Shipping our Camper to South America

Procedures in Panama


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Once you have settled on an agency in Panama City
  1. 01 Barwil Officeyou have to get from your agent a provisional "Bill of Lading" or written booking confirmation.
  2. Obtain a vehicle inspection report from PTJ (Policia Tecnica Judicial).02 Vehicle Inspection Open until 4:00. There are two PTJ offices you need to visit. The first one is located on the corner of Luis Felipe Clement and Ascanio Arosemena (GPS: N08°57.951' / W079°32.674'). The second one is right across the street. In the first PTJ office, your vehicle will get inspected and verified for correspondence between the identification numbers and your ownership documents. You will be issued a document, which you will have to take to the other PTJ office.
  3. The second office (called Secretaria General, open until 5:00)03 Police Permit, will check that your car has not been involved in any traffic violations, and will issue a permit to leave the country. You will have to provide the name of your shipping company, and it will be printed on the permit. The permit is valid for 8 days. If you fail to ship the car within this period of time, you will have to go through the PTJ inspection again. The required documents for both steps are: the title of the vehicle, importation permit (the one you received when entering Panama) and your passport.
  4. Cancel the "Entrada Con Vehiculo" stamp in your passport ("Entrance with a Vehicle",04 Customs Office you should have received it when entering the country) and obtain a vehicle exit form. This must be done in the Control de Vehiculos office at DGA (Direccion General de Aduanas). DGA, open until 4:30, is located 5 minutes from PTJ (GPS: N08°58.410' / W079°32.826'). The customs will want to know your estimated date and port of departure, as well as the name of the shipping company you are going to use. The required documents include: vehicle importation permit, PTJ permit, your passport, and a draft of the "Bill of Lading" or a booking confirmation from your shipping agency.
  5. Delivery of a vehicle at the "Manzanillo" port in Colón will take at least 3-4 hours, so plan accordingly; the drive to Colón (~90 kms) takes 2 hours plus! The following procedures are for LoLo shipping; container shipping will be different in some points.
    1. first locate the Seabord office (GPS: N 09°21.81' / W079°52.76' - drive past all the waiting trucks and park in their lot, open until 4:00 or 4:30?);
    2. find the contact person (who speaks some English) and get procedures explained, and get somebody to measure and inspect your vehicle in your presence (turn off your propane bottles at the same time!);
    3. get a copy of the vehicle inspection report and a stamped version of your "Bill of Lading";
    4. drive into the right gate of the Manzanillo port, follow instructions to park your vehicle temporarily;
    5. take your "Bill of Lading" to the customs counter (next to Seaboard, open until 5:00) and have it stamped once again;
    6. go to the cashier around the corner and pay your harbour fee, in our case $10;
    7. show all these documents to the harbour personnel, who will then send you to Seaboard's storage area, where you hand over your key and say good-bye to your vehicle;
    8. 05 Seaboard ColonSeaboard's personnel will most likely drive you back to the port entrance, from where you can easily walk to the bus terminal and catch an Express Bus back to Panama City ($2.50 per person, ~2 hours, get off somewhere in the centre, don't drive all the way to the bus terminal!).

TIPS:

  1. When you enter the Panama by road make sure that your vehicle entry permit, issued at the border, is 100% correct (spelling and other details); in our case the VIN number was printed under engine number, and under VIN was entered "ver motor" - enough to have been sent by the Policia Tecnica Judicial to customs to get a corrected entry form before they inspected the car!
  2. Make sure that at customs you get, apart from your vehicle exit form, a "Cancelled" stamp onto the vehicle stamp in your passport; I forgot and had to go back (though, then at the airport, nobody checked - dumb luck?) - I'm not sure if I could have got it at the port in Colón...
  3. If you are sharing a container make certain that on the "Bill of Lading" each vehicle (this would include motorbikes!) is listed seperately with the complete and correct details of the corresponding owner! In most cases you will not get a seperate "Bill of Lading" for each vehicle (which would be better). If you fail to check this the processing of the container at destination will be impossible.
  4. If you have to hand over a key to your vehicle (RoRo or LoLo) then plan at least a few hours to empty really everything out of your driver's cabin (glove box, under seats, door compartments, etc. Things I considered worthless were stolen!). If you own a vehicle with access from the front to the back, spend some time (and money) to secure this passage really well!
  5. The cheapest flights from Panama City to Cartagena seem to be with "aires", a small Colombian company; this is probably the same in the other direction! LINK: Bookings on the internet under aires.aero. I paid $134 + taxes and charges = $174 in total, the cheapest flight I could find on expedia.com was $288.

>> Page 3: The procedure in Cartagena / Colombia >>

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