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If you’ve made the decision that it’s finally time to buy a Land Rover Defender 90 2 door, then you’ve got two choices. First, you can either try and source one in the US, which can be tricky and very expensive. Or second, you can try and import one. You won’t be the only US citizen who is looking to Europe to find the car of their dreams - and you won’t be the last. The good news is that it should be possible and even straightforward to import the car you crave. The (somewhat) bad news is that there are some rules and regulations you need to know about, the most important of which is the ‘25-year rule’.

This is the key piece of legislation that determines whether or not you can legally import a car into the US. Fall foul of this law and you could find yourself without your precious vehicle. So, just what is the 25-year rule and how do you go about understanding how to import a Land Rover Defender while following the regulations to the letter?

What is the 25-year law?

In essence, the law says that owing to regulations set out by the Department of Transportation, vehicles must have been made over 25 years ago to qualify for import. This is to ensure that modern vehicles which enter the US comply with modern safety regulations in place in the domestic market. However, vehicles that are older than this are not subject to the same legislation and therefore still applicable for import to the US. Which, thankfully, includes a lot of Land Rover Defenders. If you’re north of the border in Canada, you may want to know that the cut off is just 15 years for Land Rovers Defenders, not 25.

More good news is that the only real exception to the 25-year rule is the Land Rover 110. However, they must be in their original form to import. In addition, if you did want to go down the route of bringing a Land Rover Defender into the country that’s under 25 years old, you would have to ‘federalize’ it. 

Are There Other Import Regulations? 

Yes, there are. Any car imported to the US needs to match up the emissions standards as laid out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, they operate a 21-year rule of their own, which means as long as the vehicle you wish to import is over 21 years old, the restrictions do not apply. That means as long as the Land Rover Defender import regulations - as laid out by the Department of Transport - are met, then it will almost certainly meet the EPA’s too. There is another form to fill out, but this is fairly straightforward and an import agent should be able to help. 

So, if you’re looking to import a Land Rover Defender to the US, the chances are high that your import will be approved without too much fuss or hassle. If you would like to know more about the type of vehicles available, or to find out how to import a Land Rover Defender in the easiest way possible, then contact our team today.