Ask any Nigerian who has imported a car from the United States and the story tends to follow the same shape. A price is agreed. Money is sent, often in dollars, often to someone they have never met. Then the costs begin to arrive one at a time: shipping, duty, levies, clearing, agent fees. By the time the car reaches the owner, the figure bears little resemblance to the one they first said yes to.
AFRIKARS, a technology company building a cross-border vehicle marketplace, has built its platform around removing that gap.
The company’s proposition is a single number. Every vehicle listed on afrikars.com displays an estimated landed cost, covering the car, the shipping and the import charges in one figure, before the buyer commits to anything. The platform currently lists more than 160,000 vehicles sourced from dealers across the United States, from everyday saloons to premium models, each one carrying its own estimate.
“The problem was never that Nigerians cannot buy cars abroad,” Femi Omotoso, the Afrikars’ co-founder says. “The problem is that nobody tells them what it will actually cost until after they have paid.”
How it works
A buyer browses listings on the AFRIKARS website or mobile app and sees the estimated cost of landing each vehicle in Nigeria. When they choose a car, AFRIKARS purchases it on their behalf and manages the process through to delivery.
Payment is made in naira, into a Nigerian account, by a buyer who never has to arrange a dollar transfer abroad. Funds move in stages, with each stage verified before the next is released, and the buyer follows the vehicle’s progress through the platform.
The company also offers a free VIN lookup. After signing up and completing identity verification, users receive three free checks on a vehicle’s United States export history, covering title records, accident and salvage history. The tool reports origin history rather than a vehicle’s current condition, and AFRIKARS says it was built for a specific and widespread problem: Nigerian buyers have had no practical way of knowing what happened to a car before it was shipped.
A market in motion
The timing is deliberate. Under the 2026 Fiscal Policy Measures, implemented from 1 July 2026, the import levy on used vehicles fell from 15 per cent to 5 per cent, while the levy on new vehicles dropped from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. A Green Tax Surcharge was introduced at the same time, with vehicles below 2,000cc, mass-transit buses, electric vehicles and locally manufactured vehicles among the exempted categories.
For buyers, the change matters only if it reaches them. A lower levy makes no difference to a buyer who is quoted a single opaque figure by an intermediary and has no way of checking what sits inside it. AFRIKARS argues that visibility of each line is what converts a policy change into money that stays in the buyer’s pocket.
Used vehicle imports remain a significant part of Nigeria’s automotive market, with foreign-used cars accounting for the majority of vehicles on the country’s roads. The company says its ambition is to make the import process something a buyer can follow and verify, rather than something they have to hand over to someone else and hope.
Founders 100
Ahead of its live launch, AFRIKARS has opened applications for Founders 100, a founding membership limited to the first one hundred buyers who bring a vehicle home through the platform.
Founding members lock a service rate of 3.8 per cent, subject to a minimum of 800 dollars, and keep that rate for life on every subsequent purchase. The membership also includes fuel credit of up to ₦500,000, vehicle registration handled by the company, and a permanent place on the AFRIKARS Founders Wall. Terms apply, and the membership closes once the hundredth place is taken.
Launch
AFRIKARS launched publicly in Abuja on 13 October 2026, introducing the platform to its first live audience at The Nordic. The company currently delivers into Nigeria, with buyers elsewhere on the continent invited to register interest as new markets are confirmed. Vehicles are available to browse now at afrikars.com, alongside a landed cost calculator and VIN lookup. The AFRIKARS app is available on the App Store.
