How to Export a Car from the USA

Exporting a used vehicle from the United States is governed by one rule, 19 CFR 192.2, and it has been substantially unchanged since 1999. Whatever you are shipping and wherever it is going, the same three things have to happen.

19 CFR 192.2(b) lists the acceptable ownership documents in a deliberate order, and CBP is emphatic that you work down the list rather than picking whichever one you happen to have. In every case below, Customs wants the original document or a certified copy, plus two complete copies.

Not one copy. Not "a photocopy of the front". Two complete copies, in addition to the original or a certified copy.

Electronic Export Information is filed through the Automated Export System, and the system returns an Internal Transaction Number. That ITN is the proof the export was declared.

It is required regardless of value. Most exports below $2,500 are exempt from EEI filing. Used self-propelled vehicles are named specifically as an exception at 15 CFR 30.2(a)(1)(iv), which requires the filing "regardless of value". A $600 scrap car needs an ITN exactly as a $60,000 one does, and the low-value exemption at 15 CFR 30.37(a) does not rescue it.

Four operational points follow from that, and each of them strands vehicles on the dock every week:

1. Your clock is 72 hours, not 24. Ordinary vessel cargo gets its filing citation to the carrier 24 hours before loading. Used vehicles are 72 hours before export, in any mode, and CBP states explicitly that the 72-hour requirement continues to apply. If you have been working to a 24-hour habit from general freight, you are three days late.
2. You cannot file after departure. Used vehicles head the list of shipments that must always be transmitted predeparture, so the postdeparture option is simply unavailable to you.
3. If AES is down, the car waits. There is no downtime workaround for used vehicles. The rule states the filer "shall not export until the AES is operating and an ITN is acquired, and the downtime filing citation shall not be used." There is no way to talk a terminal past this.
4. The citation has to reach the carrier. The filer must provide the proof-of-filing citation to the exporting carrier at least 72 hours before export.

The filing also carries four data elements that exist only for vehicles: the VIN or Product ID, the vehicle identification qualifier, the vehicle title number and the title state code. That is the practical link between the piece of paper in your hand and the electronic record, and it is why a title number transposed by one digit surfaces as a filing problem rather than a paperwork one.

15 CFR 30.3 allows exactly two filers: the US Principal Party in Interest, or an authorised agent acting on their behalf. There is no third option.

A foreign entity is prohibited from filing the EEI. An overseas buyer, dealer or importer must appoint a US agent to file, which is one of the practical reasons an overseas purchaser of a US vehicle needs a US-based party in the transaction at all. If you are buying from outside the United States, settle who is filing before you bid at auction, not after you have won.

The regulation says two different things depending on how the vehicle leaves the country.

Leaving by vessel or aircraft: the documentation and the vehicle itself must be presented to Customs at least 72 hours before export. Not one or the other. The car has to physically be there.

Leaving by rail, by highway, or under its own power: the documentation goes in 72 hours ahead, but the vehicle is presented at the time of exportation. A car driven to a land border is not sitting at the crossing for three days first.

There is a further subtlety worth understanding, because it explains why your forwarder talks about the vessel cut-off rather than the sailing date. The regulation at 19 CFR 192.2(c)(1) says 72 hours before export. The statute underneath it, 19 U.S.C. 1627a(b), says presentation must happen before lading where the vehicle moves by vessel or aircraft, and contains no hour count at all. CBP quoted that statutory language verbatim in its 2020 ruling H308498. In practice ports enforce the 72 hours against the vessel's cut-off, which is why missing a cut-off by an hour can cost you the sailing even though the ship has not moved.

Port directors designate where and when vehicles and documentation are presented, and publicise those locations and hours locally. There is no single CBP address, no central inbox, and no answer that is correct for every port.

So the honest answer to "where do I take the title" is: it depends on your port of export, and you have to ask that port. Delivery requirements differ by terminal and by carrier as well, including how many copies of the title the terminal itself wants on top of what CBP wants. Our loading ports page lists the terminal, receiving hours and contact details for each port and carrier we book.

The ITN does not just have to exist. 15 CFR 30.7(b) requires the proof-of-filing citation to appear on the first page of the bill of lading, air waybill, export shipping instructions or other commercial loading documents, and requires it to be clearly visible.

At a vehicle gate-in, the dock receipt is that commercial loading document. That is precisely why a terminal rejects a vehicle whose paperwork arrives without the ITN on it: the gate clerk is not being difficult, they are looking for something the regulation says must be on the page in front of them.

Worth noting for accuracy: the dock receipt itself is a commercial document with no US regulation defining it, so treat any confident claim about its "official" contents as industry practice rather than law. The visibility requirement for the filing citation is the part that is actually regulated.

The title is never transmitted through AES. The default under 19 CFR 192.2(d) remains physical presentation of the document to CBP.

Since 2022 there has been an optional electronic route through the ACE Document Image System, open to all modes and all ports since January 2023, where PDFs are submitted to CBP by email. It is useful, and it is worth asking your port whether they are using it. But it is still described as a pilot on CBP's own page, and CBP reserves the right to require the physical document at any time. Anyone telling you flatly that "CBP now accepts titles electronically" is overstating a pilot.

The exceptions are narrow. The regulation exempts vehicles moving in-bond, under a carnet, or under a Temporary Importation Bond. CBP's own guidance additionally describes an exemption for a non-resident who entered the vehicle into the US for a one-year period and is taking it back out; that one is guidance rather than regulation, so confirm it with your port before relying on it.

The penalties are real and they are per violation. Under 19 CFR 192.3, failing to comply carries $500 per violation, rising to as much as $10,000 where a vehicle is knowingly exported with an altered VIN or where it is stolen, alongside seizure and forfeiture of the vehicle under 19 U.S.C. 1627a. Separately, the export filing rules at 15 CFR 30.71 carry penalties for late filing of up to $1,100 per day, capped at $10,000 per violation, and a knowing failure to file or the filing of false information can reach $10,000 and five years' imprisonment.

Those figures are checked against the regulations on the review date shown below. They are inflation-adjusted periodically, so treat them as the current published amounts rather than a permanent number.

• The vehicle does not run, or the title is a salvage title. Neither of those stops the export. See salvage and non-running vehicles for what CBP has actually said about vehicle condition.
• You are deciding how to ship it. See RoRo versus container shipping. None of the requirements on this page change with the method you choose.
• You want to know which terminal, which hours and how many copies of the title. See loading ports.