Guide · updated 24 September 2026

How Japanese car auctions work: USS, TAA, JU and bidding through an exporter

A Japanese car auction is a wholesale sale between dealers. The biggest house, USS, took in 3.5 million cars in its 2025 financial year and sells each one in about 20 seconds. Only member companies can bid, so a buyer in Ireland, Cyprus, the UK or anywhere else outside Japan bids through an exporter who is a member. What you get to judge the car by is one page: the inspector’s auction sheet.

Here is who runs the auctions, what happens in auction week, how bidding through an exporter usually goes, and what to check before you commit money.

The auction houses

USS is the largest. By its own figures it had 19 auction sites across Japan, 49,176 member companies on 31 March 2026, 3.50 million cars consigned and 2.34 million sold in the 2025 financial year, and a 43.2% share of the Japanese auto auction market in calendar 2025. It says more than 50,000 cars go under the hammer in an average week. Its sites and six affiliated ones are linked, so a member in Nagoya can bid on a car in Tokyo.

TAA is Toyota Auto Auction, the auction house of the Toyota group. Toyota describes building it up as auctions took over from direct dealer-to-dealer trading of used cars.

JU auctions are run by the regional used-car dealer associations under JU, the Japan Used Car Dealers Association. JU says its members built auction centres around the country and that more than a million vehicles a year now trade through them.

Other names you will meet on sheets: CAA, HAA, ORIX, LUM, JAA, Hana and smaller regional halls. The grading scales are close but not identical, and each house prints its own legend on the sheet.

Auction week, step by step

This is how USS describes its own process. Other houses run a similar week.

1. 01

   By the day before

   The selling dealer delivers the car to the auction site by the morning of the day before the sale. USS inspectors check it and grade it on the house's 10-point scale, and the photos and inspection result go into the members' database.

2. 02

   Before bidding

   Members search that database, and they can look at the car in the yard or ask the house for a proxy inspection of a particular point. Your exporter does this for you: ask for the sheet and the photos, and ask them to check anything that worries you.

3. 03

   Auction day

   USS runs 4 to 12 lanes at once and each car sells in about 20 seconds. Bids come from the hall, from dedicated terminals and over the internet. The seller can adjust the start price on the day.

4. 04

   Four days later

   The winning dealer can take the car out of storage.

5. 05

   One week later

   USS collects the price and fees from the buyer, pays the seller, and hands the buyer the inspection certificate and ownership transfer papers once payment is confirmed.

Bidding through an exporter

There is no official rulebook for this part. What follows is how exporters generally work with overseas buyers, so check the details with yours in writing.

You usually pay a deposit, then get access to the exporter’s view of the listings, or send them the model you want. For each car you get the auction sheet and photos, and you set a maximum bid in yen. The exporter bids up to that figure. Win, and you pay the hammer price, the auction house fees, the exporter’s fee and the Japan-side costs: transport to the port, deregistration, the export declaration. Lose, and the deposit usually stays for the next car.

Two questions to ask before you start. Will they put a statement on origin on the invoice? Revenue grants the 0% EU-Japan duty rate on a statement on origin from the Japanese exporter, or on importer’s knowledge backed by documents from the exporter or manufacturer. Without either, customs charges 10%. And will they send you the full sheet, not a crop? A sheet that stops above the inspector’s notes is a sheet with something cut off.

If a car does not sell, it often comes back. USS rules let a member make an offer on a car that was passed in, and many are simply re-listed a week or two later. Every listing brings a new inspection, which is why one car can have several sheets from different dates.

What the sheet is, and what it is not

The sheet carries the overall grade, the interior grade, the odometer on the day, a body diagram with damage codes and the inspector’s notes. USS grades from S (under 10,000 km and no more than 12 months since first registration) down to 1 (flood or fire extinguisher damage), with R for a car with repaired structural damage. The guide to reading an auction sheet goes through every box and code.

It is not a guarantee. The USS rules say the buyer may use the grade as a reference but cannot hold the house responsible for a difference in the evaluation, and they put the duty on the buying dealer to compare the car with its sheet and inspect it. For a buyer abroad, that means the exporter’s check is your check. The odometer figure matters most of all; how clocking shows up is in Is the mileage real?

After the hammer: bringing the car to Ireland

Once the exporter has the documents, the car is deregistered and the export certificate issued. The NCTS asks for that certificate with a certified English translation, plus CO2 and NOx figures from the Japanese transport ministry site that match the certificate’s description and weight. Revenue wants the NCTS appointment booked within 7 days of the car entering the State and registration done within 30 days; miss the 30 days and it adds 0.1% of the VRT for every day, counted from the date of entry.

The whole route with costs and shipping times is in the Japanese import guide, which also works out the VRT from the chassis number.