Hi,

The purpose of the carnet is to ensure that if you sell your bike in a country that you're travelling through that the customs duties will be paid. That's why the cost of the carnet is equivalent to the highest duties along your journey. If you use the CAA calculator and click on all the countries for a trip along East Africa and across to Cape Town you'll see that Egypt comes up as the highest cost country using the indemnity option and Malawi as the highest with the guarantee option. Kenya is on the list as requiring a carnet but isn't the highest cost so it doesn't figure into the calculation. If you were to parachute into Kenya with your bike you could use the cost calculator to determine that the carnet is 78% of the value of the bike.

A month before we left on our trip we applied to the CAA to get the carnet, having already confirmed with them the value of the R100GS and the F650GS. The highest duty was 100% of the value of the bike so for the R100 we wrote a cheque for $5,000 and the F650 a cheque for $6,000. A week later we received the carnets in the mail. When we returned home we had the Canadian customs officers fill in the back of the carnet (basically confirming that we hadn't sold the bikes anywhere) and sent the forms back to the CAA. A week later we received our $11,000 back.

Our next trip will be much more expensive as Audrey has a new F650GS and Iran is on the itinerary which will cost 250%. Audrey's carnet alone will be $25,000 with the guarantee option. This would be a good time to use the indemnity option as we would only need to come up with $6,000 up front rather than the full $25,600.

I hope that helps a little.

__________________
Ekke Kok

'84 R100RT 141,000 km (Dad's!)
'89 R100GS 250,000 km (and ready for another continent)
'07 R1200GS Adventure 100,000 km (just finished Circumnavigating Asia)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

www.ekke-audrey.ca

I tried to get my carnet for my Australian registered bike from another country. This was not possible. I even have an address in Germany and the UK.

Hi OGR,

Nice to see a new 1200 Tenere getting dirty!

You might want to have a word with Paul and suggest the value of the bike is as it would be at the end of the trip. You know how the value of a bike will plummet when it's been taken out of the showroom then not seen a qualified mechanic for six months hard labour on the dark continent let alone a kosher Yamaha spare part.

It worked for my XTR!

Cheers,

Ian

Hi all,

thank you OGR for composing this, very interesting to read.

I knew that the RAC is expensive, but this is madness.

I rode an old Tenere around the world from 1999 to 2005 and I used three carnets over the ADAC in Germany (bike had a German numberplate and I have a German passport). I found them expensive (because I am not a member) and sometimes complicated to deal with (which my sister did). I needed three carnets because of Egypt, India, Japan (at that time), Australia and South Africa.

In 2009 I started another trip - mainly to the Middle East, Central Asia, China and South America. Swiss numberplate and German passport.

I did not buy a carnet, because I would not go to India, Australia, South Africa or Egypt (as far as I know the only countries you can not enter without a carnet)

The bike was stolen in Syria and lucky me, I did not have a carnet. So I did not continue thru Saudi, Iran ...

The carnet makes things easier at the borders and also cheaper. But look at the madness that OGR describes, you only support it if you buy the carnet.

And we are still adventure traveller and not all inclusive package tourists on two wheels, or is adventure only written on your petrol tank? As I learned on the road there is always a way. Sometimes it is very hard and sometimes it is easy. I entered Cuba, after at least fifty people said it is not possible, included Cuban embassy staff.

So, dont buy the carnet and just go .... if more an more travellers do this, the carnet system will go away, inschallah. Think outside the box.


My 2p worth

Greetings from Brazil

Mika

Hey..

I am affraid i will take you on for this statement.

I reside in Pakistan and after visiting the AAP for the carnet, for which I am told a bank guarantee of 350% of the bike. I refuse to believe that all the traffic flowing through the taftan border into and from pakistan have Carnet De Passage with them.

You see people are rather poor here and paying 200$ proccessing fee and then a bank guarantee is not possible for many. Infact I know most of the rich and famous of my city who own a big displacement bike, and even they are not willing to show up with the kind of guarantee that is being required by AAP...

Anyway, i'll be for the least, visiting the pak-Iran border and attempt to enter IRAN and then come back the same route without a Carnet. At the max, i will fail, but at least I will try.

Hi

I agree it is expensive for a UK registered vehicle.

I don't agree when you suggest its the RAC who set the rates, and are therefore ripping you off.

The several conversations I've had with them they could not have been more helpful, bearing in mind they are the UK official supplier so won't be advising on every last thing you can get away with. As a result of those conversations it will cost me less than I thought when i comes time to buy my own Carnet.

It was mentioned to me ages ago that many people start out finding a nice new shiny vehicle for their dream trip only to then wish it wasn't so shiny when they find out about the Carnet, and a nice new XT1200Z isn't the cheapest transport!

If you put up the 800% in a bank account, where you could still be earning a small amount of interest, then you will pay the RAC fee for processing, which I do not think is excessive, and you get back your 800% when the fully stamped up Carnet is returned. So 80% or 800%, the RAC don't keep it. If the RAC suggested insurer is too costly if you as most people don't have such a lump sum, then I'm sure others are available to cover that risk, since ADAC etc must also offer that option with their own insurer? But wether it would be so much cheaper? If there are no others in the UK then why is that? Monopoly? Whats stopping every other insurer cashing in this "rip off"?

I would think the % is more to do with the UK relations with the country concerned, or perhaps how frequently people from the UK (or how much of a tax risk a UK citizen is to the visited country concerned) try to sell avoiding local taxes.

Buy a cheaper bike, value it as low as poss, pay for the Carnet and a lot of with the change!

Jason

Hi all,

Planning a trip with a friend from Budapest to Qatar in a Trabant.

I have dual British & Hungarian nationalities, my friend is American.
The Trabant has Hungarian plates and is in my name.

Been looking around at the options for carnets and, according to the ADAC application form, under the vehicle details you have to specify its 'country of registration'. I assume then this means that they cater for non-German registered cars, perhaps so long as the registered country's Automobile Association don't issue CDPs themselves (Hungary's apparently don't).

The guarantee you put down for a vehicle up to the value of 15,000EUR is 1,500EUR and the administration fee is 260EUR for non members or 160EUR for ADAC members (standard memberships is 44EUR per year and comes with a host of other benefits and discounts, too).

So, if I have got this right, it seems by far the cheapest option for getting a CDP. 1500EUR guarantee + 44EUR membership + 160EUR admin fee, of which you get back the 1500EUR when you return. Total cost 204 Euros.

Am I missing something obvious?

I asked ADAC about the carnet, and they told me they´d help me only, if I wanted to get to Egypt, otherwise they´d return me to the AA of my country. Was a pain because all prices, including the bond amount, were much steeper in Finland.

But this was almost 4 years ago, so wouldn´t hurt to ask them.

This is what we pay in Australia for Africa including Egypt. You are being RIPPED OFF big time !

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From the RAC in the UK for my 20 year old landy Carnets I paid £2xx to the RAC for the Carnet renewal and whatever and £75 per year to my bank for a bank guarantee that covers the bond.

Thats all.

Surely more of you could go the Bank Guarantee route?

Don't value the bike at what you want for it if it is stolen, value it as low as they will accept it. You lose at least 20% driving it off the showroom floor ;-)

But anybody trying to Carnet a new bike or vehicle will suffer. Its a high value item. Maybe its also some old fashioned travel karma ;-p

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Kiwi, 7 years around Africa. Overlanding channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/roamingyak

any more news yet on the RAC rip off merchants yet?
is there nothing we can do in Britain about the RAC dictating there own rulls and costs on the Carnet? surely its illegal and just not fair:confused1:

Dear All,

we need to fill in the following form:

EUROPA - E-mail

if say at least 30 of us get off our proverbial rear ends and do this, they might prod the R.A.C. with a big heavy stick and and we could get a cheaper carnet! .

the more people that winge and moan to them the better, also write to your MEP! Remember we get to vote the min or out again soon and this makes them listen, as they get jumpy near election time!

may the force be with us all on this one!

I've taken out a few carnets with the RAC over the years so I have some idea about the complexities and the costs involved but my chief memory of the process is how hard it was to get hold of anyone in their HQ who knew what a carnet was. Nobody knew what you were talking about when you rang up. I wonder how many they issue per year? Tens? hundreds? I'd be surprised if we're talking significant numbers of people.

I've no problem with complaining to the EU via your link above (and probably will) but would we not be better trying to get one of the vehicle lobby groups to take it on? I generally stay as far away from any sort of bureaucracy as I can so I admit I have no idea how a compaint to the EU might work its way back to the RAC but I kind of get the feeling the other end of the wire from any email I send to them isn't a sympathetic ear in the put right small injustices dept but a black hole of infinite depth. Unless you can come up with sufficient mass to change its orbit nothing will happen.

am afraid the "value it as low as possible " idea doesnt work . The Rac use various guides to figure out its worth , so unless its sub 2k you arent going to get away with it .
Looked at taking my Pan into Iran when id finished Georgia / Armenia - the cost was eyewatering so will give it a miss

I am not sure that the EU is the right party to complain to.

We would need to give evidence of the RAC directly requesting the ADAC to not issue carnets for UK vehicles (I think I have an email from the ADAC which admits this), or other mis-conduct. Surely the FIA / AIT should be the ones to hear it?

Otherwise, it's just a case of paying more for the 'pleasure' of living in the UK. For example, the Dutch pay absurd sums for road tax on large-engined vehicles, but I doubt a complaint to the EU over that would get anywhere.

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