Shipping a car from China to Beirut

Container or RoRo

A car can cross by sea in two ways. On a roll-on roll-off ship, it is driven up a stern ramp onto one of many vehicle decks and lashed in place, with no crane lift. In a container, it is loaded and secured inside a steel box, which is then lifted aboard like any other box.

Höegh Autoliners, a RoRo operator, says that driving cars aboard lowers the risk of damage compared with lifting them in containers, and that RoRo usually costs less than a single container. Which mode suits an order depends on the sailings open on the route at the time, so the choice is made when the freight is quoted.

Electric cars are dangerous goods at sea from 1 January 2026

Amendment 42-24 to the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code became mandatory on 1 January 2026, after a voluntary year in 2025. It created new Class 9 entries for battery-powered vehicles: UN 3556 for lithium-ion, UN 3557 for lithium metal and UN 3558 for sodium-ion.

The older generic entry, UN 3171, may no longer be used for lithium-ion or sodium-ion vehicles. China's Maritime Safety Administration applied the amendment from the same date and limited UN 3171 to vehicles with wet, sodium-metal or sodium-alloy batteries.

The new vehicle entries come with packing instruction P912, and the administration told shippers to load and secure electric vehicles to its terms. When a vehicle is fully enclosed by packaging or a crate, so that it is hard to identify, the package and the transport unit must carry the dangerous-goods marks, labels and placards.

What dangerous-goods shipping means for the buyer

The car is declared under its correct UN number in the booking and in every transport document. Maersk advises placarding such containers on all four sides before gate-in, and warns that shipments that break the rules may be delayed, rejected or penalised.

The battery's safety data sheet has to be up to date as well. KLN's advisory says Section 14 of the sheet must cite Amendment 42-24, and that a sheet still citing the older 41-22 edition is invalid from 1 January 2026.

Because a sheet citing the old edition can stop the booking, the battery papers need to be in order before the car is booked. A Cloud Auto quote for an electric car in a container assumes dangerous-goods loading.

Export ports and the stop before loading

Shanghai is one of China's main car export gateways. In November 2024 it opened what the city calls China's first port-based used-car export service centre, at the Haitong International Automotive Terminal, with registration and logistics in one place and inspection inside the port area. The head of a local automotive services firm said the set-up cuts about 10 days from the export process.

Before loading, a car bought through Cloud Auto goes from the factory to our installation partner near the export port. Film, colour and the set-up of the electronics are done there and photographed, and the car then moves on to the port.

About a month at sea

Plan for roughly a month on the water between loading in China and arrival in Beirut. The real time depends on the line and the route it takes, so the dates come with the booking for each sailing.

On arrival, a licensed clearing agent takes the car through Lebanese customs before it is released. The import rules on that side are covered in the guide to importing a car into Lebanon.

How freight is quoted and shared

Freight is priced for each sailing, not from a fixed table. A 40 ft container holds two or three cars, depending on their size, and the box's freight is divided between them. One car can travel alone in a 20 ft container, though the price per car is then higher.

Each quote shows the freight on a line of its own, at the forwarder's rate for that booking. Dealers who order several cars get a per-car price with the split of the container freight set out. This site prints no freight figures, because rates move from one sailing to the next.

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