Bringing a bike into the USA…. possible?
 

Hi guys,

I am buying a motorbike (under 3000 usd$) which will be registered in Argentina, Chile or Brazil and then driving it up to the USA, where I will be living for at least 3 years.

How long will I be able to ride the bike there before needing to registrar it?
What is the process and cost of importing permanently? Do I need to?
Can I sell it there?

Any info or tips would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

David

docdocdoc@mac.com

Motorcycle registration, answer varies by state
 

You mention being in the US for three years. Will you be living in one state or continuously traveling all three years.

The answer varies by state. For instance in Colorado, once you establish residency, you are required to register your vehicle in Colorado. Residency is defined as living in Colorado more than 30 days or obtaining employment in Colorado. Also in Colorado, you would be required to obtain a Colorado driver's license after establishing residency. The driver's license requires a written and driving test, along with proof of completion of a motorcycle safety class.

If you are stopped by the police or become involved in a crash, you would be required to provide proof of current insurance, current registration or vehicle ownership information and a driver's license.

If you are not going to meet the residency definition in a state, you can ride the motorcycle with foreign license plates and a foreign driver's license.

If you have specific state information, I can help you look it up.

Most places will take a driver/rider license from another place as equivalent to their own, give you their equivalent and cancel the other one. They may require some tests on local laws.. But it is not usually the same as going for a new license by someone who has not held a license.

-------------------- the bike ..
Federally you may have importation things to do - customs duty? Pollution and conformance requirements?

================ anything is possible... just money and time

David:

The key issue for you is that you plan to permanently import the motorcycle... you are not temporarily visiting the country as a tourist. I know you mentioned '3 years', but there are only 2 categories that exist: Temporary tourists passing through (for never longer than 6 months at the most), and permanent importation, which is anything that requires a local licence plate.

That means that there are a whole bunch of different rules and regulations to consider that would not apply to a tourist who is temporarily visiting a country on a short-term basis.

If you are honest when you present yourself upon entering the new country, you will declare that you are importing the motorcycle. Generally speaking, because you are re-settling in a new country, the moto will be allowed in free of duty and tax, because it will be considered "settlers' effects", same as your furniture and clothing.

But, it is very unlikely you will then be allowed to ride the moto at all with the foreign plates on it. Not even for one day.

You will probably need to have a safety inspection carried out on the moto to ensure that it complies with the vehicle requirements for your new country. For example, in the USA, an amber reflector at the front and red reflector at the rear are required on the sides of motorcycles. In Europe, there are regulations governing front turn signal operation that are different than those in North America. You might need to comply with emission regulations as well (let's hope not).

Once all the safety and environmental regulations have been complied with and the vehicle approved for use in your new country (and new state, in the case of the USA), you would then register it locally and get a local licence plate. Only then could you drive it.

Your driver's licence is a totally different matter - typically, immigrants are permitted to use their home driver licence for a limited period of time, but this depends on what the new country thinks of the licencing standards of the old country. Here in Canada, an immigrant from Western Europe can use their European driver licence for a month or so before it is obligatory to get a Canadian (provincial) licence, but the driver licence of an immigrant from most African countries is not accepted for use in Canada (even though it would be accepted for temporary use of a tourist from that same country).

Generally speaking, it is near impossible to import a vehicle (car or motorcycle) from a distant country (meaning, another continent) into your new country. It is usually the emissions regulations that present the barrier to entry. For this reason, I suggest you very carefully research the US vehicle import regulations as soon as possible, because I think it is most likely you will discover that your bike won't pass the safety or emission checks without modifications that exceed the value of the bike. In that case, your best course of action will be to sell it before you leave the home country.

Michael

Read the above again and again until satisfied. He's right.

Your other option is to buy a USA-registered bike in South America from someone who rode it down and doesn't want to ride it home. Advance research on how to do this without getting stuck is essential. All the answers have been provided multiple times on this site, but they're difficult to ferret out because for the most part they're ever-so-slightly illegal.

If you're lucky (or smart), you can figure out how to do it legally, e.g., purchase a bike and have the ownership transferred in it's home state in the USA, collect the new paperwork and maybe license plate, and ride it homeward.

All standard caveats apply. Hope that's helpful.

Mark

If you are a non US citizen, you can bring the bike in. If you come in over land from Mexico, no one will even look at your bike. You will not be meeting any customs inspectors while riding around and as long as you're a foreigner with a foreign licence, the cops won't know if you've been here 3 days or 3 years. When you leave, no one checks.

The problem that VicMitch's reply does not consider is that if you ride bike (or drive a car) with a foreign plate on it in the same community for a longer time than a 'tourist' would, your use of that vehicle will come to an abrupt end the first time you get stopped by police for any reason (spot check, cop curious about seeing a foreign plated vehicle, speeding, etc.).

A legitimate tourist - by that I mean someone who genuinely resides in a different country, and is only temporarily in the host country for tourism - can ride a foreign plated bike provided that it is properly insured for use within the country being visited. But, a person who is resident in a country cannot operate a foreign plated vehicle without falling afoul of all sorts of rules and regulations.

There is also the question of how one would get insurance for a foreign plated vehicle in the US for a longer period of time that what a tourist would normally need.

Lastly, if you are riding the bike within 100 miles (as the crow flies) from the US border, you WILL encounter US Border Patrol officials, and you WILL get stopped. I recently rode from Alabama to California and back with my Canadian registered motorcycle, and was stopped 6 times. In every instance, the Border Patrol people were stopping every single vehicle (car, truck, or motorcycle) that passed by, and checking the citizenship of the people inside. On several of these occasions, they had set up their checkpoint on US Interstate 5.

Michael

None of these answers are completely accurate.

There are two international agreements, dating back to the 1940s, to which the U.S. is a signer, governing some such imports. These agreements are still in effect, and U.S. federal laws are written so as to not infringe upon them. If you are a resident of a foreign country which is a signer (which includes most countries in the Americas) you may bring the foreign registered vehicle into the U.S. for up to one year. The operating word here is "resident," not "citizen," so a U.S. citizen who is a foreign resident may enter the U.S. under these agreements. The vehicle must leave the country within one year and can not be sold in the U.S., however, there is no restriction on re-importation. There are no restrictions on vehicle equipment or emissions, if the vehicle is registered in a signer's country.

If these agreements do not apply to your situation, there are three additional categories of import, depending on the vehicle. If the vehicle is identical to a U.S. version of the vehicle, it can be imported on that basis. Identical includes conforming with U.S. safety equipment and emissions standards. If the vehicle is 25 or more years old, it can be imported on that basis, regardless of safety/emissions equipment, by filling out two forms and providing them to U.S. Customs officials at specific border crossings. If the vehicle does not fit into either of these categories, a bond must be placed, and a federally-certified private company must take possession of the vehicle until it is modified to meet U.S. safety/emissions standards. This last process is often extremely costly.

I am not an attorney and can not give legal advice. I have imported vehicles to the U.S. using a couple of these processes, but not all of them. However, much of this info is available online on the U.S. Customs websites (including downloadable forms), www.customs.ustreas.gov and U.S. Customs and Border Protection | Securing America's Borders. The international agreements are available on other websites, search for "Convention on the Regulation of Inter-American Automotive Traffic."