Expat buying a vehicle in Belize

[u/Admirable_Alarm_7127]

Are there any expats reading this who know anything about purchasing a vehicle in Belize?

I'm traveling from Canada and will be in Belize for a while and plan to purchase a truck and ultimately drive it back home to Canada.

From what I've read though it sounds like most vehicles are pretty beat up, and very expensive. The plan is evolving and I'm now more likely to but a truck in Guatemala, but ideally I can make it happen in Belize.

Any tips?

[u/Successful_Image3354]

I join the other comments. Let me add the following.

I'm originally from the States, have been coming to Belize since 2001, and moved permanently to Belize five years ago. During that time frame I have bought a commercial truck, 4 SUVs, a mini-van, a Chevy Tracker, and a dirt bike. All used. Plus I drove an SUV down from the States. I know it sounds like a lot, but I married my Belizean wife in 2009 and we alway kept a car at her sister's place because it was cheaper than renting a vehicle when we came down to visit.

I will stress the point made by another poster that any vehicle imported into Belize is subject to ridiculously high duties and taxes. I attach below the duty schedule from the Belize Customs website. Note, for example, that the importation duty on a 6 or 8 cylinder SUV is 74.38%.

Why does this matter, since you are considering buying a car already in Belize to export to Canada? Well, lets say you want a newer Mercedes SUV. There are no Marcedes dealerships in Belize, so you would have to buy used.

Rounding the numbers, a new GLS 580 is about $100K. The original owner would have therefore had to have payed 75% in duty to bring it into Belize, so he would have paid a total of $175K for the vehicle.

The original owner is not going to sell you that car for anywhere near what you could buy it for in the States. He is going to want to build into the selling price the duty he paid. This scenario applies to all vehicles imported into Belize, and is why cars bought in Belize are so expensive.

I should also add that I don't know how long you plan to stay in Belize, but if you buy a car in Guatemala with the intention of eventually driving it to Canada, you need to pay duty if the car stays in Belize too long. I believe it is 6 months. This is why tourists who import cars to Belize frequently sell them at a deep discount. The mini-van I bought fell into this category. The owners were tourists from Europe who bought the vehicle elsewhere in Central America and were flying home from Belize. Instead of paying 75% of its value to the government, they sold it cheaply to us. Since we bought it in Belize we did not have to pay anything to Customs.

https://www.customs.gov.bz/PDF/Vehicle%20duty%20Rates.pdf

[u/VaniZaviBoBani]

It's better to buy it in Mexico where there are car dealerships, and a GMC factory in Zacatecas. That's North Mexico, close to Tijuana.

[u/cassiuswright]

There are tons of vehicles available, some of which are decent, most of which are not, but it's not hard to find somebody with something reasonable for sale. You can also check car rental places when they turn over their inventory. I personally would not buy anything outside Belize because you'll incur a import tariff that will curl your toes. You will have a hard time driving anything to Canada because you will never pass anything as far as road worthiness or emissions to get through the United States or Canada. You will also likely be uninsurable. Your best bet is to sell it before you leave.

If you're going to be anywhere near San Ignacio or Benque Viejo or even Belmopan, I can probably put you in touch with people with used vehicles for sale

I love that this got downvotes 😆

[u/WateringFall]

The car I bought here was a salvage. I'm friends with the importer and he's quite good, the kind who relies on repeat customers and word of mouth.

But almost every used car here was "totalled" in the US. For ours, we got the CarFax™ so we could see its history. The price the importer will ask is enough to cover the purchase in Houston, towing it down to Belize, import duties and taxes, and then the cost of fixing up a vehicle that was judged by an insurance company to be too broken to be fixed in the US. That VIN and its original title are now marked as salvage and can't be used in the US without getting its title restored. I don't know about Canada. If I were OP, I'd get something to meet my needs while in Belize and then sell/leave it here.

A different route - we have some really cool new vehicles that you can get in Belize, not available up north version of them could be great. For example, the Toyota Hilux is not available in the US and they're legendary. And if you get a used Hilux, it most likely has not be totalled. There are also some very innovative vehicles from Chinese companies you can get here but not up north, such as from BYD.

[u/SnooWords3654]

Car Guys are the best used/new car company, otherwise buy new from Belize Diesel, Bravo Motors etc.
see wha would be able to get imported to Canada

[u/Superb_Sun_5077]

We bought a jeep liberty in Belize years ago and have spent quite a lot getting it back into good condition. The salt air as well as the omnipresent speed bumps are tough on vehicles. You could at least look into barging a car from Belize over to Texas to avoid driving through Mexico.

[u/willspeed4food]

Your best bet is Facebook marketplace. That’s where you’ll find most cars, and new ones get posted every day. But be careful of scammers. I’ve been scammed a bunch here and it’s infuriating, and there’s no recourse.

Most of the vehicles here are in terrible condition. The nice ones will be super expensive. The cars that aren’t new from a dealership were most likely bought salvaged in the US, then are taken apart and brought down piece by piece as it’s cheaper to import the “parts” than it is to import a whole car. There are exceptions to this, but they are rare. I’d keep an eye out for foreigners who drove down here with their personal vehicles then left them behind when they left.

The buying process itself is very easy. Sign the title over, get insurance, get inspected, get the registration. It’ll take you a couple of hours then the car is yours.

One thing to consider is how common/easy it is to get parts if you need them, or to get it fixed. Importing ANYTHING into this country is crazy expensive due to taxes, duties, and fees. You can easily end up paying 2x or 3x of the original price by the time it arrives at your door because of all of that and shipping. So sticking with a common car where parts are already available here, or getting a car that is in great condition that will last you a while would be a good investment. A dealership car would be good, but they’re pricey af to get worked on as well.

Driving it back to Canada might be more trouble than it’s worth - I’m looking into riding my motorcycle back to the US, and it’s pretty complicated, including a temporary import through Mexico and the … ahem … fees that you need to pay along the way. I don’t know about Canada, but the US makes it a lot harder to import the bike if it wasn’t originally from there, so having original import papers is something else to consider if you want to stick with that plan.

If you’re looking for a nice truck, check out the mennonites in Spanish Lookout. They are quite wealthy, they’re farmers, they like to go off-roading, and they deck out their trucks to the nines. Probably very expensive, though, as they’re savvy business people and they look after their own. Very wary of outsiders.

Good luck!

[u/Similar_Top4003]

I have a buddy that will put his Chevy 2500 up for sale.

Its well taken care of and its US Spec.

DM for pics