Customs & import duty
How to check whether a car’s import duty was actually paid
It is the one question a foreign vehicle history report cannot answer, and the one with the worst downside. A car with unpaid or falsified duty can be seized, and the liability attaches to the vehicle rather than to whoever imported it.
Why this is the risk that matters most
An accident history costs you money at resale. Unpaid duty can cost you the car outright. Most used vehicles on the Nigerian market are imports, and duty is assessed and paid at entry — but a customs entry can be short-paid, filed against a different and cheaper vehicle, or forged altogether.
When that surfaces, it surfaces against the car. The importer who arranged it is several owners back and unreachable; you are the one holding a vehicle that cannot be legitimately registered or resold, and that can be impounded.
What a duty check looks at
- Whether a customs entry exists for this VIN at all.
- Whether the duty recorded against it was settled, rather than merely assessed.
- Whether the vehicle described on the customs entry matches the vehicle the VIN decodes to — make, model and year.
- How the customs record lines up with the current registration and plate.
That third point does more work than it looks. A common pattern is duty paid on a cheaper vehicle and the paperwork attached to a more expensive one, which only shows up when you compare the customs entry against what the VIN actually decodes to.
Why a foreign report will never cover this
A US vehicle history report reads American records: state titles, insurance write-offs, accident reports, odometer filings. Nigerian customs is not in that dataset and never will be. You can buy the most expensive foreign report available and still learn nothing about whether the car you are standing next to can be legally kept.
Our report runs both. The US history comes from feeds backed by NMVTIS, the American national title system; the customs, registration and police checks come through local verification partners, and the report names which source answered each question.
What to do before you hand over money
- Read the VIN off the windscreen plate or door jamb yourself — not off a document, and not from a photo sent to you.
- Run the free decode and confirm the make, model and year match the car and the seller’s description.
- Run the full check and compare the customs entry against the decoded vehicle.
- Ask to see the original customs documents, and check the VIN on them against the VIN on the car.
- Treat any reluctance to show the papers as the answer to your question.
Where to find the VIN on the car · See a full sample report
What this check is, and is not
A customs check reports what has been filed. It is strong evidence and it is far better than the seller’s word, but no records-based check can prove a negative, and we will not claim it does. Where a record cannot be retrieved, the report says the source did not answer rather than reporting the car as clear. Use it alongside the original documents and a physical inspection, not instead of them.
Check the customs status before you pay
Enter the VIN — the decode is free, and the full report covers duty, registration and the stolen-vehicle register alongside the US history.
17 characters, on the dashboard at the base of the windscreen, the driver’s door frame, or the vehicle papers. Checking the VIN is free — you only pay for the history.