Cars from Japan and Korea in 2026: the case for and against right-hand drive

The Asian route stays niche in Georgia, and the reason is the steering wheel. Everything else (build quality, grading transparency, prices) works in Japan's and Korea's favor. But since April 2, 2026 right-hand drive has stopped being a question of habit and become a question of money: its excise is charged at triple the rate. So the conversation always starts with customs arithmetic and only then moves on to the condition of the lot.

Right-hand drive: triple excise and life on the road

Georgia doesn't ban right-hand-drive cars. It taxes them. Under the rules in force since April 2, 2026, a car with the wheel on the right has its excise rate tripled in every age band. A car up to six years old inclusive pays 4.5 GEL per cc rather than 1.5; a car over six years old pays 13.5 GEL rather than 4.5. On a 2.0-liter engine that's 9,000 GEL of excise for a recent right-hand-drive car and 27,000 GEL for a seven-year-old one, where left-hand-drive equivalents of the same years would pay 3,000 and 9,000. VAT at 18 percent then goes on the whole total including excise, so the real gap is wider still. The easiest way to size it up for a specific lot is our customs calculator, where right-hand drive is a separate checkbox.

The practical side matters just as much as the legal one. Georgia drives on the right, on narrow mountain roads with limited sightlines and blind overtakes. Overtaking on the Tbilisi–Batumi highway in a right-hand-drive car is objectively more dangerous, and that's not a matter of getting used to it. Then the small things add up: barriers, payment windows and parking machines are all built for left-hand drive.

What makes Japanese auctions good

• A unified grading system: an overall grade for the car plus separate interior and exterior grades, assigned by an independent auction inspector
• An auction sheet with a body map where every scratch, dent and repainted panel is marked with a letter code
• Low mileage: on the Japanese market, a ten-year-old car with 60,000–90,000 km is normal rather than remarkable
• No road salt across most of the country, so bodies and underfloors are noticeably cleaner than European cars of the same age
• Huge supply of hybrids and small-displacement cars, though the 60 percent hybrid break only covers left-hand-drive cars, so a Japanese hybrid doesn't get it

A Japanese auction sheet is, in practice, the most detailed and honest condition document that exists on any market. The inspector has no stake in selling a particular lot, and their assessment doesn't depend on who's consigning the car. For a buyer who can't fly out to see the car in person, that's worth a great deal.

Korea: left-hand drive and different math

The Korean market solves Japan's main problem: the steering wheel is on the left, as in Georgia, the US and Europe, which means no triple rate and the car is charged at the ordinary 1.5 or 4.5 GEL per cc. The core supply is recent-generation Hyundai and Kia: Tucson, Sportage, Santa Fe and Sorento crossovers, plus diesel versions that barely exist on the American market. Prices are typically below European equivalents of comparable age, and the shipping runs by sea to Poti.

Delivery times from Korea and Japan in early 2026 are broadly comparable to the US: around 6–10 weeks from purchase to Poti, plus customs and registration. Freight cost depends on whether the car goes in a container or on a RoRo carrier, and on how busy the route is.

Parts and servicing in Georgia

Here the Asian route splits in two. For Hyundai and Kia, Tbilisi has a well-developed service network and parts stock, and maintenance is no different from the American versions of the same models. For right-hand-drive Japanese cars it's harder: some assemblies differ from their left-hand-drive equivalents, and the specific parts (steering racks, dashboard components, wiring) have to be ordered separately and take longer to arrive. Budget for that, both in money and in repair timelines.

What happens at resale

• Left-hand-drive Korean crossovers sell locally with no discount, since they read as ordinary cars
• Right-hand-drive Japanese cars lose liquidity: a narrow pool of buyers, longer time on the market, harder haggling
• Japanese hybrids in popular models hold value better than other right-hand-drive cars thanks to running costs
• Any car with a body style or engine that's unusual for the region takes longer to sell, regardless of where it came from

Korea is a full alternative to the US and Europe, especially for crossovers and diesels, with no route-specific risks and no premium for the steering wheel. Japan is a source of exceptionally well-preserved cars with honest grading, but the triple excise plus the resale liquidity hit almost always eats up whatever you gained on the hammer price. Going right-hand drive makes sense as a deliberate choice for a specific purpose (a rare model you can't get anywhere else), not as a way to save money.

Before any purchase in Asia we calculate two numbers: the excise at the triple rate for that specific displacement and model year, and the realistic resale price of a right-hand-drive car on the local market. The first shows what the border will cost; the second, what you'll lose on the way out. We also decode the auction sheet for the lot, so you know whether the car's condition matches the price.