I started my travel one year ago shipping my bike to Buenos Aires. Each time i entered Argentina again, i was given 3 month and my bike 8 month. In June i had to go back to France for 4 month and left it in Formosa at a local motoquero house i met there. Before leaving the country, i decided to visit Asuncion and while coming back i didnt see i only was granted 3 month for the bike. I noticed it the day after and didnt have time to go back to the border to get more.

Coming back, i had to understand how to solve the problem. My friend told me that a small bribe would certainly solve the problem. So we contacted a friend of a friend used to deal with papers from illigal bikes of Argentines. Weeks passed with sparse news and after 5 weeks we were told that it would cost 300 dollars to make new papers at distance.

I thought i had enough solid arguments to claim my good faith and decided to face the aduana. At the border, i first met the officer that gave me the 3 month transit allowance. He told me that since the owner has to leave the country with his vehicule, he couldnt give the bike more time that the time given to the owner. I replied that all other borders gave automaticly 8 month to which he reacted suspiciously saying that it sounded very strange.

I asked to meet the chief officer whose i had the name. After one hour, i met him and re explained my case. He said that since the bike overstayed he didnt have the authority to take a decision and had to contact the top chief officer who wasn t there. He phoned and got the reply. The bike had to be sequestred. The guy seemed to be sorry about it and did believe my statement about the other custom offices. So i left the bike in the office and went back to Formosa.

The day after i took the bus to Clorinda town to the AFIP local office. I was given to meet a secretary that explained i had to be fined because of the overstay. I asked to meet the boss but wasn t there. Since he was meant to come back in 2 hours i waited...for nothing, he never showed up. The secretary told me i had to go back the day after since they needed time to evaluate the vehicule. So i once again defended the case, talking about the 8 month, explaining that the law was done to penalise people living in Argenina trying to evade taxes not for travellers. She stood firm on the delictual case but replied that the fine was not a fix amount but graduable depending on the understanding of the good faith of the person.

Coming back the next day, i much more pessimistic that the day before. I finally got the news. The maximum fine was the customs value of the vehicule, 2800 pesos, but the fine was fixed to the minimum, 1% of that amount, so 28 pesos (7 Euros).

The conclusion is that it would have cost much more to do it the illegal way (200 Euros to 7 Euros). Never at the border was i offered to pay a bribe to solve the problem quickly. The tone of officers was generally polite and respectful. The case gave them a lot of work, a file of about 50 pages. They even gave me a ride in a private car to go back to the border and pick the bike. You cant even pay the fine in the customs office, you have to go to a bank, obviously to avoid any temptation...

In the car, the lady that was driving me back acknowledged that the officer did a mistake giving only 3 month to a foreigner, since this is the maximum time given to foreign vehicules driven by residents. So i paid for not resolving the problem before leaving but since i could prove with my passport stamps that i was truely travelling, the sanction was fixed to the lowest possible.

If you ever end up in a similar situation and are of good faith, the best solution, at least in Argentina, is to go to the border and explain the problem. It will certainly cost you some time (2 days for me) but from my experience they do not try to take advantage of the situation in an unsound way.