Last month, I met a brother working on the East African line at the port. A batch of his cars were stuck at customs for two weeks. The reason makes people angry-the format of the report issued by the testing agency he found did not meet the customs clearance requirements of the destination country, and the other party's customs did not recognize it. The car is parked at the port, and the port detention fee is increasing day by day. Overseas customers have sent two urgent emails. "If I had known I would spend a few hundred more yuan to find a reliable home, I wouldn't have spent tens of thousands of yuan in it." When he said this, his eyes were dark. This is not an isolated case. Starting from January 1, 2026, the new regulations of the four departments will be officially implemented. Export vehicles must be issued by a third-party testing agency. The testing standards are "Quality Requirements for the Export of Second-hand Passenger Cars"(WM/T8-2022) or "Quality Requirements for Used Commercial Vehicles"(WM/T9-2022). Without a compliance report, an export license cannot be applied for at all. But "having a report" and "having a report available" are two different things.

Let's start with one of the easiest pits to step on: qualifications

There are many organizations on the market that do used car testing, with quotations ranging from hundreds to thousands. However, the inspection report for export is completely different from the ordinary vehicle inspection report. Export testing reports must be issued by a third-party testing agency with CMA or CNAS qualifications. CMA is a metrology certification in China, and CNAS is recognized by China's National Accreditation Board for Conformity Assessment. These two qualifications mean that the report has legal effect and can be used for export customs declaration filing and customs clearance verification for overseas customers. But what many car dealers don't know is that having CMA qualifications does not mean having CNAS qualifications, and having CNAS does not mean reporting international mutual recognition. In the export scenario, it is best to select an institution with both CMA and CNAS qualifications, and report in bilingual Chinese and English before the customs of the destination country will recognize it. I have seen a car dealer send a monolingual report with only CMA to Africa. After arriving in Hong Kong, it is returned for re-testing and re-shipping, and the cost directly doubles.

Let's talk about the report itself: content is more important than format

A truly useful export inspection report does not just write "pass" or "fail". Overseas buyers cannot come to China to see cars on site, and the test report is the only basis for them to judge the condition of the car. The report should clearly explain what the vehicle VIN is, what items were tested, what problems were found, where the problem was, and whether it was photographed. In particular, structural part testing and mileage authenticity verification are the two places where complaints from overseas customers are most concentrated. Are the front and rear longitudinal beams, ABC pillars, and shock absorber seats cut and welded, and whether the odometer has been adjusted-these are not clearly written. If there is a problem overseas, the buyer will come back to you. What explanation will you give? New energy vehicles should also pay extra attention to battery SOH, cell pressure difference, and whether the battery pack has bottom support or water entering. Nowadays, buyers from Africa and Southeast Asia are becoming more and more sophisticated. They ask for the SOH value when they come forward. If they can't answer it, the order will basically be wasted.

How to choose an institution? My own four standards

First, see if it understands export logic. Ordinary vehicle inspection agencies focus on "whether there is a fault", and export testing also considers destination country access standards-emission requirements, left rudder or right rudder, vehicle age limits, and safety configuration. Being able to drive a car in China does not mean that it can enter the target market. When selecting an organization, you can ask directly: "I travel from Nigeria. Do you know what entry barriers there are?" If you can't answer, pass directly. Second, see if it has port service capabilities. The sources of used car exports are scattered across the country. Whether testing institutions can cover the locations of the vehicles directly affects your procurement efficiency. For example, China Inspection Automobile has testing centers and service points in major ports such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin, supporting door-to-door testing in multiple places. Such institutions are more practical in export scenarios. Third, see if it is willing to go to the port for pre-testing. The current industry trend is to carry out pre-testing-testing at the port or collection site before the vehicle is shipped. Yantai Port is already promoting the construction of export quality and testing systems, concentrating testing and certification, preparation and modification, and warehousing and logistics on the port-based platform. Enterprises do not have to pull their cars back to the mainland for testing and then back them to the port, saving the cost and time of secondary transshipment. Fourth, look at the speed and language of the report. Customs clearance windows in Africa and the Middle East are sometimes very tight, and reports are issued slowly and shipping schedules cannot be missed. Bilingual reports in Chinese and English are standard, and some organizations can also provide on-site video data and send them to overseas buyers. They are much more convincing than pure text reports.

Finally, I'll be honest

In the past, when exporting used cars, the test report was a "whatever you need" thing. Now it is "no good, if you have it, you still have to see whether it is qualified." The logic of the New Deal is very clear-export companies are the main body responsible for quality traceability. If quality problems occur, overseas buyers will look for you, not testing agencies. Whether the testing agency you choose is reliable or not directly determines whether you will be complained, returned, or blacklisted later. Spending a few thousand yuan to make a standardized inspection report is much more money than being returned to the port. don't save on this.

Source: Digital automobile export Xingchen

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