Importing from Germany: when it beats the US auctions

The appeal of the US route is obvious: enormous supply, transparent auctions, VIN reports and very cheap lots after insurance write-offs. But the model has a built-in cost: most of those cars are sold damaged, and transatlantic logistics takes weeks. The European route is structured the exact opposite way, which is why it covers the cases where the US falls short.

The main difference: what condition the car starts in

Copart and IAAI are dominated by cars after collisions, floods and insurance write-offs. Clean lots exist, but they cost more and attract more bidders. In Germany the main flow is ordinary used cars from dealers, leasing companies and private owners: service books, no impacts, a documented maintenance history at an authorized shop.

That changes the entire risk structure. In the American model the main unknown is the extent of hidden damage and the cost of repair, which nobody can quote precisely before teardown. In the European model that line doesn't exist in the budget at all, and the final number is known almost to the cent before the car ships.

Logistics and timelines

• US: domestic transport to port, consolidation, ocean freight, Poti, customs. Roughly 6–10 weeks when everything runs normally
• Germany: car carrier or driven transit through Eastern Europe and Turkey, or a Black Sea ferry. Roughly 2–4 weeks
• Shipping from Europe usually costs less than ocean freight from the US, but it varies more with route and how full the carrier is
• Seasonality: both routes stretch out in summer and in the run-up to New Year, so build in slack

A gap of two to eight weeks is also time your money spends frozen while exchange rates and local prices move. For a buyer keeping the car rather than flipping it, the shorter cycle often matters more than a couple of hundred dollars saved.

Customs: same rules, different math

Georgian customs draws no distinction by country of origin: excise by displacement and model year, 18 percent VAT and processing fees are calculated identically for a car from Houston and a car from Hamburg. But European supply skews toward diesels and small turbocharged gasoline engines of 1.4–2.0 liters, while American supply skews toward naturally aspirated 2.5–3.5-liter units. Since excise is charged on every cubic centimeter, that alone gives European cars a tangible edge: a recent 1.6-liter engine costs 2,400 GEL in excise against 5,250 GEL for a naturally aspirated 3.5.

The flip side is age. A lot of the attractively priced European stock is 2013–2017, and since April 2, 2026 anything over six years old is charged 4.5 GEL per cc, three times the rate for younger cars. A 2016 1.6-liter diesel pays 7,200 GEL in excise. That is more than a 2021 American crossover with a 3.0-liter engine and its 4,500 GEL. The displacement advantage is wiped out entirely by the model-year penalty, so you have to calculate each individual car rather than the route as a whole; our customs calculator gives you the quick version.

The categories where Germany wins

• Diesel wagons and mid-size sedans: barely exist in the US, a mass-market segment in Europe
• Small-displacement compacts: favorable on excise and essentially absent from the American flow
• Premium brands in original European spec: different equipment, different suspension, often better-preserved bodies thanks to less aggressive road salt
• Cars with a full dealer service history, for when transparency of maintenance matters more than the lowest entry price
• Vans and light commercial vehicles: European supply here is broader and cheaper than American

Where the US still has no competition

For large crossovers and SUVs, pickups, Toyota and Lexus hybrids, and any scenario where the buyer deliberately takes a cheap damaged lot and rebuilds it locally, American auctions remain unmatched on price-to-supply. On top of that, Carfax and AutoCheck give US cars a level of history transparency that the European market, on average, doesn't match.

Don't pick a route in advance; start from the model and the budget. We calculate both in parallel: full landed cost in Tbilisi from the US and from Europe for the same car. In roughly a third of cases Germany wins on the final number, and it almost always wins on timeline and predictability.