Hs 8704 52 Gvm Exceeding 5 T | Import Duty South Africa | JLog

The customs duty rate for HS Code 8704.52 is 10%.

HS 8704.52 is not a diesel truck code. It is the South African customs heading for spark-ignition (petrol) plus electric hybrid goods vehicles with a gross vehicle mass exceeding 5 tonnes — a sub-heading added to Chapter 87 by the World Customs Organization’s HS 2022 nomenclature, adopted into SARS Schedule 1 Part 1 with retrospective effect from 1 January 2022. If you have landed here looking for the rate on a medium diesel rigid — the 5–20 tonne dropside, tipper, or refrigerated body that does most of the country’s palletised freight — the code you actually want is HS 8704.22, which was not retired by HS 2022 and remains the correct line for pure diesel rigids. This page explains what 8704.52 covers, why so many importers misfile against it, and what the duty and compliance picture looks like for the genuine hybrid niche.

What this HS code covers

HS 8704.52 sits inside the new 8704.5 family for petrol-electric hybrid goods vehicles. Heading 87.04 was restructured under HS 2022 to separate vehicles by powertrain rather than only by weight. The family now reads:

• 8704.2x — pure diesel or semi-diesel (8704.21 ≤5t, 8704.22 >5–20t, 8704.23 >20t)
• 8704.3x — pure spark-ignition (petrol)
• 8704.4x — diesel plus electric hybrid (8704.41 / 8704.42 >5–20t / 8704.43)
• 8704.5x — spark-ignition plus electric hybrid (8704.51 ≤5t / 8704.52 >5t)
• 8704.60 — pure electric
• 8704.90 — other

8704.52 is the only line in the 5x family for trucks above 5 tonnes, and it has no separate >20 t split — every petrol-hybrid goods vehicle over 5 tonnes G.V.M. falls inside this single sub-heading. In SARS Schedule 1 Part 1 the heading is split further at the 8-digit statistical level into 8704.52.10 (off-the-road logging trucks) and 8704.52.90 (other). Diesel-electric medium and heavy hybrids — by far the more common architecture in commercial fleets — sit under 8704.42 / 8704.43, not here.

South African trade picture

The South African market for HS 8704.52 is currently very small. UN Comtrade records for South Africa as reporter show only one verifiable import line on this code in recent years: USD 1,711.93 covering a single unit from Australia in 2022 (UN Comtrade, reporter ZAF, HS 870452, 2022 — public preview). 2023 and 2024 show no import rows in the public preview at all. There is one outbound line — USD 81,783.20 (one unit) exported to Brazil in 2023.

That pattern is consistent with the underlying commodity: petrol-electric hybrid medium and heavy trucks are a thin global niche, because diesel and diesel-hybrid still dominate the over-5-tonne segment everywhere. Any market-size figure you see quoted in the hundreds of millions of dollars almost certainly relates to chapter 87.04 as a whole, or to HS 8704.22 (pure diesel 5–20 t), not to this sub-heading. If your interest is the diesel medium-truck market, work from HS 8704.22 and NAAMSA reporting, not from 8704.52.

Duties and VAT

For HS 8704.52, the rates currently published in SARS Schedule 1 Part 1 (version 15 May 2026) are:

VAT on imports is 15%, charged on the added-tax value (duty-inclusive customs value plus 10% uplift on non-BLNS origin) under section 13 of the VAT Act. No ad valorem excise applies — Schedule 1 Part 2B covers passenger and luxury goods (87.02 / 87.03), and heading 87.04 sits outside it. No specific excise applies either.

Preferential treatment matters here. SADC-origin trucks enter free. EU and UK origin attracts 12% under the SACU–EU Economic Partnership Agreement. EFTA origin attracts 15%. AfCFTA and MERCOSUR currently offer no margin against the 20% general rate. AGOA does not apply to South African imports — AGOA is a US programme that grants South Africa duty-free access to the US market, not the reverse.

For context, HS 8704.22 (pure diesel 5–20 t rigid) and HS 8704.42 (diesel-hybrid 5–20 t) both carry the same 20% general / 12% EU-UK / free SADC structure for the “other” stat code. The widely quoted “25% ad valorem on trucks” figure is wrong for any of the medium codes — that rate applies to the lighter ≤5 t commercial sub-headings in 8704.21 / 8704.31 / 8704.41 / 8704.51 (SARS Schedule 1 Part 1, Chapter 87, version 15 May 2026).

Documents and compliance

A goods-vehicle import under any 87.04 sub-heading is one of the heaviest paper trails SARS handles. You should expect to provide:

• SAD500 with the correct HS code at 8-digit level (8704.52.10 or 8704.52.90), engine type, fuel/hybrid configuration, and G.V.M.
• Commercial invoice showing G.V.M., engine specification, drive configuration, and indication of new or used
• Bill of lading or air waybill
• ITAC import permit for any used commercial vehicle (mandatory under the Used Vehicle Policy, current published edition November 2019, administered under the International Trade Administration Act 71 of 2002)
• NRCS Letter of Authority against the applicable compulsory specification for goods vehicles — verify the current VC reference with NRCS before lodging
• Original deregistration certificate from the country of origin (used units)
• Police clearance certificate for any used vehicle
• Proof of payment and country-of-origin documentation supporting any claimed preferential rate (EUR.1 for EU/UK, SADC certificate of origin, etc.)

Two specific traps are worth flagging. First, the G.V.M. additional note in Chapter 87 (Additional Note 3) defines G.V.M. only for sub-headings 8704.21, 8704.22, 8704.23, 8704.31 and 8704.32 — the new 8704.4x and 8704.5x hybrid lines are not named. Classifiers extend the definition by analogy, but it leaves an interpretive gap your broker should be alive to (SARS Schedule 1 Part 1, Chapter 87 Additional Note 3, version 15 May 2026). Second, the HS 2022 implementation in South Africa was given retrospective effect to 1 January 2022 by Government Gazette 46553, Notice R.2163 of 17 June 2022, which corrected drafting errors in the original implementation — older tariff books in circulation may still not match the live schedule.

Common mistakes

The dominant mistake on this code is misclassification at the entry stage. Brokers and importers working from pre-2022 tariff knowledge sometimes file a petrol-hybrid truck under one of the pure-diesel lines (8704.22 / 8704.23), or default a diesel-hybrid to 8704.52 because the new 8704.4x lines are unfamiliar. Both are wrong and both invite SARS amendment, demurrage, and re-assessment of duty and VAT. The opposite mistake is also common: importers landing a normal diesel rigid truck and being told the old 8704.22 line is “dead.” It is not. Pure diesel 5–20 t rigids remain validly classified under 8704.22.90 in 2026. The third trap is the duty rate itself — “25% on trucks” is folklore for this weight class; the real general rate at 8704.22.90, 8704.42.90 and 8704.52.90 is 20%. Finally, used-truck importers regularly underestimate the ITAC permit lead time and the NRCS LOA process, both of which sit outside SARS and have to be in hand before the truck can be licensed.

How JLog handles it

JLog clears goods-vehicle imports through Cape Town and Durban for fleet operators, used-truck dealers, and specialist body builders. For HS 8704.52 — and the related 8704.22 / 8704.42 lines that most clients actually need — we confirm the correct powertrain and G.V.M. classification before the SAD500 is lodged, arrange the ITAC permit and NRCS Letter of Authority where required, handle origin documentation for SADC and EU-UK preferential entries, and manage the bond, release, and inland delivery from port to yard. Where a client has been quoted 25%, we run the rate against the live SARS schedule and correct the entry before it costs money.

Get a quote

If your broker told you the duty on your medium truck is 25%, get a second opinion before the entry is lodged — the real general rate at 8704.22.90, 8704.42.90 and 8704.52.90 is 20%, and the difference on a single landed unit will pay for the clearance several times over. Quote: jlog.co.za/get-a-quote