Toyota RAV4 and Camry prices in 2026: buy in Georgia or import from the US?

The Toyota RAV4 and Camry hold the top two spots by listing count in Tbilisi and Rustavi for good reason: both are built in volume for the US market, both are easy to fix here, and both resell well. That's why "buy one here or import my own" is the question we get most often about them, and why the math on them is the most instructive.

What's happening to prices on the local market

Ballpark figures for early 2026, for cars in decent condition, already cleared and on local plates: a 2018–2021 Camry typically runs somewhere around $18,000–$26,000 depending on year, trim and history; a RAV4 of the same years, roughly $20,000–$29,000. The spread within a single model year reaches 30 percent, and what explains it is almost always body history, not mileage. A car rebuilt after a serious impact goes for noticeably less than one that's visually intact.

One detail specific to this market: a large share of those listings are the same US cars, brought in by someone else six months to a year ago. Buying locally often means buying somebody else's import, with their margin on top and no say in which lot got picked.

What makes up the cost of importing from the US

• The hammer price on Copart or IAAI: the number on the screen, and usually less than two thirds of the total
• Auction and broker fees: a percentage of the hammer price plus fixed line items
• Domestic US transport to the departure port: depends on the state, from a couple of hundred dollars to over a thousand
• Ocean freight by container to Poti: a fixed sum, independent of the car's value
• Customs clearance: excise by displacement and model year, 18 percent VAT on the value plus excise, around 272 GEL of processing, port and terminal fees
• Repair work if the lot is damaged: the most unpredictable line of all

The main feature of that structure is that almost every line except the first barely moves with how cheaply you bought the lot. Shipping a $6,000 Camry costs the same as shipping a $14,000 one. Excise ignores price entirely: both Camrys have the 2.5-liter engine, and since April 2, 2026 that means 2,500 × 1.5 = 3,750 GEL on a 2020 or newer car, or 2,500 × 4.5 = 11,250 GEL on one over six years old. So in percentage terms the savings on cheap damaged lots look large, while in actual landed dollars the gap is often more modest than expected.

How to compare properly: three numbers, not one

A proper comparison isn't "hammer price versus local price." It's three numbers at once: full landed cost in Tbilisi with plates, the realistic time until you can actually drive the car, and resale value in two or three years. Importing wins only if it wins on the first number by enough of a margin to cover the worst case on the third.

Timeline benchmark for early 2026: from winning the lot to a car on local plates usually takes 6–10 weeks when everything goes to plan (auction, US domestic logistics, loading, ocean crossing, Poti, customs, registration). A container delay or a paperwork query easily adds another two to three weeks, and that's a normal part of the process, not force majeure.

When importing a RAV4 or Camry really pays

• You need a specific trim or configuration that simply isn't available locally: hybrid, all-wheel drive, a particular options package
• The budget stretches to a clean-title lot or one with minor cosmetic damage, rather than a total loss with an unknown volume of hidden repair
• The car is a long-term keeper, and a one-off saving of $2,000–$3,000 makes sense over several years
• You're willing to wait six to eight weeks with your money tied up in the process

When buying locally is cheaper and smarter

If you need a car within weeks, if the budget is tight enough that an unexpected thousand dollars breaks the plan, or if you have no experience judging damage severity from auction photos, the local market is almost always the better call. A finished car in Tbilisi, already cleared and with a known condition, removes the logistics and currency risk, and the price difference is often eaten by a single bad lot choice anyway.

On Camry versus RAV4 specifically: on displacement and excise they're all but identical (both 2.5 liters), but the crossover costs more both at auction and on resale, so the percentage saving from importing is slightly higher on the RAV4. The real difference shows up on the hybrids: a left-hand-drive RAV4 Hybrid or Camry Hybrid up to six years old inclusive gets the 60 percent break and pays 0.6 GEL per cc, or 1,500 GEL instead of 3,750. Let the car tip into its seventh year and the break vanishes: the hybrid pays the same 11,250 GEL as the gasoline version. The local Camry market, meanwhile, is so saturated that importing one makes sense almost exclusively to get a specific rare configuration, not to save money.

In practice: pull three real listings in Tbilisi for the model and year you want, run the lot through our customs calculator, ask for a full calculation on a specific auction lot, and compare landed totals only. We run that calculation before the bid, so the decision gets made on numbers rather than on a feeling that "American cars are always cheaper."