Shipping a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R from the UK to the USA

The Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R was never federalised for US sale, so for two decades the only route in was under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 25-year exemption, which waives the usual crash-test and emissions homologation requirements once a vehicle passes a quarter-century old. The R34 was produced between 1999 and 2002, meaning the earliest cars only became eligible in 2024, with the bulk of the range clearing the threshold through 2026 and 2027. This has created genuine demand from UK owners — many of whom imported grey-market R34s from Japan in the early 2000s — now looking to re-export them to the American market, where V-Spec and Nür variants regularly sell for £120,000–£250,000 at auction.

Because the exemption is calculated from the exact date of manufacture, not the model year, we always start by confirming the build date on the vehicle's Japanese export certificate or UK V5C against the current date, since US Customs and Border Protection will physically check this at the port of entry. Shipping a car even a few weeks before its 25th birthday risks the vehicle being detained or ordered for re-export at the owner's expense, so we build a buffer of at least 4–6 weeks transit time before the eligibility date into any booking schedule.

Skylines ship from Southampton via RORO or container to the Port of Los Angeles, Baltimore or New York/New Jersey, with RORO transit taking approximately 16–20 days to the East Coast and around 24–28 days to Los Angeles via the Panama Canal or Suez routing. Given the R34's high value and collector status, most owners choose enclosed container shipping rather than open RORO decks, at a cost of roughly £1,600–£2,400 depending on port pairing, versus £950–£1,300 for RORO.

Once past the 25-year exemption, the R34 doesn't need EPA Form 3520-1 emissions compliance or DOT Form HS-7 safety compliance in the way a newer import would, but CBP still requires both forms to be filed declaring the exemption, plus proof of age via the manufacture date. Owners should also budget for state-level registration, which varies significantly — California's biennial smog check exemption for vehicles over 35 years old doesn't yet apply to R34s, so early California registrants may face additional emissions testing requirements not seen in states like Texas or Florida.

US import duty on passenger cars is a flat 2.5% of the vehicle's declared value, calculated on the CIF price (cost, insurance, freight), with no VAT equivalent at federal level, though some states charge sales tax on registration. For a UK R34 valued at £150,000, this means roughly £3,750 in duty on top of shipping and a customs broker fee typically running £250–£450 for handling CBP entry filings. Total landed cost including container shipping usually falls in the region of £5,800–£6,800 above the purchase price.