Shipping cars from Greece to Egypt

[Mike Walkabout]

Hi All,
today we have handed over our car(s) at the port of Pireias in Greece to have them shipped to Alexandria in Egypt ... we have written a detailed account of our experiences, costs and contact details on our blog ... Shipping Cars from Greece to Egypt – Part One | 4-wheel-nomads

[Mark hadley]

Originally Posted by Mike Walkabout

Hi All,
t...at the port of Pireias in Greece to have them shipped to Alexandria in Egypt ... ..... Shipping Cars from Greece to Egypt – Part One | 4-wheel-nomads

Wow that's good. Did it go in a container? Did you leave anything valuable in it?
thanks for the post, it is one of the most encouraging stories recently.

[Roman]

Hi Mike

Good to know people still have enough courage to ship cars to Alex by sea. I hope you cars do end up in the Old Port, not Dekhila (have a look in the archives to find out why).

Keep us posted how you did on arrival in Egypt.

[Mike Walkabout]

Here is part two of our experiences shipping our Land Rover from Greece to Egypt ... Shipping Cars from Greece to Egypt – Part Two | 4-wheel-nomads
All the best, Mischa

[g1_]

Hi Mike,

thanks for the write up!

[Sam Rutherford]

Shipped our cars three weeks ago.

All fine, took about 6 days from arrival in Alex to getting out of port.

Latest scam is an obligatory 2x fire extinguishers at 100$ each! So tell your agent you'll not ship with him if this has to be paid.

We already had two in each car, and still had to pay for two more - argument continues but chance of success slim...

[itchyfeet38]

The fire extinguisher(s) requirement has existed at Alex for some time. We had the exact same situation in 2011, and we were only renewing our vehicle permit. Rumours that the head of customs family happen to run a fire extinguisher business are completely unsubstantiated...

Congratulations on getting there.

[AndreasM]

My girlfriend and I used this procedure to ship our two motorcycles to Africa in mid-September 2016. It worked well. At Minoan Lines, we most talked to Giorgos, the manager. He was extremely helpful and welcoming. We went to their office on Monday, September 12, and there was two available ships the following Wednesday. We agreed to meet there with the bikes Wednesday morning to pay, do customs, and put them on the ship (which was from Grimaldi). Everything went pretty much as described above.

On the greek side we paid 886,48 EUR for two bikes. We were quoted 400 EUR per bike, but Giorgos forgot to add VAT to the quote. Make sure to check that before you go to the ATM :-) We were silly enough to only bring 800 EUR, so we had to go get more. This was all paid directly at the Minoan office and covered all costs, including any port/customs charges, a customs agent/fixer in the port, and the actual shipping.

We flew to Cairo and stayed there for a few days. We had been promised the ship would arrive in Alexandria on the 17th, but it did not come until the 20th. We tracked it on Marinetraffic.com.

In Alexandria, we did not use Nermien Mamish's services (CFS Egypt). She quoted us 935 EUR per bike (870 EUR for CFS, and 65 in discharge fees for Grimaldi), including everything. That was quite expensive.

Instead, Minoan Lines put us in touch with their local partner, Marina Shipping. At Marina Shipping we talked to Dina. She was quite professional. They quoted us 500 EGP for discharge and 300 EUR for customs per bike, all inclusive. It turned out that on top of that, we also had to pay 500 EGP to the Egyptian Automobile Touring Club (their version of ADAC) to have out carnet authorized. At least we think that is what the club did :-) They initially complained about our carnets being German, while we are Danish, but accepted reluctantly after we explained that no Danish institution will issue carnets (which is true).

This way was much cheaper than CFS's offer, but probably not as pleasant. Our fixer, Ahmed, got everything done properly, but his English was quite poor, so he often had trouble explaning was was going on. He also initially tried to make us pay for taxis and port fees, until we made Dina call him and explain that we had paid for everything. It is unclear whether it was a misunderstanding, or he was trying to con us. After the call, things went smoothly, though we had to insist on him paying the taxis. He would quite often try to make us pay, but in the end he understood and gave up. So make sure that you get a quote with all costs included, and stand your ground if the fixer wants you to pay for anything.

We started the paperwork with Marina on the 19th, where we went to the Automobile Club with Ahmed. On the 21st we paid for everything at Marina, and went to the port to begin customs work. This was very quick. We were at the port with Ahmed around 10 am, and could leave only 20 minutes later, while Ahmed worked the rest of the day.

On the 22nd, we got the bikes, as promised by Ahmed. I don't think it would be possible to get them any earlier than two days after the ship arrived (CFS said three days). We went to the port and met Ahmed at 8.30 (we had agreed on 9 am, but went there early, and it turned out that Ahmed also arrived early). After a long day of paperwork and waiting (Ahmed did almost everything, we were just shuffled around different places to wait), we were released - with the bikes - at around 4.30 pm. That was about 2 hours later than Ahmed has estimated, but that's Egypt for you :-)

We now had Egyptian license plates and insurance, along with all necessary paperwork.

The fees to be paid at the port were (according to Ahmed, per bike):
* Customs: 600 EGP
* License plates: 300 EGP
* Insurance: 200 EGP
* Storage: 400 EGP (was his estimate - the real number turned out to be 750 EGP, which is a crazy high number for just two days of storage on a dirt floor - Ahmed was furious about it)
* Port access permission: 50 EGP (so we could enter the port to get the bikes)
All of these fees were covered by the 300 EUR.

I think it would be foolish and impossible to do all of this without a fixer, probably even if you are local and fluent in Arabic.

One more thing to note: The initial quote from Marina was 60 EUR + 300 EUR (discharge and customs). We foolishly thought we could pay all of it in Egyptian pounds, so we did not bring that many EUR from Greece. However, we had to pay the 300 EUR in actual euros (the price in EGP was almost double), so we ended up on an exhausting hunt for euros in Alexandria. This was quite difficult, as currency exchange is currently illegal in Egypt. Lesson: Bring plenty of euros and dollars, it is very difficult and expensive to find them here. Fortunately, Egypt seems very safe, so it does not feel too bad to carry a lot of money for the short time until you pay the shipping company.

Finally, we have soft bags on our bikes, so no way to lock our baggage. The shipping agency warned us that port workers often steal things, so they took no responsibility for anything on there. We didn't feel like paying for extra bags on the plane, so we repacked our stuff and left only things on the bikes we could afford to lose. In the end, not much was stolen, only 2 pairs of flip-flop, an old pair of running shoes, one pair of pants and three shirts. And two BMW emblems from one of our bikes. It cost us quite a bit of worrying, though :-) I left my helmet on the bike, though locked in place with a wire. In hindsight, I should have taken it with me on the plane, though it was still there when we got the bikes.

To conclude, the shipping from Pireus to Alexandria cost us 743.24 EUR and 1000 EGP per bike. The whole thing took 8 days from we left the bikes at the port in Piraeus till we could ride them out of Alexandria.

[wickychicky]

Fantastically detailed write up guys, thanks a lot! I hope we can use Minoan going the other way...though it's nit for about a year yet, so things might change a lot by then.
Thanks again for all the infos.

[lenoxhill]

Hi All,
Wanted to provide an update as my motorcycle is currently on the ship between Piraeus and Alexandria.
All the info above is still up to date on the Greek side. Xanthi at Minoan lines was quite helpful with the whole process.
There does seem to be some change with fixers on Egypt side. I spoke with Dina at Marina Shipping and she said the she no longer offers any customs support, nor does she recommend anyone. I asked a number of times just to clarify.
I found the contact information for Ahmed in an old post and contacted him directly, he quoted me a price of $700 for customs assistance in Alex.
That being said, I am going to go with CFS (870 eure) since they have good reviews and have been very responsive/helpful with my emails.
Quite an expensive adventure at Alexandria customs....

[Ride Far]

Originally Posted by lenoxhill

I found the contact information for Ahmed in an old post and contacted him directly, he quoted me a price of $700 for customs assistance in Alex.
That being said, I am going to go with CFS (870 eure) since they have good reviews and have been very responsive/helpful with my emails.
Quite an expensive adventure at Alexandria customs....

CFS in Alexandria might be a bit more, but I've never heard of any surprise fees being added on, unlike some other customs agents.

I worked with Nermien Mamish and her team at CFS getting my bike from Alexandria to Piraeus April 2016 and all went smoothly. Good luck

[Studentx]

@Ride Far

What was the cost of your shipping from Alexandria with CFS (including costs on Greek side)?

[Ride Far]

Originally Posted by Studentx

@Ride Far

What was the cost of your shipping from Alexandria with CFS (including costs on Greek side)?

Same as Lenox, about $900 USD. Don't recall what the fees in Greece amounted to but it wasn't too bad.

[barakatos]

Hello, I'm looking to ship a motorcycle to Egypt from Athens and was wondering if anyone had a recent experience with this and how it went? If you could let me know how much it cost you and which freight forwarder you used I would be most grateful!

[Sam Rutherford]

2015 - it's expensive and then you get to Egypt, and it gets really expensive (lots of made-up fees).

Sorry to not be more positive!