Free guide and tool · The Logistics Files
Temporary Admission Permit
Sometimes a country needs a machine it does not own. A drilling rig for one well. A floating vessel to hold oil for two years. A crane no local company has. The machine arrives, does the job, and leaves again.
Charging full import tax on something that is only visiting would be unfair, and every trading country knows it. So there is a special permit that lets equipment come in without paying import duty, on one condition: you leave a guarantee for the full tax, and you get it back when the equipment leaves. This page explains how that works, what it costs, and where it goes wrong.
The whole idea in four steps
- 1
You ask firstBefore anything ships, you apply to the customs service and explain what is coming, what job it is doing, and when it will leave.
- 2
You leave a guaranteeA bank or an insurance company promises customs the full tax amount. This is called a bond. It is not a payment. It is a promise that can be cashed.
- 3
The equipment worksIt comes in duty free and does the job, under a permit with a fixed end date and a list of rules attached.
- 4
It leaves, and you get the guarantee backCustoms checks it is the same machine, approves the export, and releases the bond. If it never leaves, they cash the bond instead.
Put simply: the bond is not a fee. It is a hostage. Nobody takes your money unless you break the deal.
The words people mix up. This permit is called Temporary Admission, and the paper is a Temporary Admission Permit, shortened to TAP. Older names still used every day are TI (Temporary Importation) and TIP (Temporary Importation Permit). They all mean the same thing. In Nigeria the name changed with the Nigeria Customs Service Act 2023, which brought the country in line with the Revised Kyoto Convention, an international agreement on how customs procedures should work. Write "TAP" to customs. Say "TI" to your agent.
What guarantee will they ask for?
The guarantee is roughly all the tax you would have paid, plus a margin on top. That is a bigger number than most people expect, because the tax is not one charge, it is six. Put your figures in and see the whole stack. Nothing you type leaves your device.
The rates above are the Nigerian ones at the time of writing: a customs service levy of 4% on the goods value, duty on the CIF value, a 7% surcharge on the duty, a 0.5% regional trade levy, and VAT at 7.5%. Change the duty rate to match your own product code. If you are importing somewhere else, the shape is the same and only the percentages differ.
Your permit clock
A permit runs from a date the customs service chooses, which is often not the day your equipment arrives. People lose weeks without noticing. Put the two dates in and see exactly where you stand.
What gets approved, and what gets refused
Usually granted
Floating production and storage vesselsThe large vessels that sit over an oil field, take the oil as it comes up, store it, and pass it to a tanker.
Drilling rigs and drill shipsThey arrive for one well or one campaign and leave when it is finished.
Ships, barges, tugs and pontoonsBrought in for a specific marine job, then taken back out.
DredgersFor channel work, land reclamation or erosion control.
Heavy lift and crawler cranesMachines too specialised or too large to hire locally.
Specialised project machineryTunnelling machines, pipe-laying spreads, testing equipment, exhibition and film equipment.
Usually refused
Anything you will use upFuel, chemicals, cement, food, consumable spares. If it cannot come back out, it cannot go on a temporary permit.
Ordinary vehiclesCars, vans and trucks for local use. Visitors bringing a personal car have a separate scheme, further down this page.
Goods you can hire in the countryA central test is whether the item is genuinely unavailable locally. If it can be hired nearby, expect a refusal.
Anything you actually intend to keepThat is a normal import. Bringing it in temporarily and hoping to convert it later is the most expensive way to buy something.
Low value itemsThe paperwork and the guarantee cost more than the duty would. Below roughly a hundred thousand dollars, this is rarely worth doing.
The question underneath all of this is simple. Is it coming back out? If the honest answer is no, this is the wrong door and going through it anyway is how companies end up owing years of tax at once.
The documents, and who has to produce each one
Nearly every delay on these applications is a missing document, and nearly every missing document belongs to somebody who did not know they owned it. So here is the list split by who actually has to go and find it.
The company bringing the equipment in
- Letter of applicationFrom the company that owns or has hired the equipment, addressed to the head of the customs service, saying exactly what is coming in and for how long.
- Letter of authorityA second letter naming the licensed agent who is allowed to handle the application on your behalf. Without it the agent cannot act.
- The main contractThe job the equipment is coming to do, and who it is doing it for. This is what proves the equipment has a purpose and an end date.
- The lease or charter agreementBetween the owner of the equipment and the company hiring it. It shows you do not own the thing, which is the whole basis of the application.
- Pro-forma invoiceA document stating what the equipment is worth. Everything in the guarantee is calculated from this number, so it matters more than people expect.
- Specification or brochure, with picturesWhat the item actually is. Photographs help, because the same equipment has to be recognised again on the way out.
- Certificate of incorporationProof the applying company legally exists.
- Memorandum and articles of associationThe company's founding documents, showing it is allowed to do this kind of work.
- Valid tax clearance certificateUsually covering the last three years. An expired one stops the file dead.
The licensed agent
- The agent's covering letterSubmitted with the whole bundle, listing every document enclosed. This letter is what gets stamped and becomes your proof of the filing date.
- Valid customs licenceOnly a licensed agent may file. The licence number goes on the file.
- The agent's own registration formThe standard form that ties the licensed agent to this particular application.
After the first approval comes through
- The bank or insurance guaranteeIssued for the full amount the customs service calculates, in the name of the importer, and physically lodged at customs headquarters. A scan is not enough: the original is collected and held.
- Arrival notificationA letter telling the local customs command the date the equipment actually arrived.
- The import declarationFiled under the temporary admission procedure, not the ordinary one. Getting this wrong turns a temporary import into a permanent one on paper.
One habit worth more than the list. Keep a single sheet recording every document, who sent it, on what date, and which version. When head office asks for something again three months later, and it will, that sheet is the difference between an afternoon and a fortnight.
How long it really takes
Guides often say four weeks. For a large asset that is optimistic. Here is a more honest picture, stage by stage.
| Stage | Allow | What happens |
|---|
| Gather the documents | 2 to 4 weeks | The contract and the lease have to be signed and final. Tax clearance has to be current. This stage is entirely in your control and it is where most of the avoidable delay happens. |
|---|
| File the application | 1 day | Filed at head office by your licensed agent. Get the covering letter stamped and keep it. That stamp is your filing date and you will need it. |
|---|
| Head office review | 2 to 6 weeks | Out of your hands. A file with a gap in it goes to the bottom of the pile, which is why the first stage matters. |
|---|
| Initial approval | | An approval in principle. It tells you the amount of the guarantee. It is not yet permission to bring anything in. |
|---|
| Arrange the guarantee | 2 to 4 weeks | Your bank or insurer issues it for the amount stated. Then the original document is physically delivered to head office. Banks are slower at this than clients expect. |
|---|
| Final approval issued | 1 to 2 weeks | The permit itself, with its start date, its end date and its conditions. Only now is the equipment cleared to come in. |
|---|
| Arrival and clearance | a few days | Notify the local command. File the declaration under the temporary procedure. For vessels, the port authority entry notice and the marine agency bills run alongside this and are separate from the permit. |
|---|
On a big asset, two to three months from filing to permit in hand is normal. Plan the shipment around that, not the other way round. Equipment that arrives before the permit sits there costing money while head office reads your file.
The rules that come attached
An approval is not a single line saying yes. It is a yes with a list of conditions, and breaking any of them can cancel the permit or trigger the guarantee. These are the ones that normally appear.
- Tell the local command when it arrivesThe permit comes from head office. The local command still has to be told the date of arrival in writing.
- It must be identifiable on the way outThe marks, numbers and labels on the item when it leaves must match the ones it had when it came in. This is how customs proves it is the same object.
- You cannot sell it, swap it, or hire it outNot while it is in the country, not without written permission. The permit covers one use by one company.
- It gets physically examined before it leavesThe declaration and the item itself are both produced to an officer at the point of export.
- Missing parts are taxedIf the item comes back for examination incomplete, duty is charged on whatever is missing. Cannibalising a machine for spares creates a tax bill.
- Give a month's notice before taking it outAt least one month, to both the local command and head office. You cannot simply sail away.
- It must leave when the permit endsThe default outcome is re-export. Everything else is an exception you have to apply for.
- Keeping it is not automaticConverting a temporary import into a permanent one is a decision reserved to the head of the customs service, and needs at least a month's notice.
- Anything not named is not coveredThe permit lists specific items. Anything that arrives with them, but is not on the list, is an ordinary import with ordinary duty.
- A false statement voids the permitIf any declaration in the application turns out to be untrue, the approval is treated as never having been granted.
- Apply to extend two weeks before it expiresNot on the expiry date, and not after. Two weeks before, in writing. Miss it and the item must be re-exported.
- The exit is not finished until head office says soRe-export is only complete when head office, where the guarantee is held, has approved it. The ship leaving is not the end of the process.
- The paperwork goes back to head officeEvery re-export document is sent to the office holding your guarantee. That file is what releases the money.
Read your own approval letter properly, once, on the day it arrives. Then put the two dates that matter in a calendar: the day the permit ends, and the day two weeks before that, when the extension application is due. Almost every expensive failure on these permits is a diary failure.
The three ways it ends
The normal ending
Take it back out
Give a month's notice, get head office approval, present the item for examination, sail or fly it out, then send every document back to the office holding your guarantee. Only then is the guarantee released.
When the job runs long
Extend the permit
Apply at least two weeks before the expiry date. A first year is usually followed by a second, then shorter extensions, but none of it is automatic and each one has to be asked for in time.
When plans change
Keep it and pay
Apply to convert it to permanent import. If it is granted you pay the full duty and taxes as if you had imported it normally on day one. The decision sits with the head of the customs service.
And the fourth way Doing nothing. The permit expires, the equipment is still there, and nobody has applied for anything. The guarantee is then called in, penalties are added, and the company can be prosecuted. This is not theoretical: in July 2025 the Nigeria Customs Service gave 223 companies twenty one days to sort out expired permits covering guarantees worth about NGN 379.6 billion, and said it would otherwise cash the bank bonds and go to court. Nobody rings to remind you that your permit is running out.
Bringing your own car for a visit? That is a different and much simpler scheme. Since 7 January 2026 Nigeria has run Safe Passage, a temporary vehicle permit for visitors driving in a personal, non-commercial car. It lasts 90 days and can be extended by 30 with the local customs controller's approval. You need your passport, an international driving licence, the vehicle registration, insurance, and a Carnet de Passages en Douane, which is an international customs document for vehicles that works like a passport for your car. While the car is in the country it cannot be sold, hired, transferred or used for business.
If it floats, the permit is only one of your bills
People planning a vessel movement budget for the customs guarantee and are then surprised by everything else. These charges have nothing to do with the permit and are owed whether or not you have one.
- Port authority ship dues
- Charged on the vessel's gross tonnage, which is a measure of its enclosed volume, not its weight.
- Towage, berthage and berth rent
- Tugs to move the vessel, a charge for tying up, and a daily rent based on the vessel's length.
- Compulsory pilotage
- A licensed pilot must take the vessel in and out. This is billed separately inward and outward, and it is usually the largest port bill of the lot.
- Light dues and conservancy
- Contributions to navigation aids and to keeping the channel usable.
- Maritime agency levies
- A percentage levy on the vessel and, in some cases, a fixed sea protection levy.
- Ship entry notice
- Electronic permission for the vessel to enter the country's ports at all, valid for a limited window and separate from the customs permit.
Most of these are worked out from the vessel's gross tonnage, which sounds like a weight and is not. It is a measure of the enclosed volume of the ship. A large vessel carries a large gross tonnage figure whether it arrives full or empty, so these bills barely move with the cargo.
Tap a heading to read it.
The mistakes that cost the most
Shipping before the permit is issued. The most expensive mistake available. The permit comes from head office and takes weeks. Equipment that arrives first waits, and waiting at a port is charged by the day.
Not checking the dates on your own permit. A permit described as twelve months is not always twelve months to the day, and it often starts before your equipment arrives. Work out the real number of usable days the moment the letter lands, using the clock above.
Missing the extension window. The application is due before the permit expires, not on the day and not after. It is a specific deadline, usually two weeks ahead, and it is easy to sail past.
Assuming the permit can be passed on. It cannot. The company named on it stays responsible for getting the equipment out or paying the tax, no matter who is operating the machine by then. Subcontracting the work does not subcontract the liability.
Treating the guarantee as free. Your bank charges for it every year it stands, and it usually eats into your borrowing limit as well. On a large asset held for two years, the cost of holding the guarantee can quietly become one of the larger line items in the project.
Taking parts off the equipment. If it goes out lighter than it came in, duty is charged on the difference. A machine cannibalised for spares during the job creates a tax bill on the way out.
A simple checklist
Before you sign the contract
- Is the equipment genuinely coming back out?
- Is it genuinely unavailable locally? Be honest, because somebody will check.
- Who is paying for the guarantee, and is it in the contract?
- Does the job realistically fit inside one permit period?
Before you file
- Contract and lease signed and final
- Tax clearance current, not expiring next month
- Value on the pro-forma invoice agreed, because the guarantee is built from it
- Photographs and specification of the exact item
- Agent named in a letter of authority
- A stamped copy of your covering letter, kept safe
The day the permit arrives
- Read every condition
- Diary the expiry date
- Diary the extension deadline, two weeks earlier
- Diary the notice date for taking it out, a month earlier
- Tell the local command the arrival date in writing
- Record the guarantee reference and where the original is held
The one sentence version
A temporary permit is a promise with a deadline attached, and the whole cost of getting it wrong is the difference between remembering the deadline and forgetting it.
This is a general explanation, not advice on your shipment. Procedures, rates and time limits differ by country and by product, and they change. Percentages used in the estimator above are the Nigerian ones at the time of writing. Use this to understand the shape of the process, then confirm every figure and deadline for your own case with the customs service and a licensed agent.
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