Temporary Licensing a foreign bike in South America
 

Hi there,

I'm looking at shipping a bike to Chile for the start of a trip im doing through South and Central America.

Do you have to register your bike or do you just drive it from the port/airport and make sure you have all your papers from your original country, in my case that is New Zealand.

Cheers,

Aidan

You will need to process through customs and get a temporary import. You can do this yourself if your Spanish is good enough but will be quicker with an agent. Make sure you have your title or what ever they have in NZ to prove ownership, not a copy but the original.

Are you flying it in or is it coming by boat? I think customs is easier when it comes by air, less running around and less people involved.

:scooter:Bob

The formalities at the port of arrival will be the messiest to navigate and this is where a shipping agent might be worth the cost, especially if there are several layers of officialdom to deal with and you don't know the system. Each port of entry has their own special system so that info should be sorted out before you leave home.

After that, crossing into successive countries is just a matter of having your passport stamped out at Immigration (MAKE SURE THEY DO STAMP IT) and surrendering your Temporary (Vehicle) Import Permit at the Aduana of the current country (which may be in the same room or same building or even 150km further on), then going to the post of the next country (which may be in the same room or same building or even 150km further on) to fill out the entry slip and get your passport stamped in (MAKE SURE THEY DO) at Immigration and then to the Aduana (Customs) (wherever it is) to get the new TVIP. This can take between 30 minutes and a very long time and everyone's experiences will vary.

Basic requirements relating to the vehicle at borders other than the port of entry are that it be registered in the country of origin (not always observed) and you will need the title papers and or the current registration papers. If your country doesn't issue a title document then bring purchase receipts to back up the rego papers. This assumes all the papers are in your name. Liability insurance is often mandatory in many countries but not always easy to find, but is VERY STRONGLY recommended.

Good idea to make a copy of the TVIP and ask the officer to stamp it so you have proof that you handed the TVIP in (or at least that you were in that border post) because procedures are sometimes pretty slack and your old TVIP might never get processed which means when you want to enter in the future, your record will still show the (now expired) permit and that can cause major problems.

Make sure you know about any requirements for pre-application of visas, visa and reciprocity fees and the widely varying validity periods of both personal visa and TVIP. Are they for whole calendar months or multiples of 30 days because overstaying visas can result in fines and overstaying TVIP can result in confiscation of your vehicle. Some countries have border checks for fruit and vegetables and meats and some have internal checks as well. Some have sniffer dogs so cheating might prove costly.

Travelling in Argentina? Bring US dollars and cut your expenses down by 40%. ATMs are mostly easy to find, but some require a chip or they won't work. Have two ways to get money out. Cash is king in many places - Bolivia and Peru for instance - but credit cards will often work to buy fuel in more developed countries. Fees for using credit cards are often quite high..

Have fun anyway.

Oh, I always carry an International Driving Permit as it is theoretically required in most countries, but many people don't bother.. Make sure you have currency on your NZ license for the whole of your trip.

Copies of all your documentation are worth doing - in colour and laminated - as most times officials will be happy if you just show the copies. But not always.

Good advice above, make sure you bring ya Kiwi License (assuming here you are Kiwi), my international has never been needed yet, they don't want it.

TVIP are simple, you will get the swing of it easily, the first one will be torment.

As said bring as much clean USD as you think you will need at least for Argentina.

Make sure your certificate of title is in your name, make perfect colour copies, only ever use the original at borders, photocopy everything x 5 to start with, Central America will deplete them quicker being needlessly paper heavy but that is how they work.

If on a Kiwi passport you will only need a VISA fro Paraguay, the rest NZ has reciprocity agreements, Paraguay ... not worth the $160 USD they want.

Let us know if you are on Kiwi papers, we can give you some good info that will help as NZers are seen in good light over here.

Cheers Andi