Must a vehicle be imported to be registered?

Must a vehicle be imported to be registered in the USA The reason I ask is this: I am in Hawaii on an TN visa and brought my car over. When my Canadian plates were expiring I decided to try to register the vehicle in Hawaii. The DMV told me I needed my paperwork "stamped" by customs. I took the paperwork that I had, indicating the the vehicle was "stamp-exempt" due to my TN status, to the airport and a customs officer literally stamped it with a rubber stamp. I didn't fill out any more paper work indicating that I wanted to import the vehicle, and was able to title and register the car in Hawaii. As a result of these actions, is my vehicle now imported and can it be resold here? Thanks!

Each state has its own laxness when it comes to federal importation.

To be clear however, your car was "exemptable" from import only for one-year, based on the past practice of one-year duration of your visit on TN status. Once that year is up, you would either have to leave or have it formally imported.

The fact that TNs can last less than a year allows you to drive it without importing it, but that allowance lasts only one year.

If the "paperwork" you are referring to is the NHTSA-compliance letter from the Cdn manufacturer, and a customs form, then you have formally imported the car (and should have done this when you brought the car down in the first place). Otherwise, you wll be relying on the same laxness for another DMV employee when you go to trade your car.

Just for others, I would question whether any insuarnce you had during the time your car was Cdn-plated had any validity at all, since your plates were likely invalid, which is grounds for insuarnce denial.

Thanks. I did not provide a CDN manufacturer's statement, but all of the other paperwork was completed and sent with the broker that I had hired to ship the car, and that was what I provided to Customs and the DMV. Is vehicle importation similar to personal admittance to the US in that Customs Officers are given a lot of power to admit or deny a person or object regardless of proper forms or procedures? Could an Officer legitimately allow the import of a vehicle without all of the normally required paperwork (in my case the NHTSA compliance letter)?

They have some leeway, but it would seem that the your paperwork was sufficient in this case. in other cases, its not. I wouldn't worry about it at this point.

Your broker, who was undoubtedly paid a handsome fee to do the import paperwork, actually did nothing other than ship the car. Nice work if you can get it.

Thanks!