If you want to understand why a Guyanese worker earning a decent salary still cannot afford a reliable car, start at the port. A standard Japanese used sedan with a 1,600cc engine, purchased abroad for US$5,000, arrives in Guyana and immediately attracts a layered tax structure that can double or even triple its landed cost before it reaches a dealership or a driveway. That is not an accident of economics. It is a policy choice. And in 2026, with Guyana’s oil wealth funding the largest national budget in the country’s history, it is a policy choice that deserves serious scrutiny.
Guyana’s vehicle import tax regime operates on three layers: customs duty, excise tax, and value added tax. For a privately imported used vehicle over four years old with an engine between 1,500cc and 2,000cc, excise tax alone is charged at a flat rate based on engine size and fuel type, calculated on a base that includes the CIF value plus all charges. For newer vehicles under four years old, VAT at 14 percent is added on top of customs duty and excise tax, compounding the burden further. For dealers importing vehicles under four years old, the excise tax base is calculated on one and a half times the CIF value plus customs duty, a multiplier designed to approximate retail pricing that in practice inflates the tax take well beyond what the vehicle is worth at the port gate.
A standard example illustrates the problem. A used petrol sedan with a 1,800cc engine purchased for US$5,000 CIF can attract combined taxes of between US$3,000 and US$5,000 depending on age and importer category, meaning the total landed cost before dealer margin reaches US$8,000 to US$10,000. By the time that vehicle is on a lot, a Guyanese buyer is paying between US$12,000 and US$15,000 for a car that cost US$5,000 overseas. For a country where the average gross monthly salary is approximately GYD 100,000, equivalent to roughly US$500 at current exchange rates, that vehicle represents two years of gross income.
The government’s stated justifications for this structure are not entirely without merit, but they are also not entirely convincing. The traditional arguments for high vehicle import duties are threefold: protecting a domestic automotive manufacturing industry, managing road congestion and infrastructure wear, and generating government revenue. Guyana has no automotive manufacturing industry to protect. That argument, the one that justifies Japan’s vehicle tariffs, Germany’s historic protections, and even Trinidad’s higher rates on vehicles that compete with its assembly operations, does not apply here. It never has. The country assembles nothing. It manufactures nothing on four wheels. The protection rationale is a non-starter.
The congestion and infrastructure argument has slightly more traction given Georgetown’s notorious traffic and the condition of interior roads, but it is undermined by the government’s own behaviour. Budget 2026 reduced duties on double-cab pickup trucks to flat rates of G$2 million for smaller engines and G$3 million for larger ones, a significant reduction from previous rates that could reach two to three times the purchase price for older work trucks. ATVs were made entirely duty-free. These are vehicles that are heavy, large, and place at least as much wear on road infrastructure as a standard sedan. If the infrastructure argument were genuine, pickups and ATVs would face higher duties, not lower ones. The selective reduction reveals that the policy is not principled. It is political.
The revenue argument is the honest one. The Guyana Revenue Authority collects substantial sums from vehicle import taxes, and Guyana imported US$684 million in vehicles in 2025 alone. Reducing duties across the board would create a short-term revenue gap. But the government collected US$9 billion in oil revenue between 2020 and 2025. A modest, phased reduction in vehicle import taxes would be fiscally manageable and economically rational.
The regional comparison makes Guyana’s position look even harder to justify. Suriname, which shares a border with Guyana and has a comparable economic profile, applies import tariffs on finished goods of between 15 and 20 percent with a sales tax of 10 percent, producing a total effective rate on vehicles that is materially lower than what Guyanese pay. Trinidad and Tobago applies a Motor Vehicle Tax and VAT structure that, while not negligible, is applied at rates generally below what Guyana charges for equivalent vehicles, and Trinidad has the partial justification of protecting its domestic vehicle assembly operations. Guyana has no such justification and charges more.
The partial reforms in Budget 2026 acknowledge that the problem exists. New vehicles under 1,500cc are now VAT-exempt. Hybrid vehicles under 2,000cc are VAT-exempt. These are welcome signals, but they are narrow in application and disproportionately benefit buyers who can already afford new or new-ish vehicles. The majority of Guyanese buying used Japanese vehicles in the 1,500cc to 2,000cc range, the backbone of the country’s private vehicle market, remain subject to the full weight of a tax structure designed for a country with industries and priorities that Guyana does not have.
What a rational vehicle import policy for Guyana should look like is not complicated. A flat customs duty of between 10 and 20 percent on all private passenger vehicles, with excise tax reserved for vehicles above 3,000cc as a genuine luxury or environmental measure, and VAT either removed or capped at 5 percent for vehicles below a defined value threshold, would bring Guyana broadly in line with its regional neighbours and make vehicle ownership accessible to a far wider portion of the population. The government could introduce a graduated structure so that smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles attract the lowest rates, mirroring the logic it has already applied to hybrids and EVs, while larger engine vehicles carry higher rates. This simultaneously addresses environmental policy and affordability without sacrificing the revenue logic entirely.
The government should also consider the broader economic argument it is ignoring. A working Guyanese family with reliable private transport earns more, spends more, and contributes more to economic activity than one dependent on an overcrowded minibus system. Vehicle affordability is not a luxury question. It is a productivity and quality of life question. In a country where the interior has minimal public transport, where children travel hours to school, and where small business owners depend on personal vehicles for commerce, the cost of a car is not separate from the cost of living. It is central to it.
The pickup truck reduction was politically popular and targeted at a constituency the government wanted to serve. That logic should now be extended to every Guyanese who wants a car to get to work, carry their children, or build a business. There is no domestic automotive industry to protect. There is no credible infrastructure argument that does not apply equally to the vehicles already being exempted. What remains is a revenue structure that has outlived its justification and a tax burden that falls hardest on the people least able to carry it.
SOURCE: Research sourced from Guyana Revenue Authority, 592Hub Vehicle Importation Guide 2026, US Trade and Development Agency, UN COMTRADE 2025, Budget 2026 measures, PWC Guyana Tax Summaries, May 2026
