Import GST in Australia: How It's Calculated and Who Pays It (2026)

A container of your stock lands in Sydney, and before it can leave the wharf someone has to pay Australia 10%. Most sellers get stuck on the next part: 10% of what. Import GST isn’t 10% of your supplier’s invoice. It’s 10% of the invoice plus the customs duty, the freight and the insurance, so on a typical shipment it comes to a little over 11% of what you paid for the goods. The part most freight quotes leave out is that, with the right paperwork, all of it comes back.

	Import GST in one line
What it is	Australia’s ordinary 10% GST, charged on goods as they enter the country
Who collects it	The Department of Home Affairs (the Australian Border Force), on behalf of the ATO
Who pays it	The importer, registered for GST or not
The rate	10% of the value of the taxable importation
What that value is	Customs value + customs duty + international transport and insurance
When it’s paid	Before the goods are released, unless you’re in the deferred GST scheme
Under A$1,000	Not collected at the border. The seller or marketplace charges it at the checkout instead
Does it come back?	Yes, if you hold standard GST registration, you’re the named importer and the goods are for your business

(General information for FY 2026–27, not tax advice for your circumstances. Every rule below was confirmed against ato.gov.au and abf.gov.au on 11 September 2026.)

1. What is import GST — and who pays it in Australia?

Import GST is ordinary Australian GST, the same 10% charged on local sales, applied to goods as they enter the country. The Department of Home Affairs collects it at the border on the ATO’s behalf, and the importer pays it: the person or business that enters the goods for home consumption, whether or not they are registered for GST.

It isn’t a separate “import tax”. The GST Act treats bringing goods into Australia as a taxable importation: you make one when goods are imported and you enter them for home consumption (s 13-5), and whoever makes it has to pay the GST on it (s 13-15). The ATO spells out who that covers: “businesses, organisations and private individuals, whether they are registered for GST or not”.

Three practical points follow.

It’s paid before the goods move. The ATO: “Generally, GST is payable before the goods are released by Home Affairs”. It’s paid at the same time, in the same place and in the same way as customs duty. In practice your customs broker pays it with the duty and passes the cost on to you.
“Importer” is a legal role, not whoever pays the freight bill. The ATO asks two things of the importer: that it caused the goods to be brought to Australia for its own purposes, and that it is named as owner on the import declaration, either directly or through an agent. If you ship your own stock to an Australian fulfilment centre, that should be you, quoting your ABN.
Anyone else’s name on the declaration costs you money. On DDP terms, or where a freight forwarder is named as owner in its own right, that party pays the GST and you get it back buried in your landed cost. The ATO’s worked example of a forwarder named in its own right ends: “no entity can claim a GST credit”. The full story is in who gets the import GST back?

Goods held in a customs-licensed warehouse aren’t taxed yet. The GST falls due when they’re cleared out of the warehouse for home consumption, on an N30 declaration.

2. What is the import GST rate in Australia, and what is it calculated on?

The rate is 10%, but of the value of the taxable importation, not of the invoice. That value is the customs value of the goods, plus any customs duty, plus the cost of transporting and insuring them to Australia (plus wine tax, for wine). On the shipment worked below, that makes the import GST 11.25% of what the seller paid the supplier.

Both the ATO and the ABF give the same formula:

Import GST = 10% × (customs value + customs duty + international transport and insurance + any wine tax)

Each part has its own rule.

Customs value. Usually the transaction value: the price you actually paid, or will pay, for the goods. It includes overseas packing and any inland freight before the goods leave the place of export. It does not include the international freight and insurance, which are added separately.
Australian dollars, at the day-of-export rate. The ABF converts foreign currency “at the rate of exchange prevailing on the day of export of the goods (not on the day the goods arrive in Australia)”. A currency swing while the ship is at sea doesn’t change the number.
Customs duty. Worked out on the customs value (see section 4) and then added to the GST base, so you pay GST on the duty too.
Transport and insurance. What it cost to move and insure the goods from the place of export to the port or airport of final destination in Australia, to the extent it isn’t already in the customs value.

A shipment, worked

An overseas homewares brand ships a 20-foot container to Sydney to restock its Amazon.com.au inventory. The goods carry a 5% duty rate, with no free trade agreement rate claimed.

	Amount
Customs value: the supplier invoice, converted at the day-of-export rate	A$40,000
Customs duty at 5% of the customs value	A$2,000
International freight and insurance to Sydney	A$3,000
Value of the taxable importation	A$45,000
Import GST at 10%	A$4,500

A$4,500 on A$40,000 of goods is 11.25%: the 10% on the goods, plus GST on the freight, the insurance and the duty. If the same goods qualified for a 0% duty rate under a free trade agreement, the base would be A$43,000 and the GST A$4,300.

To run your own numbers, try the import duty and GST estimator.

3. Is there GST on imported goods under A$1,000?

Not at the border. A consignment with a customs value of A$1,000 or less isn’t taxed on the way in. Since 1 July 2018 the overseas seller or the marketplace has charged 10% GST at the checkout instead, when it sells low-value goods to an Australian consumer. For consignments over A$1,000, the ATO’s rule is that “any GST, customs duty and clearance charges are charged to the importer at the border”.

So the two regimes split on consignment value:

Customs value of the consignment	Where the GST is collected	Who accounts for it
A$1,000 or less, sold to a consumer	At the point of sale	The overseas seller, the marketplace or a redeliverer, registered with the ATO
Over A$1,000	At the border	The importer, through Home Affairs

Four details catch people out.

It’s per consignment, not per item. In the ATO’s own example, two necklaces sold for A$750 each and shipped in one package have a combined customs value of A$1,400, so they’re taxed at the border, not at the checkout.
The A$1,000 means customs value: “the price the goods are sold for, minus freight and insurance from the place of export”.
Duty drops away at the same line. Goods at or below A$1,000 (other than tobacco, alcohol and bulk orders) fall under the concession in item 26 of Schedule 4 to the Customs Tariff Act, which is also what makes them non-taxable importations.
Bulk stock always goes through the border. An FBA or 3PL restock is far above A$1,000, so the low-value rules never reach it. Once that stock sells from an Australian warehouse, the GST on the sale is your responsibility, which is a separate question from import GST. See does Amazon collect GST on Australian sales?

Some goods are non-taxable importations at any value. Broadly, these are goods that would be GST-free or input-taxed if sold in Australia, such as basic food, certain medical aids and appliances and investment-grade precious metals, and goods that qualify for certain customs duty concessions.

4. What other taxes and charges apply to imported goods in Australia?

The other tax most imports carry is customs duty. Its rate depends on the goods’ tariff classification and origin: commonly 5% of the customs value, and often 0% for goods from a free trade agreement country when origin is shown. On top of that come fixed charges (the ABF’s import processing charge and a biosecurity charge) and your broker’s fee. Unlike the GST, none of these come back.

Charge	How it’s worked out	Does it come back?
Import GST	10% of customs value + duty + transport and insurance	Yes, as a GST credit, if you’re the registered importer
Customs duty	A rate set by tariff classification and origin, applied to the customs value: commonly 5%, often 0% under an FTA	No. It’s part of the cost of the stock
Import processing charge (electronic N10)	A$50 for a consignment over A$1,000 and under A$10,000; A$152 at A$10,000 or more	No
Biosecurity charge, per full import declaration	A$48 by air, A$71 by sea	No
Customs broker’s fee	The broker’s price	Only the GST on their tax invoice, where they charge it
Alcohol, tobacco, fuel, wine, luxury cars	Excise-equivalent duty, WET or LCT	Specialist rules, outside this article

Two things are worth settling before the container ships.

Get the tariff classification right. The duty rate depends on it, and because the duty sits inside the GST base, a wrong classification moves both numbers.
Claim the free trade agreement rate if you’re entitled to it. Australia’s FTAs give preferential rates, often zero, to goods that meet each agreement’s rules of origin. Your broker needs whatever origin evidence the agreement asks for. Because duty is a straight cost, this is where money is actually saved.

For the worked shipment, the border bill comes to A$2,000 of duty, A$4,500 of GST, the A$152 processing charge and the A$71 sea biosecurity charge: A$6,723, before the broker’s fee. Only one of those lines is designed to come back.

5. Can you claim the GST on imports back?

Yes, if three things are true: you hold standard GST registration, you made the taxable importation (meaning you’re the named importer), and you imported the goods for your business. The import GST then becomes a GST credit at 1B on your BAS, claimed in the period you paid it. Without standard registration, it’s a permanent cost.

The ATO’s three conditions are that you make a taxable importation, you are registered for GST, and you import the goods for a creditable purpose. For an overseas seller, that works out as four checks.

Standard GST registration, with an ABN. Simplified GST registration, where you hold an ARN instead, “can’t claim GST credits”. The border GST is simply lost, and the same goes for an importer who isn’t registered at all. Below the A$75,000 GST turnover threshold registration is optional; at or above it you may be required to register. The threshold isn’t indexed, so confirm the current figure. For a regular importer, the credits alone are often reason enough to register.
Your name on the import declaration, as owner, either directly or through your broker as your agent. Not the forwarder in its own right, and not a DDP supplier.
The evidence. You need a finalised import declaration (an N10, or an N30 out of a bonded warehouse) and the matching official receipt from Home Affairs. The ATO is blunt: “You must not claim a GST credit if you do not hold relevant documentation or have ready access to that documentation.” Your broker can keep the documents for you.
The right period. The credit goes in the BAS for the period in which you paid the assessed GST. If one gets missed, it isn’t lost straight away: a credit can be claimed in a later BAS, within four years of the due date of the first statement it could have gone on.

In the worked shipment, the full A$4,500 comes back at 1B. The container’s real tax cost is the A$2,000 of duty and A$223 of charges, not A$6,723. For a seller bringing in four containers like it a year, that’s A$18,000 of GST that either comes back through the BAS or stays with the ATO. How the credit sits on the form is covered in your first BAS as an overseas seller.

Not paying it at the border at all

The deferred GST scheme lets an approved importer skip the border payment altogether. The GST is deferred to the first monthly BAS after the goods arrive and offset by the credit on the same statement, so the net cash cost is nil. To be eligible you need an ABN and GST registration, you must lodge your BAS monthly and online and pay electronically, and your ATO account generally has to be up to date. Customs duty is still paid before release. There’s a catch for overseas sellers: the ATO says non-residents “cannot lodge electronically from outside Australia”, so the online lodgment has to go through a registered agent. See the deferred GST scheme.

Doing it yourself, or not

You can run this yourself. Register for GST, tell your broker to enter the goods in your name, file every N10 and its receipt, and claim the GST at 1B. On a clean shipment the arithmetic takes about an hour.

An agent is worth the most on the parts that can’t be fixed afterwards. Before the container ships, the agent checks that the declaration will name you as the importer, because once a forwarder or DDP supplier has been named in its own right, the 10% is gone. They also set up the monthly online BAS that the deferred GST scheme requires, which an overseas seller can’t lodge alone, so the 10% never leaves your account at all. And they reconcile every declaration against the BAS, so no credit drifts past the four-year window.

A registered agent’s job is to make import GST a non-event: paid on paper, back on the BAS, while you get on with the next order.

General information only, current for FY 2026–27 and verified against ATO and ABF sources on 11 September 2026. It is not tax advice for your circumstances. Duty rates depend on each product’s tariff classification and origin, and the ABF’s fixed charges change from time to time, so 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.