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Message: [QUOTE="Bombastus, post: 90803, member: 2178"] Since March 1, 2024, every imported car needs a Zimbabwean conformity certificate regardless of value, while general goods only cross the threshold above 1,000 US dollars. That single line separates vehicles from everything else in the freight world. A crate of cheap footwear can slip under the bar. A car never does, whether it is a fifteen thousand dollar Fortuner or a rough runabout bought for parts. The programme is not run by the revenue authority, which catches people out. Consignment Based Conformity Assessment sits under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and the appointed assessment body works to that mandate. Customs officers enforce the outcome at the gate. They do not decide it. [HEADING=2]The certificate is a physical inspection, not paperwork[/HEADING] Somebody looks at the car. Assessments happen in the exporting country, at landing ports, and at the major border posts before a vehicle enters Zimbabwe. The check on a Japanese import can therefore happen thousands of kilometers before it reaches you. Book it early, because the sequence matters more than the cost. An inspection arranged after the car is already on a ship has lost most of its usefulness, and all of its leverage. The process starts with a request for certification lodged with the assessment body, not with a phone call at the port. The fee is fixed per vehicle rather than charged on value. The 2024 notice sets 200 US dollars per vehicle unit for cars coming from the United Kingdom. Everywhere else it is 140 dollars per vehicle unit. Against a five-figure import, that is rounding. The scope is broader than most people expect. The regulated list runs across tariff headings 87.01 to 87.07 and 87.16. That pulls in tractors, buses, ordinary cars, cargo vehicles, trailers, and parts. If it moves goods or people on wheels, assume it is covered. The clue is in the name. Assessment is consignment-based, so it attaches to this shipment and this vehicle. There is no blanket approval for a model that carries over to the next car you buy. The certificate also has to be in hand before the vehicle reaches Zimbabwe, obtained in the country of supply or, at the latest, before arrival at the port. Turning up and asking to sort it out on the spot is the expensive route. One more trap sits in the filing cabinet. Exemption letters issued before June 2022 were cancelled outright in September 2022. An old waiver in your paperwork is worth nothing at the border now. [HEADING=2]A wound-back odometer ends the import there and then[/HEADING] The assessment body states plainly that [URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/how-to-check-a-used-cars-real-mileage-in-zimbabwe.76229/'][B]vehicles with altered odometers[/B][/URL] are not permitted for import. Not fined, not conditionally cleared. Refused. That rule does more work than any consumer notice, because it puts the mileage question in front of an inspector. At that moment, the car is still someone else's problem rather than yours. [B]The conformity check on an imported car[/B] is the one independent look at it before the money is gone. For a buyer at home, this is the part worth asking about. Ask which country the vehicle was assessed in. Ask to see the certificate itself rather than a photograph of a photograph. Returning residents bringing in an older vehicle are not exempt either. The age concession they enjoy covers eligibility to import, and nothing else. The certificate is still required, and the inspection still happens. [HEADING=2]Arriving without it costs 12 percent of CIF value[/HEADING] Goods that reach a point of entry without the required certificate face destination assessment. They also face a penalty fee of 12 percent of CIF value, payable to the Treasury. The wording sits in section 8 of the 2024 notice, and it is not discretionary. That figure used to be higher. The penalty ran at 15 percent until business complaints prompted a cut. The Ministry's director for quality assurance and trade measures announced the reduction, effective the same day the new notice landed. Then the real bill starts. The importer has to move the consignment to a bonded warehouse at their own cost so it can be assessed on arrival. Storage, demurrage, unloading the container or truck, handling for the assessment, and any other cost tied to that process all sit with the importer. So the penalty is the predictable part. Twelve percent of CIF on a 12,000 dollar landed cost is 1,440 dollars. You can budget for that the day you decide to skip the inspection. The warehouse clock cannot be budgeted the same way. It depends on queue length and on how fast your clearing agent produces documents. It also depends on whether the assessment finds a fault that pushes the car back into limbo. Every one of those days is billed to you at a rate nobody quoted when the shipping deal looked cheap. [/QUOTE]

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