President Sisi ratifies law allowing Egyptian expats to import customs-free vehicles

CAIRO – 28 October 2022: President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has ratified a law exempting Egyptian expats from paying customs duties and taxes when importing personal-use cars in exchange for deposit.

Earlier this month, the Parliament approved the draft law, which allows expats to import a personal-use car for each in return for paying a cash amount in hard currency, to be recovered after 5 years.

The move aims at strengthening the country's dollar resources.

The Cabinet stated that the draft law stipulates that an Egyptian who has a valid residency abroad has the right to import one private passenger car for his personal use, exempt from taxes and fees that had to be paid to release the car, including the value-added tax and the schedule tax.

The Schedule Tax is another type of tax which is imposed only once, unless the goods are transformed or changed. Packaging, re-packaging, refining, purifying and milling of goods shall not be considered as transformation.

According to the law, the cash will be provided from abroad in favor of the Ministry of Finance in one of accounts of Egyptian national banks.

The draft law stipulates that the cash amount transferred in favor of the Ministry of Finance shall be recovered after five years from the date of payment with the same value in the local currency.

In mid-October, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait expected Egypt to attract LE 50 billion worth of foreign currency from the initiative. The country also expects more than 500,000 cars to be imported under the initiative, he added.

This comes while Egypt has struggled to secure foreign currency amid a drop in foreign currency reserves over the past months in light of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.