Can I own one here
Owning one in Honolulu County.
On your own land
No plate and no insurance are required on a farm, a ranch or other private land in Hawaii. Both rules start at the public highway.
On the farm
Hawaii's farm street rule is written for ATVs and UTVs, and a kei truck is neither. The registration exemption for implements of husbandry is the one untested farm path.
Whether a county director of finance or the police would treat a kei truck used only on a farm as an implement of husbandry under 286-41(g)(2) was not found. Hawaii County's code defines special mobile equipment as a vehicle not designed or used primarily for carrying persons or property, as a 2021 newspaper column quotes section 24-3(43), and a kei truck is built to carry property, so that class does not fit it.
A 25 year truck on the road
Closed to road use. Hawaii does not register a vehicle its maker did not certify to federal motor vehicle safety standards, so a kei truck is not registered for Hawaii roads.
A newer governed truck
Unclear. No Hawaii title path for an off-highway vehicle was found.
Roads and towns
Roads and towns in Honolulu County.
To confirm. On Oahu a kei truck may work a farm or other private land with no plate, but no road on the island takes it or any ATV or UTV, because the state's farm street rule stops at counties under 500,000 residents.
In town Closed
No town street opening was found in the codes read.
County roads Closed
No road is open to ATVs, UTVs or a kei truck. HRS 286-12 opens farm streets only in counties under 500,000 residents, and Honolulu is over that line. No ordinance of the City and County opening a road was found, but the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu sit behind a bot check and were not read. HRS 286-12, L 2014, c 71. The Revised Ordinances of Honolulu were not read., read 28 October 2026
State highways Closed
Closed to OHVs.
Getting one here
From Japan to Honolulu County.
The sailing
- By sea from the Port of Oakland.
How to import a mini truck, step by step.
Trucks travel in containers, one to a 20 foot box with room for parts or three to a 40 foot box.
Road miles are an estimate, the straight line times 1.2.
The ground
Honolulu County, counted.
Honolulu County grows 4,012 acres of orchards and vineyards. 4 active surface mines and quarries work Honolulu County's ground. Honolulu County has 1,002 farms and 49 cattle operations, by the 2022 Census of Agriculture.
Importing a kei truck
The essentials, in short.
A truck under 25 can come in only as governed off road equipment, and only if its engine family held an EPA nonroad certificate for that model year. No kei engine family was certified for mini trucks before model year 2010, so a truck built after 31 October 2001 and before model year 2010 has no federal door until its 25th birthday.
Two lanes
A road truck must be 25 years old by its own build date. A newer truck comes in only as governed off road equipment with a certified engine.
The 25 percent duty
Every kei truck pays the 25 percent truck duty at the port, whatever its age.
The paperwork
The customs entry and the two federal declarations, DOT Form HS-7 and EPA Form 3520-1, travel with the truck to your title office.
The title
Keep every stamped paper with the truck. Your state title office asks to see them.
Contact
A question about the law in Honolulu County?
Ask about a truck, a state or the papers, and we answer with what applies to you.
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