Ship a Car to Ghana from the USA

Ghana's vehicle trade runs through Tema, the deep-water port east of Accra, and that is where we discharge units for Ghanaian consignees.

The routing detail matters more than it sounds, so here it is plainly. We move this lane on Grimaldi. Sallaum Lines is the other carrier we book heavily out of the United States, and its published US to West Africa string discharges at Cotonou, Lome and Lagos. Tema is not on it.

We are spelling that out because the two carriers get used interchangeably in this industry, and a quote naming the wrong one is not a small error. It means the sailing dates you were given belong to a service that does not stop where your car needs to go. If somebody has offered you a Sallaum sailing to Tema, ask them to show you the schedule before you pay anything.

The practical effect for you is that this lane has one set of vessels, not two, so the cut-off you are working to is a single date. Plan the pickup and the paperwork backwards from that date, not from the advertised sailing.

We publish no transit time on this page. Schedules change and a copied range ages badly. Ask us and we will read you the current cut-off and estimated arrival from the carrier's own schedule for the vessel your unit is actually booked on.

Below are the Grimaldi terminals in our own loading ports record, with what each gate actually demands in your hand. Read the counts rather than skimming them. They are not a house style and they are not rounded: they are what each terminal asks for, and they differ from each other by as much as double.

Two features of this list are worth pointing at before you read it.

The heaviest requirement is six and six. Baltimore Dundalk and Port Newark both want six title copies and six dock receipts. Wilmington wants three title copies but five dock receipts, and it is the only Grimaldi gate in our record where those two numbers are more than one apart. It catches out anyone who assumes the two counts always match.

Savannah wants a document nowhere else asks for: four copies of a letter of intent, on top of four title copies and four dock receipts. That is a real requirement at a real gate and you will not find it on a national checklist, because national checklists are written by people who have never stood at that particular gate.

Read the TWIC line on each card above and you will notice something that surprises most people: it is not consistent within a single carrier. Providence, Savannah and Jacksonville require the card. Newark, Baltimore Dundalk, Wilmington and Freeport do not.

The legal position explains why. A TWIC is required for unescorted access to a secure area of a maritime facility. Anyone else may be admitted under escort with ordinary photo identification, and each facility's own security plan sets out how it escorts visitors. Escorting costs the terminal labour, so some facilities require the card, some charge for the escort, and some decline owner drop-off entirely.

The practical version, if you intend to drive your own car to the port: check the specific gate before you set off, not the carrier and not the city. Four of the seven Grimaldi gates in our record will let you in without a card and three will not, and the three are not clustered by region or by size.

If the gate on your booking requires a card you do not hold, tell us early. Moving a unit into the terminal is routine work for us and it is a far cheaper answer than a TWIC application, which takes weeks.

Ghana is, right now, the most interesting destination in West Africa for a US exporter, and it is because of timing.

The Ghana Standards Authority has announced strict enforcement of the country's vehicle standards, including GS 4510, from 1 October 2026. The mechanism is called Pre-Export Verification of Conformity, and the words that matter to you are before shipment from the country of origin.

Read that again if you are used to thinking of destination rules as somebody else's problem. This is not a check performed by a clearing agent in Tema after the ship docks. It is a check that has to be satisfied while the vehicle is still standing in the United States. A non-conforming unit is not a delayed unit. It is a unit that has already been bought, hauled, loaded and shipped before anybody discovers it cannot enter.

In outline, GS 4510 bars vehicles more than ten years from manufacture, salvaged vehicles with major damage, originally right-hand-drive vehicles, and vehicles without kilometres-per-hour markings, with Certificates of Conformity issued by approved inspection bodies.

Two of those four clauses are quietly good news for anyone buying American stock. US-market cars are left-hand drive, and US speedometers generally carry kilometre markings alongside miles per hour. Those two requirements are what make Japanese-market supply awkward for Ghana, and they cost a US buyer nothing. It is worth glancing at the instrument cluster before you bid anyway, because it takes thirty seconds.

The full detail, the Authority's own words, the reporting conflict about whether this amounts to a ban, and the history of deferrals, are all on our dedicated page: Ghana's vehicle standards from 1 October 2026. We keep that page under monthly review and we will re-check it immediately before October and again in November.

One caveat you should carry into any purchase decision: Ghana has deferred this before. Enforcement of GS 4510 was previously due from 1 January 2023 and was put back, and a 2020 measure covering over-age and salvaged vehicles was suspended before it ever took effect. Plan for the standard to be enforced, and check the position again before you commit money.

Here is the failure mode we see coming, and it is specific to salvage buyers shipping to Ghana.

US Customs does not care what condition your vehicle is in. That is not an interpretation, it is the stated position: what CBP examines is the type and status of the ownership document, and a salvage title that remains in force is a valid export document in its own right. A flood car, a rolling shell or a unit with no engine can be exported entirely lawfully.

GS 4510 is a completely separate test, applied by a different authority, against different criteria. It looks at the vehicle, and it bars salvaged units with major damage.

So the two questions are:

1. Can this car legally leave the United States? Answered by the ownership document, under US federal regulation.
2. Can this car legally enter Ghana? Answered by the vehicle's age and condition, under a Ghanaian standard.

A car can pass the first and fail the second. Every part of the US export process can be done perfectly, the title can be clean in the regulatory sense, the export filing can be flawless, and the unit can still be refused. If you buy damaged stock for the Ghanaian market, treat the damage as a conformity question and not only as a price question.

Our salvage and non-running vehicles guide covers the US half of that in detail. The Ghanaian half is decided in Ghana, and it is the half worth asking about first.

A single drivable car to Tema goes RoRo. The unit is driven aboard and driven off, there is no packing, and the Grimaldi service on this lane is RoRo tonnage.

Container becomes the better answer in a few specific cases, and dealers hit all of them:

• Consolidating several units for one Ghanaian buyer, so they land together and clear together.
• Sending parts or accessories with the vehicle. Anything loose inside a RoRo unit is a problem waiting at the gate, and it is a common reason a shipment is held.
• A unit that will not drive, or one you want out of the weather and out of sight.

The comparison, including how the two options differ on handling and on what you can leave inside the car, is in RoRo versus container shipping. Decide before the booking exists rather than after.

• Ghana's vehicle standards from 1 October 2026: the notice, the standard, the conflict and the deferral history in full.
• How to export a car from the USA: the 72-hour presentation rule, the ownership documents and the export filing. None of it changes for Ghana.
• How we ship: auction collection from IAA, Copart, dealerships, Ritchie Bros, Alex Lyon and Son and IronPlanet.
• Loading ports: every terminal we book, both carriers, with hours and contacts.