Can I Claim GST on Overseas Purchases in Australia? (2026)

You can claim Australian GST only, and only if you are registered for GST and the purchase is for your business. Overseas purchases fall into three groups that behave differently. Goods imported in a consignment worth more than A$1,000 carry GST at the border, and that GST is claimable. Low-value goods (A$1,000 or less), imported services and digital products should not carry GST at all when you give your ABN and say you are registered. VAT or sales tax paid in another country is never an Australian GST credit. Personal-use purchases earn no credit in any group.

The difference is cash. The 10% you pay at the border on a stock shipment is real money, and for a registered business it comes back through the BAS. The A$30 an overseas website adds at checkout is different: it usually cannot be claimed, so the only way to get it back is from the seller.

What you bought from overseas	Australian GST?	Can you claim it?
Goods in a consignment over A$1,000	Paid at the border, by everyone	Yes, if registered, imported for the business, and you hold the import paperwork
Goods of A$1,000 or less	Should not be charged if you give your ABN and say you are registered	Ask the seller for a refund; a credit only in narrow cases
Services and digital products (software, apps, subscriptions)	Same: should not be charged to a registered business	Same
VAT or sales tax paid in another country	Not Australian GST	No, never on your BAS
Anything for personal use	Charged as normal	No

(General information for FY 2026–27, not advice for your circumstances. ATO pages read on 3 November 2026: “GST and Australian businesses – imported services, digital products and low value imported goods” (last updated 11 September 2025), “When you can claim a GST credit” (last updated 14 September 2026) and “GST and imported goods” (last updated 13 May 2024). The A$75,000 registration threshold is not indexed and may change.)

1. Can I claim GST on overseas purchases?

Yes, but only Australian GST, only if you are registered for GST, and only on purchases for your business. The ATO’s general rule is that you can claim a GST credit when you are registered, the purchase is for business use (and not for making input-taxed sales), the price included GST, and you have paid or are liable to pay for it.

The ATO adds two practical conditions. You need a tax invoice for purchases over A$82.50 including GST. And you have four years to claim a credit. If you use a purchase partly privately, you claim only the business portion. Where your credits exceed the GST on your sales, the difference is refunded to you.

What makes overseas purchases confusing is that the same rules land very differently depending on what you bought:

• Imported goods over A$1,000. GST is collected at the border from everyone, registered or not. A registered business importing for its activities claims it back. Section 2 covers how.
• Low-value goods, services and digital products. These are taxed at the checkout, not the border, and Australian law is designed so a registered business is not charged at all. Section 3 covers what to do when you are.
• Foreign VAT or sales tax. If a UK, EU, US or Chinese supplier charged you their own country’s tax, that is not Australian GST and cannot go on your BAS. Whether it can be reclaimed at all depends on that country’s own rules.

Not registered? Then the GST you pay at the border and at overseas checkouts is simply a cost. An Australian business may need to register once its GST turnover reaches A$75,000, and can choose to register below that.

2. Can I claim the GST I paid at the border on imported goods?

Yes, if three things are true: the goods were a taxable importation, you are registered for GST, and you imported them for a creditable purpose. The ATO’s “GST and imported goods” page says GST on taxable importations is payable by everyone, registered or not, and a GST-registered business that imports goods for its business activities may claim a GST credit.

The GST is 10% of the value of the taxable importation, which is more than the invoice price: it is the customs value plus customs duty plus transport and insurance to Australia. Our import GST guide builds that number line by line.

You claim the credit in the activity statement for the tax period in which you pay the assessed GST. If you are in the deferred GST scheme, the border GST is deferred to your first BAS after the import instead of being paid before the goods are released.

The paperwork is the condition people miss. The ATO asks for documentation showing the goods were imported and the GST was paid or deferred when they were entered for home consumption: the import declaration (N10) with the status “finalised”, and the matching official receipt from the Department of Home Affairs. Your customs broker can hold them for you, but the ATO is direct about it: “You must not claim a GST credit if you do not hold relevant documentation or have ready access to that documentation.”

The credit also follows the customs entry. The business named as the importer on the declaration is the one that claims, which is why our article on the importer of record and the GST credit matters when a supplier, forwarder or related company lodges in its own name.

Worked example: Mia’s shipment

Mia runs a GST-registered online store in Brisbane. She imports a consignment of stock, and the value of the taxable importation is A$9,000.

	A$
Value of the taxable importation	9,000
GST at the border (10%)	900
GST credit in the BAS for the period she pays it	900

The A$900 is a timing cost, not a lost cost, provided Mia is the importer on the declaration and holds the finalised N10 and the Home Affairs receipt. If either is missing, she must not claim it.

3. What if an overseas seller charged me GST on a low-value order or a software subscription?

You should not have been charged. The ATO says: “If you are an Australian GST-registered business and you import services, digital products or low valued imported goods, you shouldn’t be charged GST.” To avoid it, you must do two things at the checkout: give your ABN and state that you are registered for GST.

Some overseas merchants and marketplaces cannot tell business buyers from consumers at the checkout, so the charge slips through. If it does, the ATO’s first answer is to “seek a refund from the supplier by providing your ABN and stating to them that you are registered for GST”.

Claiming it on your BAS instead is possible, but only if all of these are true, according to the ATO:

• you would otherwise be entitled to the credit;
• you either hold a valid tax invoice showing the supplier’s ABN, or the amount you paid is A$82.50 or less;
• the supplier has not reimbursed you (and if it later does, you adjust); and
• you have no information suggesting the supplier paid the GST to the ATO.

The second condition is where most claims fail. Overseas suppliers are not required to issue tax invoices for these sales, and many are registered under simplified GST, which gives them an ARN rather than an ABN. As the ATO puts it: “Unless a supplier has an ABN, they cannot issue a valid tax invoice to you.”

Worked example: Mia’s label printer

Mia also buys a label printer from an overseas seller on a marketplace for A$330, which includes A$30 of GST, because she checked out without entering her ABN.

• The purchase is over A$82.50, so she needs a valid tax invoice to claim a credit.
• The marketplace charged the GST under simplified registration, with an ARN and no ABN, so no valid tax invoice can be issued.
• So she generally cannot claim the A$30 on her BAS. The fix is to ask the seller, or the marketplace that charged it, for a refund, giving her ABN and stating that she is registered for GST.

The lesson costs nothing: enter your ABN and state that you are GST-registered at every overseas checkout. One without the other is not enough.

One overlap to know: goods in a consignment worth more than A$1,000 are taxed at the border even if the supplier also charged GST. The ATO says you can seek a refund of the double charge from the supplier by giving a declaration or evidence that GST was paid at the border.

4. When do I have to pay the GST myself under the reverse charge?

If you are registered, or required to be, the reverse charge makes you account for the GST yourself on an imported service, digital product or low-value good that you would not have been entitled to fully claim. The ATO says it applies only when all four conditions are met: you are registered or required to be; you would not have been entitled to a full GST credit if you had been charged (for example, the purchase is partly personal, or for input-taxed sales); you import services, digital products or low-value goods; and the goods are not GST-free.

The GST payable is 10% of the amount you paid, and you then claim back any credit you are entitled to. As an illustration, on a A$1,000 overseas software subscription used 60% for the business, A$100 of GST goes in as payable and A$60 comes back as a credit. Wholly business purchases you are fully entitled to claim do not trigger it.

That is why the ATO says: “If you are purchasing goods only for your personal use, don’t provide your ABN or state you are registered for GST.” Quote the ABN on a private purchase and you pay the GST under the reverse charge anyway. It also warns that “penalties can apply if you provide false information to a supplier, such as quoting an ABN when you are not GST-registered”.

5. Can an overseas business claim back Australian GST?

Yes, but there is no refund form for foreign businesses. A refund is simply a BAS in which the GST credits (label 1B) exceed the GST on sales (label 1A), and only a business with standard GST registration on an ABN can lodge one. Simplified registration, which gives an ARN, can never claim a credit.

A non-resident that sells into Australia claims through ordinary standard registration. A non-resident with no Australian sales that has paid Australian GST, for example on samples or a trade show, has a separate standard GST-only registration route built for refunds. Our full article on GST refunds for overseas businesses covers what is claimable and the four-year window, and the non-resident GST registration guide sets out the choice between standard and simplified.

Where it’s worth getting help

The free path is short. Register for GST if you need to or want to, enter your ABN and state your registration at every overseas checkout, keep the finalised N10 and Home Affairs receipt for every consignment, and claim the border GST in the right period.

Where it goes wrong is quietly. A broker lodges in a supplier’s name and the credit is not yours. The receipt never reaches your file. A mixed-use subscription is reverse-charged on the wrong amount, or not at all. Small checkout charges pile up with nobody to refund them, and a credit that is never claimed is gone after four years. As registered tax agents we set this up once with you and your broker, so the importer, the paperwork and each BAS label are right the first time, rather than months of reconstruction later.

If you would like it checked, our initial assessment scopes your situation in about twelve questions, without a meeting.

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FY 2026–27. General information, not tax advice for your circumstances. ATO pages checked 3 November 2026. Worked examples are illustrative. Foreign VAT and sales tax refunds depend on the rules of the country that charged them. The A$75,000 GST registration threshold may change.