US Auction Cars to Rotterdam, Thessaloniki, Varna and Burgas

From a US auction to an EU port: the route, and the part Y7 runs

Six stages take a car from a US auction to the road in Europe. Y7 runs the second and hands over at the third; the rest belongs to you, your freight forwarder and EU customs.

1. 01

   US auction

   You

   You win the lot at Copart, IAA or Manheim and pay, and the auction releases the vehicle. Keep the auction invoice: the evidence of US origin starts with it.

2. 02

   US inland leg

   Y7

   Y7 assigns a carrier, and the carrier collects the car at the yard and delivers it to the export warehouse or port your forwarder nominated. You follow each milestone in the Y7 portal.

3. 03

   US export warehouse or port

   Y7 hands over

   The carrier delivers against the warehouse's receiving rules and the gate pass on file. From here the vehicle is in your forwarder's hands.

4. 04

   Ocean leg

   Your forwarder

   Your forwarder books the vessel, Ro-Ro or container, and the ocean bill of lading is issued. For the EU duty below, the routing has to count as direct transport.

5. 05

   EU port

   Your forwarder

   The car arrives at Rotterdam, Thessaloniki, Varna or Burgas, whichever port your forwarder routes it through.

6. 06

   EU customs clearance

   Your forwarder and EU customs

   The EU declarant lodges the import declaration and EU customs decide the duty. Then the car continues by road.

0% EU duty on US-built, clean-title cars since 1 July 2026

This is why the US leg matters for an EU-bound car: the evidence of US origin and direct transport begins at the US auction and the US port.

Regulation (EU) 2026/1455 was adopted on 25 June 2026, published in the Official Journal on 30 June 2026 and has been in force since 1 July 2026. It lists the vehicles chapter of the tariff, Chapter 87, in its Annex I: for a US-built car with a clean title, the EU import duty falls from 10% to 0% until 31 December 2029, when the importer proves US origin and direct transport. Cars sit outside the quota lines, so the 0% for US-built, clean-title cars is not limited by quantity.

Built in the USA, not bought there

US origin means the car was manufactured in the USA. Origin attaches at manufacture, not at the sale, so a vehicle built in Germany, Japan, Korea or Mexico and sold at a US auction does not qualify. Y7 checks the manufacturing plant through the NHTSA VIN decoder before anything is filed.

Clean title only: salvage and rebuilt titles do not qualify

The 0% route works for US-built vehicles with a clean title and does not work for salvage. Salvage and rebuilt titles do not qualify; a used car with a clean title does, whatever its age or mileage. Most Copart and IAA lots carry salvage titles, and those do not get the 0% rate, so price a salvage car at the standard 10%.

Proving it: two conditions, and what a certificate does

Both conditions are mandatory, and both are set by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1422, which inserts Article 59a into the Union Customs Code implementing regulation (2015/2447). The vehicle must be of non-preferential US origin, and it must be transported directly: if it passes through a third country, it has to stay under customs supervision there, with nothing done to it that affects its origin.

No standardized certificate exists for this regime. Freedom of proof applies, and the burden rests on the EU importer. Italian customs, the first in the EU to clarify, called a certificate of origin recommended rather than mandatory on 7 July 2026. A certificate is what closes the importer's burden of proof, and the EU declarant or importer claims the rate on the import declaration.

What the rate is worth, and how long it lasts

As an illustration of the rate difference, not a promise about any vehicle: on a $60,000 US-built car with a clean title that meets both conditions, 10% duty is $6,000, and at 0% there is none. The regime runs until 31 December 2029, with a review due by June 2029, and it can be suspended earlier if the conditions of the EU-US framework stop being met. Plan purchases with that window in mind.

What Y7 does here

Y7 screens eligibility by manufacturing plant through NHTSA, assembles the evidence package and files as standing agent. How the service works and what it costs is on the Certificate of Origin page.

Rotterdam: the EU's largest port, and the road on to Poland

Rotterdam is the EU's largest port and a principal entry point into the Union. Many exporters clear EU customs there and send the cars on by road into Poland and Central Europe; for the Polish market, Rotterdam is the main entry.

This site's port pages cover the three US departure ports that serve Europe: Newark; Baltimore, whose Dundalk Marine Terminal the Baltimore page describes as a leading Ro-Ro terminal for Europe-bound vehicles; and Savannah. Which of them a car leaves from is your forwarder's routing decision. The US leg into each is measured below.

Varna and Burgas: Bulgaria's two Black Sea ports

Bulgaria has two Black Sea ports, and a car shipped from the US to Bulgaria arrives at one of them. Importers commonly report Varna as the cheaper of the two, with more Ro-Ro service from the US; that is their report, not Y7 data.

The US departure ports importers most often report for Bulgaria are New York, Baltimore, Houston and Los Angeles. Each has a page on this site: New York / New Jersey, Baltimore, Houston and Los Angeles.

Thessaloniki: the Greek alternative to the Bulgarian ports

Exporters shipping to Bulgaria also use Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, as an alternative to Varna and Burgas: the car enters the EU at Thessaloniki and continues to Bulgaria by road. Whether that route suits a given car is a question for your forwarder; Y7 publishes no distance, cost or transit figure for it.

The US leg to the ports that serve Europe

This is the part Y7 runs. It is also the part of the journey a buyer usually cannot see.

Measured carrier rates to the export ports

The medians below come from Y7's own Central Dispatch records: 747 standard-vehicle auction pickups delivered to export warehouses and ports, February–September 2026. They are carrier rates only; the Y7 fee is separate and is never added into them. The full cost stack and the method behind these numbers are in the auction-to-port cost breakdown.

* A thin sample: read it as indicative, not settled.

Baltimore has no measured lane in this sample, so for a Baltimore delivery, and for any longer haul, read the distance bands from the same records:

Three reasons a carrier is turned away at a Copart yard

Most pickup delays at a Copart yard come from three failures, and each is avoided the same way: by sending complete, accurate release data before the load is dispatched.

• The lot is not yet cleared for release. The carrier arrives, the yard turns it away and storage keeps running. Confirm that payment has cleared and the release is issued before dispatch.
• The buyer details do not match the lot. The yard refuses release when the buyer name or buyer number on the paperwork differs from the lot record. Send them exactly as the auction holds them.
• Keys nobody disclosed are missing. The car will not roll onto the trailer, and the carrier came without the equipment to load it. Say at booking whether the keys are there and whether the car starts, rolls and steers.

Y7 checks the release data against the lot before dispatch, but the yard decides the release, and no one can promise that none of the three will happen. The Copart gate pass guide covers the release rules in detail.

Seeing the US leg

Practitioners describe the inland leg as the part of the journey the buyer cannot see: the ocean line has no involvement until the vehicle reaches the port. The Y7 portal records that leg by milestone: Listed, when the Central Dispatch listing is created; Carrier Assigned; Dispatched; and Delivered. The listing and the carrier assignment are also reported in your channel, Telegram or the same email thread, as they happen.

When the car is picked up

Pickup is typically 1–3 days from the moment the release slot is obtained, not from the purchase, though busy Copart yards can put the earliest appointment 2–4 days out, and weather, season, weekends and carrier breakdowns extend it further. Y7 does not promise a pickup date.

The Y7 fee, separate from the carrier rate

Exporters pay Y7 a dispatch fee of $50 per vehicle, with handling of the carrier payment included. The carrier rate is always a separate line and is never added to the fee. Y7 Logistics is a Licensed & Bonded FMCSA Broker (MC #1741537, USDOT #4427359); cargo insurance in transit belongs to the carrier. Each load goes to a carrier from a network of 900+, and before each dispatch Y7 checks the carrier's FMCSA authority, its current certificate of insurance and its Central Dispatch history, the assigned driver's licence and that driver's direct number. Accounts are set up through the exporter program, and the service itself is described on the auction-to-port transport page.

Where Y7's part ends

Y7's part ends at the US export warehouse or port. The ocean leg, the choice of vessel, the ocean bill of lading and clearance at the EU port are handled by your freight forwarder, and the duty is decided by EU customs. Y7 does not quote ocean freight, transit times, VAT or registration costs, because it does not provide those services.

Questions exporters ask about the European lanes