How to sell a foreign car
in South America

GREAT RV TRIP

If you are traveling around South America by car and suddenly decide to sell it, then you have
three options:

1. Sell to the same tourist by proxy;
2. Clear customs and sell to local residents;
3. Sell in Zona Franca (Chile) without any customs fees.

Zona Franca

So, Zona Franca is such a big DUTY FREE - a free trade zone.
There are two Zona Franca in Chile: in the north of the country in the city of Iquique and in the south in Punta Arenas.

It's really possible to sell a car here, even from Russia, and you won't have to pay any customs duties or taxes (*there are certain restrictions). In the rest of Chile, and in many other South American countries, it will not be possible to clear a used car with foreign license plates - the law prohibits it.

After crossing the Darien Gap to South America, we bought a jeep in Bogota (read more about buying a car by a tourist in Colombia here), drove it to Chile, where we safely sold it.

How to find a buyer

I posted ads on websites, hung around doorsteps in markets, talked to car dealers of various sizes, and even found guys who were ready to drive our handsome man back to Colombia! Every day, in search of a buyer, I slowly brought down the price to the real one for Iquique. And as soon as the "ducks of the economic scales aligned their beaks," the buyer was found through a Facebook group.

Social networks are really in charge - most of the requests came from there. The car market and the advertisement on the car window are in second place in terms of efficiency. This place is just occupied by the website yapo.cl , something like that.

The sales process

I found Auntie tramitadora (from the Spanish trámite — procedure), who did all the paperwork for me.
My role was simple:

Come to the customs office to show the wheelbarrow and sign on the parchment

To go to the port and tell the inspector why I, a Russian guy, was scared to bring a Colombian car here.

Move to Zona Franca and sign there again on paper

Take off the plates, count the cash, and give the keys to the new owner.

The whole action took about 2.5 hours.

Neither I nor the new owner paid any customs duties or taxes. Actually, that's the point of Zona Franca. I just paid for the work of Silvia, the female "tramitador".

But there is one big disadvantage here:
car prices in Zona Franca are very low compared to neighboring countries.
We sold our Jeep for half the price we bought it for in Colombia.

How to avoid losing money
when buying/selling a car

Sell a car in the same country where you bought it.

When everything is good and safe in Venezuela, then make a circle along the entire coast of South America — it will be a super cool route!
To convert it so that you can spend the night and cook in the car.

In this case, the car will become interesting for overlanders (road travelers) and it will be possible to reissue it in any country by proxy.