Shipping a Car from Brisbane to Kenya

Shipping a car from Brisbane to Kenya runs on a lane we have actually measured, rather than estimated — and Queensland gives you more places to lodge the deregistration than most states do.

There is also money in it that most people leave behind.

Form F3517, and both plates

Queensland requires a named form: the cancellation of registration form, F3517. If you are cancelling fewer than five registrations, complete one form for each registration — not one form covering the lot.

Both plates must be handed in. Not one, not the front. Transport and Main Roads is specific about it, and a single plate returned is a cancellation that does not complete.

There are exceptions where surrender is not required:

• Personalised or customised plates you are keeping.
• Plates lost, stolen or destroyed.
• Plates already surrendered to an interstate authority — in which case you provide the

surrender receipt instead.

That last one matters if you moved to Queensland from another state and never changed the plates over. Keep the receipt; it is the thing that closes the loop.

Where you can lodge it, which is unusually broad

Queensland cannot be completed fully online, but it gives you more counters than most:

• In person at a transport and motoring customer service centre, a QGAP office, a

Magistrates Court, or a police station

• By mail to the Longreach PO Box
• By email to regocancellations@tmr.qld.gov.au — but **only if the plates have already been

surrendered**

For regional Queensland that police station and Magistrates Court option is genuinely useful. If you are shipping from a town three hours from the nearest transport centre, you do not have to make the drive.

The CTP refund is the part people miss

Here is the money. If you cancel a current registration you may receive a refund for the unused portion of your registration and the compulsory third party (CTP) insurer's premium.

The CTP component is the one people forget, because they think of it as insurance rather than as part of what they paid at the counter. On a rego with months left to run it is not trivial.

What you will not get back: the traffic improvement fee and other fees and surcharges. And a cancellation fee is deducted from the registration refund to cover processing. So the number is real but smaller than the sticker.

The registration must be current and in your name in Queensland at the time of the cancellation request to be eligible at all — which is another argument for doing this before the vehicle leaves rather than after.

Brisbane's sailing, which we have actually measured

Measured water time from Brisbane to Mombasa is about 42 days.

We quote six to eight weeks on the water. Eight weeks is 56 days — fourteen clear days over Brisbane's actual. That margin is deliberate: a flat six weeks would be exactly the measured transit with nothing to spare, and a promise with no margin is a complaint waiting for a slow week at the transhipment port.

For context, Melbourne measures about 48 days and our Western Australian partner states 30 from Perth. Brisbane sits in between, and it is a lane we have measured rather than estimated.

The water leg is one of three. Buying and inspection come before it; clearance at Mombasa comes after. The quoted range covers the sailing only.

Asbestos, which stops cars on the Australian side

Australia bans asbestos outright, and the ban catches friction components — clutch assemblies, brake pads, gaskets — on older vehicles.

Guides written from the Kenyan end never mention it, because it is not a Kenyan rule. Which is how a vehicle that satisfies every Kenyan requirement gets stopped before it leaves Queensland.

If your car is old enough that original friction material may still be fitted, deal with it in Brisbane. Cheap at home, expensive at distance.

Two Kenyan rules, measured from different dates

Kenya applies two separate eight-year rules, administered by different bodies and measured from different dates. A vehicle can satisfy one and fail the other, and that mismatch is the most common reason an import plan collapses.

The full version is in shipping a car from Australia to Kenya. Read it before you commit to a car.

The short version: the deciding number is the first registration date from the registration document — not the model year, and not the advertisement.

Right-hand drive is the reason this route works

Kenya registers right-hand-drive vehicles only. Left-hand drive does not get plates at any price — the discovery usually made after purchase by buyers working from American or European listings.

Your Queensland car is right-hand drive. That obstacle is not yours.

What we handle, and what we do not

We handle loading, sea freight from Brisbane to Mombasa, and export documentation.

We do not clear cargo. In Kenya an entry must be lodged by a licensed clearing and forwarding agent, whoever you ship with. Appoint your own, or ask us to appoint one — quoted separately, and never folded quietly into the freight number.

And no duty figures. KRA publishes no duty calculator, and every calculator ranking for that search belongs to a third party, built on a valuation schedule that changes annually and that nobody outside KRA controls. Kenya assesses against its own reference value for the make, model and year rather than what you paid.

What to send us

• The vehicle — make, model, year of manufacture, and the first registration date.
• Where it is in Queensland, for the leg to the wharf.
• Whether the rego is current, since that decides the refund and the CTP component.
• Whether you want us to appoint a clearing agent.

We quote in writing, itemised, with our lines separated from the ones that are not ours to set. And if the vehicle cannot be registered in Kenya, we will say so before you have spent anything.

This is guidance, not a ruling. Anything here about eligibility is an assessment against KRA’s published conditions, and may vary with your circumstances and with the regulations in force at the time you import. KRA decides. We do not calculate duty - where a figure is involved we link KRA, who publish the rates.