I'm interested in importing a 2005 Lexus SC 430 from New York to Toronto, I'm wondering if anyone can help me out with what it will cost and required modifications. I have checked the riv.ca site and know I will have to pay the $209 riv fee plus 8% gst at the border, plus pay for any required modifications once it's in Canada. Does anyone know what these modifications may be, if any are required? Daytime running lights? Infant restraint kit? 8km/hr bumpers? Does the New York version of the 2005 SC 430 have all these? Also, are there any duty fees, and what about PST? I know I will have to pay the 4% New York state tax plus approximately 4% more for local New York tax.. If I have to pay a duty (someone mentioned a 6.1%duty tax on a previous post), plus 8% gst and 7% pst then it's not really worth it to import, just pay the extra $12 grand or so in Canada.

 

You normally end up paying about 16% of the total vehicle cost. When I was going to import my car from SF to Toronto it was exactly 16.3% (8% GST, 6.1% duty, $209 riv fee, $100 Excise Tax, $511 for DRL modifications), on top of the tax I paid when I bought the car in California it ended up being more financially sound for me to sell the car and buy a newer version of it when I moved. This was largely based on the US dollar being much stronger when I moved, though. Then it was 1.43 USD -> CAD, so when I exhanged the money I made selling the car I got 1.43x it's amount in Canadian. Now that the USD is worth ~1.11 CAD it is likely you would break even or save a few thousand importing rather than buying new.

Either way, you can work out the amount yourself. They value your car fairly based on miles, so for me it was:

$31,500 car value
+$209 riv fee
+ $100 excise
+(0.08) GST
+(0.061) Duty
= amount owed at border, then $511 for drl modification.

total was $5150 USD. Instead I sold the car for $33,150 USD, exhanged that for $47,500 CAD and re-bought almost the same car for $36,900 CAD + 15% tax in Canada (43k or so). So in the end I saved about 4.5k, but as you can see a lot depended on the exhange rate and my abilty to sell the car in California.

Cheers.