What customs clearance costs in Moldova: four worked examples
«How much does it cost to clear a car» has no single answer. Two cars bought for the same money can differ a hundredfold in what you pay at customs. Here are four concrete examples, calculated with the same formulas as the calculator on our site.
What the total is made of
Importing a car into Moldova means three payments, and only one of them depends on the price of the car:
- excise — charged per cubic centimetre of engine, based on displacement, age and fuel type. Usually this is almost the whole total;
- customs procedure fee — 0.4% of the value of the car, capped at 36,000 MDL;
- luxury tax — only if the contract value starts at 600,000 MDL.
Example 1. Petrol hatchback 1.4 l, 2018
An ordinary city car: 1,395 cc, petrol, eight years old, contract price 180,000 MDL.
Excise comes to about 21,800 MDL, the procedure fee to 720 MDL — roughly 22,500 MDL in total. Noticeable, but not the kind of figure that changes your mind about the car.
Example 2. Diesel wagon 2.0 l, 2015
A bigger, more expensive car: 1,968 cc, diesel, eleven years old, priced at 200,000 MDL — only twenty thousand more than the first one.
The payments, however, are nothing alike: around 130,000 MDL of excise plus an 800 MDL fee, almost 131,000 in total. Nearly six times the first example, while the purchase price differs by a tenth. The reason is that the excise rate climbs with displacement and age at once, and diesel has its own, higher table.
Example 3. Electric car, 2020
An EV at 300,000 MDL — the most expensive car in this set.
There is no excise at all: electric cars are exempt. Only the customs procedure fee remains — 1,200 MDL, and that is it. A hundred times cheaper than the diesel wagon. Hybrids gain too, if less dramatically: a regular hybrid gets a quarter off the excise, a plug-in half. That same 1.8 petrol hybrid from 2019 would come to about 30,000 MDL instead of 39,000.
Example 4. A 1990 classic, 2.5 l
The car is 36 years old with a large engine — by the usual logic the excise should be enormous.
But cars over thirty years old are not charged by displacement: a flat amount applies. From 30 to 39 years — 40,000 MDL, from 40 to 49 — 30,000, older than that — 20,000. With the fee, about 40,500 MDL in total. A twist that catches people out: a big-engined classic clears customs cheaper than a ten-year-old diesel.
What this means in practice
In short: do the maths before you buy, not after. Three conclusions that save money:
- the price of the car barely affects the payments — displacement, age and fuel type do;
- the gap between petrol and diesel of the same size can be several-fold, so run both through the calculator;
- an electric car or a hybrid gives the clearest saving on clearance, and anything over thirty years old is charged at a flat rate.
Run your own car through it: the calculator uses these same rules — year, displacement, fuel type and the price in the contract.
Open the calculator