How to import car parts from Dubai to Madagascar

Madagascar asks for no product certificate on new car parts in the sources we read. The US Commerce Department's guide, last published in August 2025, lists the papers every importer must hold and the goods that are banned or restricted, and car parts appear on neither list. The bans that do touch this trade are on counterfeit products and on goods whose labels give a false origin, so it helps that every line we quote names its brand and that the certificate of origin names the country where each part was made.

We found no Malagasy rule on imported used parts, and with us the question does not arise, because we export new parts only. The rule that shapes demand is about vehicles. Madagascar admits only left-hand-drive cars, and the used cars it imports are mostly old: the Toamasina office of INSTAT, the national statistics institute, put 60.97% of the imported used cars it registered in the last quarter of 2021 at between 10 and 20 years old. Cars of that age get through brake pads, bushes, bearings and timing parts quickly.

Madagascar's own trade records show how much of its parts trade already runs through Dubai. Its customs booked US$14.98 million of vehicle parts under HS 8708 in 2023, and US$2.29 million of that, 15.3%, came from the UAE, third after China and France. Importers usually record a part by the country that made it, so a Gulf supplier that still ranks third in those books is a working channel, not a statistical accident. The UAE's own filing for the same year shows US$8.53 million of parts leaving for Madagascar.

The US Commerce Department's guide gives Madagascar's customs duty as a range of 5 to 20%, adjusted each year when the budget is prepared, and says about 40% of imports pay the 20% rate. It publishes no rate for car parts, so each line on your invoice is classed by its HS code and takes whatever rate your clearing agent reads from the current schedule. Duty is assessed on the CIF value, meaning the goods plus insurance and freight, under the transaction-value method Madagascar adopted in November 2000.

Two more charges follow duty. Import VAT is 20%, a rate the US guide says has not changed for several years, and PwC's tax summary, reviewed in November 2025, lists a GasyNet fee of 0.5% of the CIF value. GasyNet is an entity set up under Malagasy law as a public-private partnership. Neither source says exactly which charges the VAT is calculated on, so the totals in the table assume VAT on the CIF value plus duty, and your clearing agent's assessment overrides them.

Watch the trade preferences when you compare suppliers. The US guide says goods from Madagascar's partner blocs, among them SADC, COMESA and the Indian Ocean Commission, can enter without customs duty. That relief follows where a part was made, not where it was bought. A Korean filter or a Japanese bearing collected in Dubai therefore pays the normal rate, while a part made in South Africa, a SADC member, may enter duty-free. Read the origin of each line on the quote before you set our price against a Johannesburg one.

The US guide names six documents that importers based in Madagascar must hold: the BSC cargo tracking note, which is filled out online; the bill of lading or air waybill; proof of the bank payment; the packing list; the import declaration; and the certificate of origin. The BSC and the import declaration are yours and your clearing agent's to file. Your cargo agent issues the bill of lading or air waybill, and the payment record comes from your own bank when you pay.

From Dubai, our commercial invoice lists every line with its part number, brand, grade, quantity, value and HS code, and the packing list follows the cartons line by line, so your declaration can be built from them without guesswork. The Dubai Chamber's certificate of origin names the maker's country, such as Korea, Japan or Germany, rather than the UAE. Since Madagascar bans goods that carry a false origin, a part re-exported from Dubai is never declared as Emirati.

The UAE side of the file is the export declaration, lodged through Dubai Customs' Mirsal 2 system by a licensed broker or the registered exporter, and the exit certificate Dubai Customs issues once the goods have left. Your agent keeps both with the bill of lading. We ask for a copy of the exit papers too, because a UAE export is zero-rated for VAT only when official proof of exit is held within 90 days.

Your cargo agent or forwarder collects the packed consignment from us in Dubai and books the freight. For a trade order that usually means sea freight to the east-coast port of Toamasina, then the road up to Antananarivo, while small and urgent lines such as sensors, coils or gaskets can fly to the capital's airport at Ivato. Easy Auto does not book freight, choose a vessel, quote a transit time or deliver to an address in Madagascar; those are agreed between you and your agent.

Sea routes out of Jebel Ali carry a 2026 caveat. Every ship leaving that port passes the Strait of Hormuz, where Semafor reported container traffic close to a standstill on 2 September 2026, and trade press described DP World trucking bonded cargo to Fujairah and Khorfakkan on the UAE's east coast to get round the strait. We have not seen the November position. Ask your agent which UAE port and which Indian Ocean service it is using before you fix the size of the order.

Budget for the Malagasy port as well. L'Express de Madagascar, reporting the launch of an association of used-vehicle importers in 2025, named heavy taxes and high port fees at the SMMC and MICTSL terminals among the reasons European car imports fell after the pandemic. Port handling, storage and the clearing agent's fee are charged per consignment rather than per part, which is the plainest reason to send a full list for a workshop or a counter instead of a few boxes.

A person confirms how to pay on WhatsApp once you accept the quote, and nothing is handed to your agent until payment is settled. In Madagascar the bank route matters for clearance as well as for us, because proof of the bank payment is one of the six documents the US guide lists for importers. The same guide says the ariary's exchange rate is set daily on the interbank foreign-currency market, so ask your bank which day's rate it will apply before you agree the total.

Check who you are paying before any ariary leaves your account. Our quote reaches you in the WhatsApp chat you opened from this site, with every line, grade and brand written out. A message from another number, a forwarded screenshot of bank details, or a request to pay a private person instead of the company named on the invoice is a reason to stop and confirm in the original chat. An Antananarivo trader buying through a middleman should ask that middleman for the same written quote.

Madagascar drives on the right, and a FIDI customs guide used by international removal firms states that vehicles with right-hand steering may not be imported. That sets it apart in the Indian Ocean, where Mauritius, the Seychelles, Kenya and Tanzania run right-hand-drive cars. For a Malagasy buyer it means Gulf-specification headlamps, tail lamps, mirrors, bumpers, wings and dashboard parts are built for the same steering side as the car, and can share one list with the filters, brakes and bushes that fit either way.

Steering side is only the first check, and fuel is the second. INSTAT counted 84.2% of the used cars registered in Antananarivo in the first quarter of 2019 as diesel, and eight in ten of the cars newly registered at Toamasina in late 2021. The Gulf version of the same Hyundai or Kia model may well be petrol, so filters, injector parts, glow plugs and engine gaskets must follow the engine code, not the badge. Send the VIN and the engine code with the list, and each line is matched before it is priced.

Korean makes have overtaken European ones in Madagascar's car imports. L'Express de Madagascar reported in 2025 that before the pandemic about ten thousand used Korean vehicles were shipped in each year against roughly six thousand European ones, and that the European flow then shrank under a euro above 5,100 ariary, heavy taxes and port fees. The paper called Hyundai the brand Malagasy buyers purchase most, credited Hyundai and Kia with lower prices and easier parts supply, and put the average used vehicle at 20 million ariary.

Registrations at Toamasina show the mix a workshop actually sees. In INSTAT's bulletin for the port city covering October to December 2021, Mercedes-Benz and Renault led the imported used cars registered there, with Hyundai third, Toyota fourth and Kia fifth. That is one office and one quarter, not the national fleet, but it explains why a Malagasy order often mixes makes: a Mercedes-Benz van, a Korean SUV and a Toyota pickup can all sit on one garage's list, each matched by its own VIN.

We have measured no Hyundai or Kia price ladder in Dubai. The ladder measured on 3 November 2026 was for Toyota parts: front pads 04465-60380 for the Land Cruiser 300 and Prado 250 cost AED 322 to 399 genuine, AED 216 from MK Kashiyama, a Japanese brake brand, and AED 58 to 73 from budget brands, VAT included. Read it as the shape of the market rather than a Korean price. On any line where you are unsure, ask for two grades and the person quoting prices them side by side.

Parts for older models are the recurring complaint. A Newsmada report, which we could read only in summary, said they are getting harder to find in Madagascar and that owners turn to other owners of the same model for help. A new aftermarket line matched by part number is often the practical answer for a ten- or fifteen-year-old Korean or European car, and the quote says plainly when a line exists only as aftermarket.

In Dubai, a person reads your list against the VIN or the old part number, sources each line across UAE distributors and aftermarket suppliers, and replies with the brand and grade of every line. Once you accept and payment is confirmed, the order is packed and labelled to your agent's instructions, the invoice and packing list are issued with an HS code per line, and the cartons are handed over. Gas-charged shock absorbers, batteries, airbag modules, fluids and aerosols stay off export quotes, because carriers can treat them as dangerous goods.

In Madagascar, you are the importer of record. The BSC, the import declaration, customs duty, the GasyNet fee, import VAT, port charges at Toamasina and your clearing agent's fee are yours, paid through your own agents. Because most of those costs fall on each consignment rather than on each part, we quote Malagasy orders by the list at trade quantities: a restock for a workshop, a transport operator or a parts counter, grouped by make and engine code, not one or two pieces.