Selling a car: how does it look on the formal side?

You can only sell the car with foreign number plates. You cannot get Bolivian number plates for the car. There's a new law and you can only import cars no older then 3 years, this year. Next year it will be 2 years and in 3 years only cars no older then 1 year. In 3 years time you will only be able to import new cars.

The other problem. Any car with a foreign number plate has to pay extra for gasoline. For Bolivian cars it 3.74Bs and for foreign cars it's 8.88Bs.

I dont think you will have any problem leaving the car here even if you leave the country without the car. The only problem you can have is if the car stayed more then 3 months and then you tried to take it a cross the border you might have problems.

Yes you can sell your car here, but you will need to sell it cheap or nobody's going to buy it.

Thanks for the answer!

Any ideas what does it mean "sell it cheap"? Some friends of mine drove through Bolivia two months ago in a 1997 Land Cruiser (also on Cali plates) and had around dozen offers presented ranging between $10-12k. If that's "cheap" then it's enough for me. Do you think that's a sum I could get?

And when it comes to leaving without the car: is it because they don't check at the border if you entered with a car or not?

Yes you should get around 10 -12 k for the car no problem even with foreign number plates. A good condition Land Cruiser for the same year go around the 22 -27 k mark. Depending on the condition. Second hand cars are expensive here. For example a good condition Nissan patrol the same year with 300 000 ks on clock go for 14 -16k.

When you leave the country, the document for the car is different then your passport. I did this in Chile. I was in Chile left the car in Chile, went back to Bolivia for a few weeks and then went back to Chile and collected the car and drove back to Bolivia, without any problems.

Well then, price-wise 10-12k is good enough for me!

I just wonder whether the passport and car import systems are anyhow connected and if I try to leave the country once thay scan my passport they'll see that I've entered with the car and will ask for the aduana paperowk (cancelation of car import papers).

A friend of mine from Chile said that due to the law change you mentioned they would, although in the past they didn't bother about anything.

So back to square one.

Wonder what would happen if I sold the car, tried to leave the country and they found out. Would I have to pay a fine or what?

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