretty sure that as a US citizen, you cannot temporarily import a foreign-plated bike that you own for your own use for 12 months. You are not a temporary visitor - you are a permanent resident importing a vehicle for permanent use (12 months is definitely permanent use), so you would be expected to import the vehicle, get US plates for it, pay customs fees, etc.

I think your UK rider friends are entirely correct.

Theoretically you might import it on a carnet - the way that expensive equipment like movie cameras etc. is temporarily imported into a country, or how some manufacturers' press/testing vehicles are allowed to drive in the US without meeting US registration standards - but that would be an entire separate endeavor that's probably not appropriate for a private individual.

I'm beginning to think you may be right Antyx - The more I research the problem, I find that I can not apply for a Temporary Import because I'm a US citizen. Ironically, if I lived in the UK (or elsewhere), I wouldn't have this problem and would have 12 months to ride before I had to export the bike. As for applying for a standard import option, after reading about the procedure, the complications are so substantial that very few even try, which is what our Customs and Border Protection Agency Department intended. They have very deliberately made the process so complex, that I've read one rider had to put his bike in storage and hasn't seen it for 7 years. Thanks for your comments.