Importing from the US to Australia: Duty, GST and the AUSFTA Saving (2026)

A consignment from the US with a customs value of A$1,000 or less clears the Australian border with no duty, no GST and no charges; on a sale to a consumer, the GST may be collected at the checkout instead. Over A$1,000 a full import declaration is lodged and everything is charged: duty on the customs value, GST at 10% of customs value plus duty plus freight and insurance, an import processing charge and a biosecurity charge. For US originating goods the duty is Free under the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement, and no certificate of origin is required to claim it — the importer claims on its own knowledge and must be able to show why the goods qualify.

That last sentence is where the money sits. Duty is the one line on a border invoice that a GST-registered importer never gets back, and for US-made goods it is zero if the claim is made and can be backed. Goods that are merely shipped from the US are not US originating, and the general rate applies to them.

	Importing from the US in one line
A$1,000 or less	Self-assessed clearance: no duty, no GST, no charges at the border. Consumer sales may carry GST at the checkout instead
Over A$1,000	Full import declaration (N10); every charge applies
Duty	A percentage of the customs value (the goods’ price at the day-of-export rate; freight excluded). General rate commonly 5% — Free for US originating goods
What proves US origin	Nothing is lodged. The importer claims on its own knowledge and must hold the cost and manufacturing evidence for up to five years
GST at the border	10% of customs value + duty + international transport and insurance
Other charges	Import processing charge A$50 or A$152; biosecurity charge A$48 by air, A$71 by sea
Who gets the GST back	Only the importer, if GST-registered and holding the finalised declaration
What never comes back	The duty

(General information for FY 2026–27, not tax advice for your circumstances. Every figure below was read on 12 October 2026 from abf.gov.au — the working tariff Schedule 5, the import processing charge and other charges pages, the import declarations, exchange rates and GST pages, and the ABF’s “Supporting a claim of origin” extract — from dfat.gov.au for the AUSFTA text, and from ato.gov.au QC 16237. The A$75,000 GST registration threshold is not indexed and may change.)

1. What does a parcel from the US pay at the Australian border — and where is the A$1,000 line?

Nothing, for most goods, if the consignment’s customs value is A$1,000 or less. The ABF’s words: “For most goods with a value of AUD1,000 or less there are no duties, taxes or charges to pay… For goods with a value over AUD1,000 you must pay all relevant duties, taxes and other charges, including an import processing charge.”

The line is tested on the consignment, not the item or the order. A full Import Declaration (N10) is required when the goods in one consignment “have a combined value of over AUD1,000”. At or under that figure, goods arriving by air or sea cargo clear on a Self-Assessed Clearance (SAC) declaration with no duty, no GST and no processing charge. Two cartons of A$600 sent together are one A$1,200 consignment and go the N10 route. Alcohol and tobacco are charged at any value.

“Nothing at the border” does not always mean “no GST”. Where goods with a customs value of A$1,000 or less are sold to an Australian consumer, the GST, if it applies, is collected at the checkout rather than at the wharf: by the seller if it is registered or required to be (the A$75,000 turnover test, which is not indexed and may change), or by the marketplace where the sale goes through one. The GST is one-eleventh of the GST-inclusive price, and the seller’s registration number travels on the customs documents so the parcel is not taxed twice. How that regime works, and when the platform rather than the seller is responsible, is in our article on GST on low value imported goods. For a US seller the A$1,000 line separates two systems: under it, GST is your checkout’s job; over it, GST is the border’s, charged to whoever is the importer.

2. Over A$1,000: how is the import tax from the USA worked out — duty, GST and the charges?

Four lines, in this order: duty on the customs value, GST at 10% of the value of the taxable importation, the import processing charge, and the biosecurity charge. All four are paid, or deferred, before the goods are released.

Duty is a percentage of the customs value: the price paid or payable for the goods, converted to Australian dollars “at the rate of exchange prevailing on the day of export of the goods (not on the day the goods arrive in Australia)”, under section 161J of the Customs Act. International freight and insurance are not part of it. The rate follows the tariff classification of the goods, not the description on the invoice: many lines in Schedule 3 carry 5% (cotton T-shirts of heading 6109, dolls of 9503), some are Free (wheeled ride-on toys), a few are higher. There is no single “US import duty rate”; there is a rate per line, and for US originating goods it is Free (section 3).

GST is 10% of the value of the taxable importation: “the sum of: the customs value (CV) of the imported goods, any duty payable, the amount paid or payable to transport the goods to Australia and to insure the goods for that transport (T&I), and any Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) payable”. Duty sits inside the GST base, so duty you did not need to pay inflates the GST too. A door-to-door courier parcel under 31.5 kg is treated as posted; its freight still goes into the base. GST is “payable before the goods are released by Home Affairs… at the same time, at the same place, and in the same manner as you would customs duty”, unless the importer is in the deferred GST scheme (section 4).

Import processing charge, on an electronic Import Declaration:

Consignment value	Electronic	Documentary
A$1,000 or less	A$0.00	—
Over A$1,000, under A$10,000	A$50.00	A$90.00
A$10,000 or more	A$152.00	A$192.00

Biosecurity charge, per full import declaration: A$48.00 by air, A$71.00 by sea, on consignments over A$1,000.

3. Does AUSFTA make it duty-free — and what do you need to claim it with no certificate of origin?

Yes, for US originating goods. Schedule 5 of the working tariff, the schedule for “US originating goods”, opens with one sentence: “Except for the subheadings outlined in the table below, all rates are Free.” The table is the alcohol, tobacco and petroleum lines. The agreement has been in force since 1 January 2005. And unlike the China agreement, AUSFTA does not require a certificate of origin: the ABF’s own guidance answers “Is a certificate of origin required?” with “No.”

“Shipped from the US” is not “US originating”

A good is originating under AUSFTA Article 5.1 if it is wholly obtained or produced entirely in the US or Australia; or produced entirely from originating materials; or produced there from non-originating materials that each undergo the change in tariff classification set in Annex 5-A (Annex 4-A for textiles and apparel), or that satisfy a regional value content where the rule asks for one. The idea is that “inputs sourced outside the territories of the FTA may not come from the same tariff item as the good in question” — the non-US materials must be transformed into something classified differently. Non-originating materials that fail the change still do not disqualify the good if they are no more than 10 per cent of its adjusted value (Article 5.2), and Australian-origin inputs and a chain of US producers count together (Article 5.3).

The practical consequence: a product made in a third country and forwarded from a US warehouse, or assembled in the US from imported parts not transformed enough to change classification, is not US originating. It pays the general rate, and a “Made in USA” label on the carton does not change that.

The claim

Under Article 5.12, “an importer may make a claim for preferential treatment under this Agreement based on the importer’s knowledge or on information in the importer’s possession that the good qualifies as an originating good”. Nothing is lodged beyond the claim itself; the ABF reads a US-preference entry as indicating “that the importer of the goods possesses information, or knowledge… that this declaration is correct”.

What the importer must be able to do is produce, on request, “a statement setting forth the reasons that the good qualifies as an originating good, including pertinent cost and manufacturing information”, in no prescribed format. The ABF says that information “should be requested from the manufacturer in the US”, and should say which limb of Article 5.1 the good meets and why — for a product-specific rule, “exactly which product specific rule has been met and why it has been met”.

Four more rules shape the claim:

Records for up to five years after importation: the purchase, cost, value and payment for the good and every material in it, and its production (Article 5.14).
Verification can go to you, in writing to the US exporter or producer, or by a visit to their premises; preference can be denied if the information is not provided (Article 5.15).
The safe harbour. No penalty for an invalid claim if the importer, “on becoming aware that such claim is not valid, promptly and voluntarily corrects the claim and pays any duty owing” (Article 5.13.4). Otherwise “Customs will demand any duty short paid and may impose penalties”.
Advance rulings on origin are available from the ABF and bind it — useful where the bill of materials is genuinely mixed.

So the US saving is easier to claim than the Chinese one and easier to lose: no certificate to chase, but none to hide behind either. The importer carries the claim, and the US manufacturer’s letter is what carries the importer.

4. Who is the importer — and who gets the GST back?

The ATO’s test has two parts: you are the importer if “you have caused the goods to be brought to Australia for your own purposes” and “you or your agent have completed the customs formalities or would be responsible for the customs formalities”. Only the importer can claim the GST paid at the border as a credit, and only if it is registered for GST.

For a US business the answer splits by channel:

A direct-shipped consumer parcel over A$1,000. The consumer is normally the importer: by air or sea cargo “the ultimate consignee would normally be the purchaser unless the seller nominates themselves as the ultimate consignee”, and a freight forwarder “would not normally be the ultimate consignee”. The consumer pays the duty, GST and charges before release and, importing privately, claims nothing. That happens “even if the supplier incorrectly charged GST on the sale”, so a checkout that adds GST to a A$1,800 order has taxed the customer twice. If the seller nominates itself as consignee and clears the goods (a delivered-duty-paid offer), the seller is the importer and needs the registration below to recover the GST.
Bulk stock into a 3PL or fulfilment centre. The seller caused the goods to come for its own purposes and its broker lodges the N10 in its name, so the seller is the importer. To claim the credit it must make a taxable importation, be registered for GST, and import the goods for a creditable purpose. A non-resident warehousing goods in Australia needs standard registration on an ABN, obtained as an overseas business making supplies connected with Australia; simplified registration cannot claim credits and is unavailable once goods are warehoused here. Our article on selling into Australia from a US company covers that registration.

The credit goes in the activity statement for the period in which the GST is paid, and the evidence is specific: “you or your customs broker/agent need to keep the relevant import declaration. The status of the declaration needs to be ‘finalised’. You also need to keep the related matching official receipt from Home Affairs.” A forwarder named as owner in its own right means nobody can claim — the fixes are in our article on who gets the import GST back. And when a quarter’s credits beat the GST on your sales, the BAS pays you — GST refunds for overseas businesses walks through what’s claimable and what never was.

Duty is not creditable at all; it is part of the cost of the stock. And if paying GST at the border and waiting for the BAS is the cash-flow problem, the deferred GST scheme moves the border GST onto a monthly BAS where the credit offsets it in the same statement — but duty “is still payable before the goods are released from customs control”.

5. What does a shipment actually cost, and how much of it comes back?

One bulk shipment: US-made goods into a Melbourne 3PL, customs value A$30,000 (a US$ invoice converted at the day-of-export rate), international transport and insurance A$3,400, by air, one electronic Import Declaration.

	General rate 5%	AUSFTA, origin claimed and backed
Customs value	A$30,000	A$30,000
Duty	A$1,500	A$0
Freight and insurance	A$3,400	A$3,400
Value of the taxable importation	A$34,900	A$33,400
GST at 10%	A$3,490	A$3,340
Import processing charge (A$10,000+)	A$152	A$152
Biosecurity charge (air)	A$48	A$48
Paid at the border	A$5,190	A$3,540
Less GST credit on the BAS	−A$3,490	−A$3,340
Real cost of importing	A$1,700	A$200

The difference in real cost is A$1,500: the duty, exactly. Six shipments a year makes it A$9,000. The A$150 of extra GST is real at the border and washes out on the BAS. The price of the saving is a letter from the US manufacturer explaining which rule the goods meet, kept for five years.

Now the direct-ship side, two parcels to consumers:

A$600 by courier to Brisbane. One consignment under A$1,000: SAC, nothing at the border. If the seller or the marketplace is registered, the GST is collected at the checkout — A$60 on a A$660 GST-inclusive price — and that is the whole tax.
A$1,800 by air, freight A$120, goods made in a third country and shipped from a US warehouse. Not US originating, so the general 5% applies: duty A$90, value of the taxable importation A$2,010, GST A$201, processing charge A$50, biosecurity A$48 — A$389 payable by the consumer before release, with no credit. The same parcel genuinely US-made, with the claim made: duty A$0, GST A$192, A$50, A$48 — A$290. The customer feels the A$99.

Where it’s worth getting help

Most of this is public and navigable. The ABF’s charges are on one page, the DFAT FTA Portal gives the Annex 5-A rule for a tariff code, and a licensed customs broker will lodge the declaration and make the preference claim. For a single product that your US supplier makes from US materials, that path works and costs a broker’s fee.

The judgment calls are these:

Does the product actually originate in the US once the imported components in it are counted, and what evidence from the manufacturer will stand up to a verification request three years from now?
Who should be the importer on each channel — the consumer on direct parcels, you on bulk stock — and do the purchase terms say so before the first order?
Which registration the US entity needs: standard on an ABN to recover the import GST on warehoused stock, simplified for checkout GST on sub-A$1,000 parcels, or both.
Is monthly BAS plus deferred GST worth it at your volume?

That’s the difference between doing it and doing it right the first time: the importer who claimed Free on day one with the manufacturer’s statement on file, versus the one paying 5% on every shipment for want of a letter — or claiming Free on goods that only passed through a US warehouse and meeting the verification request without it.

If you’d like that looked at properly, our initial assessment form scopes it in about twelve questions — what you ship, where it is made, how it travels and where it is stored — without needing a meeting; and our GST registration check will tell you which registration the US entity needs.

FY 2026–27. General information, not tax advice for your circumstances. Duty rates depend on the tariff classification of your specific goods, and the preferential rate depends on the goods meeting AUSFTA’s rules of origin. Charges and rules quoted are the published ABF, DFAT and ATO settings as at 12 October 2026; the A$75,000 GST registration turnover threshold is not indexed — confirm the current figure before relying on it.