Customs and Biosecurity for Movers and Removals to Australia

ABF’s criteria cover the person and the goods. You must be 18 or over, travelling as a passenger or crew member from a place outside Australia. The goods must be your own, suitable for use in Australia and meant for your use there, and you must have personally owned and used them for a set period before you left. For some goods you must also meet a permanent-residency test.

ABF counts Australian citizens, permanent visa holders and special category visa holders as meeting that test. Its table of goods applies the test to personal clothing and footwear, boats, caravans and trailers, aircraft and machinery. It lists no such test for furniture and household goods. ABF says goods count as used when they were available for their intended purpose on a continuing basis during the required period.

The concession does not cover these:

For furniture and household goods, ABF’s table asks for 12 months of ownership and use before you leave for Australia. Personal clothing and footwear, hygiene articles and grooming products have no minimum period, although fur apparel and perfume concentrates are excluded from that line. Caravans, trailers and boats need 12 months too, and aircraft six.

ABF may ask for proof that you owned the goods for the full period, and names receipts, photographs or a statutory declaration as examples.

Newer purchases are declared, not left out. Form B534 asks for goods owned for less than 12 months, with a description, price and date of purchase. The form’s notice says such goods are assessed for duty and taxes and that penalties exist for not declaring them. ABF’s page adds that receipts or evidence of value for those goods go in with the lodgement. A sofa bought last spring belongs on that list, with its receipt.

Genuine unaccompanied personal effects do not need an import declaration. Instead you complete and lodge the Unaccompanied Personal Effects Statement, Form B534, which ABF calls a legal declaration to both ABF and DAFF. The form comes in other languages as a guide, but you must complete it in English.

ABF lists three ways to lodge it. You can go to an ABF office, where an identity check worth 100 points applies. You can email the statement to the ABF office for the state where the goods arrive. Or a customs broker or other service provider can report the goods through ABF’s Integrated Cargo System (ICS), so you need not attend a counter.

Each route needs the same papers: the signed statement, shipping documents such as the air waybill or bill of lading, or a delivery order, that name the owner and your address, a packing list, receipts for newer goods and permits for any prohibited goods. A friend, relative or broker can lodge for you, and a representative who lodges in person must give ABF a copy of their passport photo page showing their signature.

The PDF ABF serves at its form address was edition B534e (JUL15) when read, and it still names the former Department of Immigration and Border Protection. It asks:

DAFF assesses every Form B534 and packing list for goods of biosecurity concern, then decides how much of the consignment must be presented for inspection. It looks hardest at anything made from or containing animal or plant material, timber included, and at anything that has touched animals, plants, water, food or soil. ABF cannot release your goods until DAFF has cleared them.

If an inspection is needed, you pay for an entry, a legal document created under the Biosecurity Act 2015, and book an appointment. You or your agent open and unpack the consignment with your own tools while a biosecurity officer looks on. DAFF suggests noting the box numbers of declared risk goods, because inspection charges run on time.

When something of concern turns up and cannot be released at once, the options are treatment where one exists, export or destruction, all at your cost. DAFF lists steam cleaning or washing, which needs a second inspection, fumigation for timber pests, gamma irradiation and heat treatment, carried out by an approved provider. Goods that need an import permit but arrive without one are directed for export or destruction.

Your removalists or freight forwarder may take the goods to an Approved Arrangement site. DAFF says that brings extra fees, such as a facilitation fee for port charges, transport, administration and container unpacking, and possibly storage. They can appear on an invoice as quarantine fees, but DAFF says it does not impose them, so ask your movers to confirm them before you agree.

Each box should be numbered, with the number matched on a packing list that says what is inside and what it is made of. DAFF’s examples are a metal bed frame, wooden chairs, plastic picture frames and a cane basket. The list is required by the Australian authorities, and vague entries slow the inspection and raise its cost.

DAFF treats goods that are not legibly described, or not itemised, as items of biosecurity concern, and gives labels such as stuff, gear, misc and equipment as examples. Ask your removalists or international movers to list the contents room by room and to say where footwear, food and garden tools are packed.

Some packing choices are DAFF’s own advice. Use no second-hand boxes or bags that once carried fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs or fertiliser. Use no straw, sawdust or wood shavings as filler. Cover or remove old labels on reused boxes, and write on boxes in permanent marker, as sticky labels can fall off in transit.

Yes. ABF says you must arrange the transport of your personal effects before you arrive in Australia, and you must be able to show that sending them is connected with your travel there. The goods may arrive before or after you do, so a sea container landing after your flight can still qualify.

As evidence of that connection, ABF gives an airline ticket or proof of a work contract in Australia.

Once all the goods sent in connection with your travel have arrived, later goods are not entitled to the concession. The concession does not let someone who has already arrived keep sending goods in duty and tax free. If part of your home will follow in a second shipment, plan it as part of the first move.