How to ship a car from the USA to Europe: costs and transit times

What it costs to ship a car from the USA to Europe

There is no single price to ship a car from the USA to Europe, because nobody sells the whole trip as one product. Your forwarder (the company that books the container and handles the export paperwork) adds its own margin to the parts it buys from others and passes on the rest. A complete quote has these parts, roughly in the order the car meets them:

1. Inland transport in the US: a car carrier truck, or a tow truck for a car that does not move, from the yard to the forwarder's export warehouse near the port.
2. Export handling: receiving the car, photos, loading and strapping it into a container (or delivering it to the RoRo terminal), and the US export filing.
3. Ocean freight: your share of a container, or the RoRo rate for the car, from the US port to the European port.
4. Marine insurance: optional but sensible, priced as a percentage of the value you insure.
5. Destination port costs: unloading the container, terminal handling and any storage after the free days.
6. Customs clearance: the broker's fee for the import declaration, plus the duty and VAT themselves, which are taxes, not shipping.
7. Transport home: a truck from the port to your town, or to another country if the car continues by road.

When you compare offers, ask every forwarder to fill in the same lines, and ask which ones are fixed and which ones are "estimated". Destination costs and inland towing are the lines most often left vague, and the ones that grow later.

The lines on a shipping quote, one by one

Two lines are not shipping at all but sit on the same invoice: the auction's storage fees, which keep running while a car waits for a truck or a title, and the taxes paid at import. Keep them apart in your own spreadsheet, so a cheap freight rate does not hide an expensive delay.

What makes one quote higher than another

Distance from the yard to the port

Copart and IAAI have yards across the whole country, and the car has to reach a port your forwarder loads from. A yard a short drive from New Jersey or Savannah costs little to clear; a yard in the middle of the country can cost several times as much and take a week or two longer, because the truck has to fill a load going in the right direction. When two similar lots are on offer, the one closer to a good export port is often the cheaper car once it is in Europe.

A car that does not move

A car that rolls, steers and brakes can be driven or pushed onto a carrier. One that does not (seized wheels, a broken suspension arm, no key for a steering lock) needs a winch, a forklift or a flatbed, both at the yard and at the warehouse. Carriers charge for that, and some refuse. The lot's condition label (run and drive, engine starts, not checked) and its damage photos tell you what to expect; our article on damage types explains what the labels really mean.

Size of the car

Freight is priced per container or per cubic metre, so size matters more than weight. A 40-foot container usually takes three or four cars, sometimes more with loading racks; a full-size pickup or a long van takes the space of more than one sedan. Expect a large SUV or pickup to carry a higher share of the container, and for RoRo, a rate based on the car's dimensions.

Route, season and surcharges

A direct sailing from the US East Coast to a North Sea port is the simplest route. Cars for the Baltic or the Black Sea are often transhipped in a hub such as Bremerhaven, Rotterdam or Antwerp, which adds a handling step and time. Ocean rates also move with the container market, and many quotes carry separate fuel surcharges, peak-season surcharges and, for shipments to Europe since the EU emissions trading system was extended to shipping in 2024, an emissions surcharge from some carriers. Ask whether the ocean rate you are given includes them.

Waiting

The cheapest freight rate is worth little if the car waits. A car cannot be exported without its original title, so a slow title from an insurance seller means storage at the yard or at the warehouse. A forwarder that ships from your port once a week will also make a car wait less than one that consolidates a container every two or three weeks.

US export ports for cars going to Europe

Forwarders that ship auction cars to Europe consolidate in a handful of ports. Which one your car goes to depends mostly on the yard's location and on the routes your forwarder runs:

• New Jersey (Newark and Elizabeth) and the wider New York area: the main gateway for the Northeast and a large share of transatlantic sailings.
• Baltimore: a large RoRo port, used for cars from the Mid-Atlantic.
• Savannah, and Charleston for some forwarders: the Southeast, with a dense network of Copart and IAAI yards nearby.
• Houston: Texas and the South Central states.
• Los Angeles and Long Beach: California and the West. Ships to Europe go through the Panama Canal, so transit is longer.
• Miami and other ports: used by some forwarders for Florida yards.

Before export, US Customs and Border Protection wants the original title (or a certified copy) plus two copies, and for ocean shipments the documents and the vehicle must be presented at least 72 hours before export, as set out on the CBP motor vehicle export page↗. Your forwarder handles this, but the title has to reach them first.

Arrival ports in Europe and where the cars go next

The European port is often not in the buyer's country. The choice depends on sailings, transhipment, port costs and where the car will be cleared through customs:

If you clear customs in a different country from the port, the car travels under a transit procedure (the forwarder or broker opens a transit declaration, usually T1, with a guarantee) to a customs office near you. This is common for buyers in Poland who use Klaipėda or Bremerhaven, and for Ukraine and Moldova, which are outside the EU and have their own import rules. A transit adds a fee and paperwork but keeps the car in the customs system until you are ready to pay the import taxes where you live.

How long shipping takes, step by step

The ocean leg is the part people ask about, and often the most predictable one. Ask your forwarder for the scheduled transit time of the specific route and the cut-off date of the next sailing. Then add the time you cannot control: the title and the truck.

A worked example: one sedan from a Copart yard to Klaipėda

The table below shows how the lines add up for one hypothetical car: a mid-size sedan that rolls and steers, bought at a yard about 150 km from the New Jersey port, shipped in a shared 40-foot container to Klaipėda and trucked to a town in Lithuania. Every amount is an assumption chosen to show the arithmetic, not a market price or a quote. Replace each one with the figures from your forwarder before you decide anything.

Two things are worth noticing even with made-up numbers. First, the ocean freight is less than half of the total; the towing and the European side together are larger. Second, change one assumption, a car that does not steer in a yard 1,500 km from the port, and the towing line alone could become the largest item.

The freight and insurance up to the EU border also become part of the car's customs value, so they are taxed again at import: duty (where it applies) and VAT are calculated on the price of the car plus those costs. The truck from the port onward is not part of the customs value. The customs duty article shows that calculation with the same kind of stated assumptions.

Marine insurance and what it really covers

Forwarders usually offer cargo insurance as a percentage of the value you declare. Two questions matter more than the rate. Is the cover "total loss only" (the container goes overboard or the ship burns) or does it include damage in handling? And how does the policy treat a car that was already damaged when it was loaded? Many policies for salvage cars cover total loss only, and none will pay for damage that was there before.

That is why the photos taken at the export warehouse matter. Ask for them before the container is closed, keep the auction's lot photos, and compare both with the car when it is unloaded. A missing mirror or a new dent is far easier to claim with dated photos from both ends. Report anything at unloading, in writing, before you sign the delivery receipt.

Before you ask for shipping quotes

Get two or three forwarders to price the same car on the same lines, and give them what they need to answer properly:

• The yard's location and the lot's condition label (does it roll, steer and brake, is there a key).
• The car's make, model and size, and whether anything is loose or stored inside it.
• The European port you prefer, the country where you want to clear customs, and your final address.
• Whether the title is already with the auction or still pending from the seller.
• The value you want insured and the cover you want.

Then do the sum before sale day, not after: the price you expect to pay, the auction's fees, the full shipping stack, duty and VAT on the customs value, and the repair. If you set your price from what similar cars actually sold for (our article on Copart sold prices explains where final bids come from), the shipping lines are what decide whether the deal still works. Once the car has landed, the remaining steps are paperwork and inspection, covered in registering a US car in Europe.