![Heavy traffic on Bole Road in Addis Ababa, November 2017 (Yonatan Solomon, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]](https://i0.wp.com/mereja.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/economy-bole-road-traffic-addis-2017-20261009100313-f6b0.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1)
Cars in heavy traffic on Bole Road in Addis Ababa in November 2017. Photo: Yonatan Solomon, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 [file photo]
Seven weeks after Addis Ababa’s revenue bureau barred brokers from displaying other people’s cars, many showrooms are still quiet and some asking prices have risen sharply, Birr Metrics reported on Friday.
The Addis Ababa City Administration Revenue Bureau began the enforcement campaign on August 20, when it ordered commission agents and brokers to clear vehicles owned by clients from their compounds, saying that only licensed importers and dealers may store, display and sell cars from commercial premises. The bureau based the order on the federal income tax proclamation and the amended value added tax proclamation, Capital reported at the time. Addis Fortune reported that brokers were given three days to move the cars, and Capital reported that the bureau warned those who did not comply could have their premises sealed, be fined or face legal action. Lots around Meskel Flower, Gazebo, Arba Minch and Bulgaria emptied within days. The bureau let the trading areas reopen from August 30, but brokers are still not allowed to sell new, zero-mileage vehicles on commission, according to Capital and Birr Metrics.
“The measures ensure the government receives revenue owed to it and stop businesses operating outside their licences,” Sewnet Ayele, the bureau’s communications director, told Addis Fortune. Mayor Adanech Abiebie said on September 1 that a city study of how income tax and value added tax are evaded at vehicle trading centers “has exposed numerous irregularities,” Capital reported. The city plans to collect 502.27 billion birr this fiscal year, including 380 billion birr in taxes, after it collected 351 billion birr from taxes and other sources last year.
Birr Metrics, a business news site, reviewed asking prices on the market-tracking platform WagaWise and found that the median price of a Suzuki Swift rose from 3.5 million birr in late July to 4 million birr in the first week of October, while a Suzuki Dzire went from about 3.69 million birr in July to 4.55 million birr in late September. The asking price of a BYD Song Plus rose from 7.05 million birr to 8.3 million birr over about the same period, and a BYD Tang went from about 10.5 million birr in late June to 15 million birr in late September, although Birr Metrics said the small number of listings for that model “calls for caution.” The BYD Yuan Up stayed broadly stable and the BYD e2 rose only slightly. “The observed movements do not prove that showroom closures caused changes in prices,” the site wrote, and it listed the weaker birr, import restrictions, shifts in demand, dealer stock and the condition of listed cars as other factors.
Birr Metrics also cited the International Monetary Fund as saying in July that the birr had lost an average of about 1.3 percent a month since October 2025, and that commercial banks had foreign exchange backlogs of about $1.4 billion at the end of April. Federal transport authorities banned imports of petrol and diesel vehicles in January 2024, Addis Fortune reported, and Birr Metrics wrote that import restrictions had also raised the scarcity value of parts of the existing petrol fleet.
Many showrooms never owned the cars they displayed, and instead gave space to importers and private owners and took a commission when a car sold, Birr Metrics wrote. Bersufekad Temesgen, who has watched the market around Meskel Flower for years, told Birr Metrics that long chains of middlemen sometimes added as much as 400,000 birr to a price. “The new law is clearly intended to close that gap,” he said. “However, I remain skeptical as to whether it will succeed to the extent envisioned.” He said showroom rent in the main trading areas can reach 500,000 to 600,000 birr a month, and he warned that “some commission-based traders may choose to exit the sector altogether, while others could find the market increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select few.” Addis Fortune put typical showroom rent at about 200,000 birr a month.
Mogos Negash, marketing manager at Halal Car Dealership, told Birr Metrics that “the government’s overarching objective appears to be the formalization of the car trade.” Murad Kebede, a mechanic and automobile expert, told Birr Metrics that cutting out middlemen could help buyers, but “I am not convinced that an adequate platform for such direct engagement has yet been established,” and he added that “reliable data for meaningful analysis is simply not available.”
Seid Mohammed, manager of Ultra Car Shop near Meskel Flower, told Addis Fortune in late August that his business stayed closed for almost a week while rent and wages kept running. “If you stop selling for a day, you’ll end up in crisis,” he said. Fortune also told the story of Tefera Worku, a construction worker and father of three who had saved for a 2004 Toyota Vitz expecting to pay about 1.9 million birr, and who found the price had reached 2.7 million to 2.8 million birr by the time he had borrowed enough. Dawit Kejela, a tax expert who once worked at the Ministry of Revenues, told the paper that “requiring dealers to display prices would let customers and authorities compare more easily.”
Birr Metrics shared its findings on X on Friday, writing that the BYD Tang’s median asking price had climbed 42.9 percent. One user, Don G (@foukuzawa), replied that the showrooms had “created a sense of availability & competition,” that buyers had cheered the “Gov’t crackdown,” and that “now, the consumer gets to enjoy higher prices.” The Addis Ababa car marketplace mekina.net advertised in posts on X this week a Suzuki Dzire from a private seller for 3.9 million birr, a 2021 Hyundai Creta for 6.5 million birr through a broker charging a 2 percent commission, and a used Toyota Yaris for 2.35 million birr.
Addis Fortune reported that Ethiopia has more than 1.4 million registered vehicles, over half of them in Addis Ababa, and that the capital has about 233 registered car dealers. Birr Metrics said no official count of showrooms that have closed for good has been published.
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