Temporary Import / Carnet de Passage / Passe-avant ... WHAT?

Since I started my motorcycle journey around the world, I have crossed dozens of borders. More often than not, these border crossings are chaotic, confusing and filled with bureaucratic hoops to jump through. But my recent Mauritania-Senegal border crossing may have topped most of the ones I did before. Mostly because I had to visit two different borders to get all the paperwork complete. I've written a blog about border procedures before, but since it can still be a little confusing, I decided to dedicate some more time explaining what happened at the Mauritania-Senegal border. 

Documents required

Firstly, let's have a look at the documents you will always need to cross a land border with your motorcycle: 

• Passport
• Motorcycle Registration Documents: you will need to provide proof of ownership of your motorcycle. This can be the registration certificate, title or any other relevant document. In my case, it's the green registration card that you get for a European registered vehicle. 

Depending on the country you are trying to enter, you are sometimes asked for:

• Driver’s license (your local driver’s license will suffice - International Driving Permit is commendable to have with you but is very rarely asked for)
• Visa - depending on your nationality and the country you are entering, you might need a visa to enter. 

Temporary import permit

In many countries the customs office at the border will then issue you a temporary import permit. This means that they grant you a limited time to keep your motorcycle in the country. Usually, this will be the same time as you are allowed to stay visa-free in the country, or the same time as your visa. In a few countries, like Mexico for example, you'll need to pay a deposit which is returned to you upon leaving the country. In many other countries you'll pay a small customs fee, but in most countries in the Americas and Asia you won't have to pay at all. 

Carnet de Passage

A Carnet de Passage on the other hand, is a document that serves as a temporary import/export permit for vehicles. You can see it as a passport for your vehicle. Each page in the booklet is meant for entering and leaving one country. The Carnet de Passage ensures that the vehicle will be re-exported at the end of the trip and provides a guarantee to customs that the vehicle doesn't stay in the country. 

To obtain a Carnet de Passage, you will need to contact the National Automobile Association in your country of residence. However, you can also contact the Automobile Association of the country where your vehicle is registered (like I did with my Indian registered motorcycle in Season 1). For European countries, you can also contact the German ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club - https://www.adac.de, which is what I did for my Dutch registered motorcycle. 

A Carnet de Passage is not free. There is a fee as well as a security deposit. The amount of both the fee and the security deposit depends on the type of vehicle you are getting the Carnet for. I paid 400 euros for my Carnet de Passage and 3000 euros for the deposit. The deposit will be returned to me once I hand back the Carnet de Passage to the ADAC. They will then verify that all the necessary pages have been stamped and refund me my deposit. The Carnet de Passage is valid for one year, but it can be extended upon contacting the issuing authority.

When you enter a country with a Carnet, you will need to present your Carnet to customs officials, who will inspect your vehicle and stamp the appropriate pages. When you exit the country, you will need to show the Carnet again to the customs officials, who will usually check your engine number and stamp the Carnet again. 

A good source to check which countries require a Carnet de Passage is this:

https://overlandingassociation.org/carnet-de-passage/

Passe-avant

And then just when you thought you figured out how this all works, here comes Senegal. In Senegal you can do either a temporary import or you can use your Carnet de Passage but either way, you need to get a passe-avant first. 

This passe-avant is a paper you get (well, buy - they charge 5000 francs for it) at the land border with customs and it gives you 48 hours for your vehicle to be in Senegal. Within that time frame, you'll need to make it to Senegal's capital Dakar, and either have your Carnet stamped, or extend your temporary import permit. I have never experienced this type of process in any other country and it shows that bringing your motorcycle into a foreign country is never a generic process. 

So how do you know which rules apply in each country? I spend a lot of time googling, searching for information online, in overland communities such as the Overlanding Association, and the iOverlander app, or in Facebook groups such as Overlanding Asia or Overlanding Africa. Usually, one can piece together most of the needed information, and for the rest.. you'll just have to sort things out as you go!