Import Duty in Australia: Rates, Thresholds and the Calculator (2026)

The first container is where overseas sellers pay duty they never owed.

Here is the shape of it. Import duty in Australia is a percentage of what you paid for the goods. The general rate on most manufactured goods is 5%. But for goods made in China, the United States, the United Kingdom or Hong Kong, the rate under Australia’s trade agreements is usually Free — if the origin paperwork is on the import declaration. Without it, your broker enters the goods at 5%, and unlike the GST paid at the same counter, duty never comes back. On A$40,000 of stock, that is A$2,000 gone, every shipment.

	Import duty in one line
What it is	A tax on goods entering Australia, set as a percentage of their customs value
Who pays it	The importer named on the import declaration, before the goods are released
The rate	Set by the goods’ tariff classification and their country of origin: commonly 5%, often Free under a free trade agreement
Under A$1,000	No duty, no border GST, no processing charge per consignment (tobacco and alcohol excepted)
What it’s calculated on	The customs value: the price paid for the goods, converted on the day of export, before international freight
Where the GST fits	GST is 10% of the customs value plus the duty plus freight and insurance
Does it come back?	No. Duty is part of the cost of the stock. The GST is the part that comes back

(General information for FY 2026–27, not tax advice for your circumstances. Every rate and rule below was checked against the ABF’s working tariff, the ABF’s importing pages, DFAT’s trade agreement pages and ato.gov.au on 21 September 2026.)

1. What is import duty in Australia, and who pays it?

Import duty (customs duty) is a tax on goods entering Australia, worked out as a percentage of the goods’ customs value. The importer — the owner named on the import declaration — pays it to the Australian Border Force before the goods are released, and it stays in the cost of the stock: unlike GST, it is not a credit on any return.

Three terms carry the whole subject.

Customs value. Usually the transaction value: the price you actually paid or will pay for the goods, including overseas packing and any inland freight to the port of export. It does not include the international freight and insurance. If you paid in a foreign currency, it is converted at the rate of exchange prevailing on the day of export, not the day of arrival — the ABF publishes those rates, and your broker’s system applies them.
Importer. The person or business named as owner on the import declaration (the N10), either directly or through a broker acting as agent. If you ship your own stock to an Australian fulfilment centre, that should be you, quoting your ABN. On DDP terms your supplier is the importer, pays the duty, and hands it back to you inside the price.
Entered for home consumption. The moment the goods are cleared for use in Australia. Duty is payable then. Goods can sit in a licensed customs warehouse underbond, duty unpaid, until they are entered — a deferral, not an exemption.

The duty is paid at the same time, in the same place and in the same way as the import GST — the ABF’s own wording is that the importer pays GST “at the same time and in the same manner as customs duty is paid”. Two consequences:

The deferred GST scheme doesn’t defer duty. An approved importer skips the border GST and accounts for it on the BAS instead, but the ABF is explicit: “Customs duty is still payable before the goods are released from customs control.”
Duty sits inside the GST base. The GST is 10% of the customs value plus the duty plus the freight and insurance. Get the duty rate wrong and the GST is wrong as well.

And the point that shapes everything else in this article: the GST comes back, the duty doesn’t. With standard GST registration the import GST becomes a credit on your BAS. The duty is simply a cost of the goods. Which is why the rate — and whether you can claim 0% — matters more than the size of the border bill suggests. The GST side is covered in import GST in Australia: how it’s calculated and who pays it.

2. What are the import duty rates in Australia?

There isn’t one rate. Each product has a tariff classification in Schedule 3 of the ABF’s working tariff with a general rate — commonly 5% for manufactured goods, Free for some lines — and then a set of preferential rates by country of origin. For goods originating in China, the United States, Hong Kong or Japan, the ABF’s schedules say the same thing: all rates are Free except a short table of alcohol, tobacco and fuel lines.

The general rate

The general rate is what applies when no agreement rate is claimed. A few lines from the working tariff, read on 21 September 2026, show the pattern:

Tariff line	Goods	General rate
6109	T-shirts and singlets, knitted (cotton, man-made or other fibres)	5%
9503.00.20	Dolls	5%
9503.00.30	Toy animals	5%
9503.00.10	Wheeled toys designed to be ridden by children	Free

Most manufactured consumer goods sit at 5%; a fair number are Free at the general rate already. The classification is decided by what the goods are, not what you call them on the invoice, and it takes a broker (or a formal tariff advice from the ABF) to get right. It also sets the GST base, so a misclassification moves two numbers.

The origin rates

This is where the money is. Australia’s free trade agreements give each partner’s originating goods their own schedule in the working tariff:

Origin	Schedule	What it says (21 Sep 2026)
China (ChAFTA, in force 20 Dec 2015)	12	“Except for the subheadings outlined in the table below, all rates are Free.” The table is alcohol, tobacco and fuel
United States (AUSFTA)	5	Same note, same exceptions. DFAT: “US goods continue to enjoy tariff-free access to Australia”
Hong Kong	13	Same note
Japan	11	Same note
United Kingdom (A-UKFTA, in force 31 May 2023)	15	Almost everything Free. A short list — mostly steel — is at 1% from 1 July 2026 and Free from 1 January 2027
RCEP (China, Japan, Korea, ASEAN and others, in force 1 Jan 2022)	14	“All rates are Free” except a table of mostly agricultural lines — an alternative origin route for Chinese goods
European Union	—	No agreement in force. Negotiations concluded on 24 March 2026; until it enters into force EU goods pay the general rate

So the T-shirts at 5% in the table above are Free if they originate in China and the origin is claimed on the entry. “Originating” is a defined term — each agreement has rules of origin, and the goods have to meet them (a product assembled in China from materials that don’t qualify may not). Your broker claims the rate; the supplier has to provide the evidence, which is section 5.

Three more layers

Tariff concession orders. Where there is no known Australian manufacturer of substitutable goods, a TCO makes the goods Free at any origin (Schedule 4, item 50). Every Schedule 3 line links to its current TCOs, and a broker checks them as a matter of course.
Anti-dumping and countervailing duty. On top of the ordinary rate, certain goods from particular countries — steel, aluminium and a range of other products, China prominently among the countries named — carry an additional duty set by the Anti-Dumping Commission. The current measures are in its Dumping Commodity Register. This is the one place where “0% under ChAFTA” can still turn into a large bill.
Alcohol, tobacco and fuel. These are the lines excluded from every Free schedule. They carry excise-equivalent duty by volume or quantity, they are dutiable at any value, and they need specialist handling. They are outside this article.

3. When is no import duty payable — the A$1,000 threshold and the other lines?

A consignment with a customs value of A$1,000 or less pays no duty, no GST at the border and no import processing charge — the ABF’s words are that “for most goods with a value of AUD1,000 or less there are no duties, taxes or charges to pay”. Tobacco and alcohol are taxed at any value. Over A$1,000, everything switches on at once.

The mechanics: goods at or below A$1,000 fall under item 26 of Schedule 4 (“goods of insubstantial value”), which makes them Free of duty, and that same concession makes them non-taxable importations for GST. Above the line, the ABF’s wording is equally plain: “you must pay all relevant duties, taxes and other charges, including an import processing charge”.

Customs value of the consignment	Duty	Border GST	Import processing charge (electronic N10)	Biosecurity charge
A$1,000 or less	Nil (tobacco and alcohol excepted)	Nil	Nil	Nil
Over A$1,000, under A$10,000	At the rate for the goods	10% of the taxable value	A$50	A$48 air / A$71 sea
A$10,000 or more	At the rate for the goods	10% of the taxable value	A$152	A$48 air / A$71 sea

Four points on the line itself.

It is per consignment, not per item — and not per box. Goods that arrive together for one importer are valued as a whole. The ATO’s own example is two A$750 necklaces in one package: a combined customs value of A$1,400, taxed at the border. Splitting a A$1,200 order into three A$400 cartons on one shipment does not create three duty-free parcels.
A$1,000 means customs value. The price of the goods, before international freight and insurance. A A$980 order with A$120 of freight is under the line.
Bulk stock is always over it. An FBA or 3PL restock is far above A$1,000 by design, so the threshold never reaches it. This line matters for samples, replacements and small test orders.
Under A$1,000 is not GST-free — it is border-GST-free. Since 2018 the overseas seller or the marketplace charges 10% GST at the checkout on low-value goods sold to Australian consumers. That is a GST rule, not a duty rule, and it’s covered in does eBay collect GST on my Australian sales?.

There is also a A$900 duty-free allowance for travellers bringing goods in with them, which is a passenger concession and has nothing to do with commercial stock.

4. How do you calculate import duty and GST in Australia?

Two formulas. Duty = customs value × the duty rate. GST = 10% × (customs value + duty + international transport and insurance). Add the import processing charge and the biosecurity charge, and that is the border bill. On A$40,000 of T-shirts shipped by sea it comes to A$6,723 at the 5% general rate and A$4,523 at the ChAFTA rate — and in both cases the GST part comes back to a registered importer.

Line by line, for a shipment with a customs value of A$40,000 (converted on the day of export) and A$3,000 of international transport and insurance, entered on one electronic declaration:

	At the 5% general rate	At the 0% ChAFTA rate
Duty (customs value × rate)	A$2,000	A$0
Value of the taxable importation (A$40,000 + duty + A$3,000)	A$45,000	A$43,000
Import GST at 10%	A$4,500	A$4,300
Import processing charge (A$10,000 or more)	A$152	A$152
Biosecurity charge (sea)	A$71	A$71
Paid at the border	A$6,723	A$4,523
GST credit at 1B on the BAS (standard registration)	−A$4,500	−A$4,300
Real cost of the border	A$2,223	A$223

The border bills differ by A$2,200, but A$200 of that is GST that comes back either way. The real difference is the A$2,000 of duty, on every shipment. Four containers like this a year is A$8,000 — the price of not having one document on the entry.

Using a calculator

Epic Tax’s import duty and GST estimator takes the three inputs above — the value of the goods, the freight and insurance, and the duty rate — and shows the border bill and the part that comes back, which is the line freight calculators leave out.

What no calculator can tell you is the rate. That comes from the goods’ tariff classification and origin: look the line up in the ABF’s working tariff (Schedule 3 for the general rate, the country schedules for the agreement rate), or use DFAT’s FTA Portal, which compares the tariff treatment and origin rules for a product across every Australian agreement. In practice a licensed customs broker does this for you, and the classification on the entry is what the ABF assesses.

Three things calculators also can’t see:

The exchange rate. The customs value is fixed at the ABF’s rate on the day the goods were exported. A quote built on today’s rate for goods that left port last week will be slightly off.
Rules of origin. A 0% rate is only available if the goods originate in the partner country under that agreement’s rules, and the evidence is on the entry.
Anti-dumping measures. An additional duty on affected goods sits outside every simple calculator.

5. How do you legally pay less import duty?

Get the origin paperwork from your supplier before the goods ship. That single step moves most of this audience’s duty from 5% to 0%, and it cannot be done retrospectively at the counter. After that: classify correctly, check for a tariff concession, consider a customs warehouse for stock you won’t sell for months, and know that duty paid in error can be refunded.

Origin evidence, before shipping. To claim the ChAFTA, A-UKFTA or AUSFTA rate, the entry needs the origin document the agreement requires — a certificate of origin or a declaration of origin, depending on the agreement and the goods; your broker will tell you which form. Ask the supplier for it as part of the order, not after the container has sailed. Without it the broker has no choice but to enter at the general rate.
Classification. The tariff line sets the duty rate and the GST base. A product that straddles two headings (a “toy” that is also “sporting equipment”; a “bag” that is “luggage”) can carry different rates under each. Where the answer isn’t obvious, a broker can seek a tariff advice from the ABF before the goods arrive.
Tariff concession orders. If nobody in Australia makes a substitutable product, the goods may be covered by a TCO and enter Free regardless of origin. Worth checking for niche equipment and components.
A customs warehouse. Stock stored underbond in a licensed warehouse is not dutiable until it is entered for home consumption. For a seller landing a year of stock at once, that turns one duty payment into several smaller ones as the goods are drawn down.
Refunds. If duty was paid that wasn’t owed — an origin rate not claimed, a classification corrected, goods that qualified for a concession — a refund application can be made through your broker, within the time limits that apply. It is far easier to get the entry right the first time.
Check anti-dumping before committing to a product line. A quick look at the Dumping Commodity Register before you source steel shelving, aluminium extrusions or any other product that Australian industry has complained about can save a bill that no origin certificate removes.

None of this reduces the GST — but the GST comes back anyway once you hold standard registration, which is why the duty is where the attention belongs.

Doing it yourself, or not

The rate lookup is free and public: the ABF’s working tariff, DFAT’s FTA Portal, and the estimator above. Your customs broker classifies the goods, claims the origin rate and lodges the entry.

Epic Tax is a registered tax agent, not a customs broker — the two work side by side, and where the agent earns its fee is the tax that flows from the entry. That means the GST registration that makes the border GST recoverable at all, the deferred GST scheme that stops it leaving your account (an overseas seller can’t lodge the monthly online BAS it requires without an agent), and a landed-cost record that puts the duty where it belongs and claims every dollar of the GST at 1B. Before the first container ships, that conversation also covers which origin document to ask the supplier for, so the rate on the entry is the right one from shipment one — not shipment four, after A$8,000 of duty has been paid on goods that qualified for Free.

General information only, current for FY 2026–27 and verified against the ABF working tariff, ABF importing guidance, DFAT trade agreement pages and ATO sources on 21 September 2026. It is not tax advice for your circumstances. Duty rates depend on each product’s tariff classification and country of origin, and the ABF’s fixed charges change from time to time — confirm them before relying on them. The A$75,000 GST registration threshold is not indexed; confirm the current figure. Epic Tax is a registered tax agent that sets up GST registration, import GST credits and the deferred GST scheme for overseas sellers.