Shipping to Australia: What You Pay at the Border, by Origin Country (2026)

Two things decide what a shipment pays at the Australian border: the A$1,000 customs-value line, and the origin paperwork. At or under A$1,000, most goods clear with nothing collected at the border — the 10% GST was charged at the online checkout instead. Over A$1,000, the consignment pays customs duty, 10% GST on the landed value, and about A$100 in fixed charges — and because Australia has free trade agreements with the UK, US, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and India, the duty on originating goods is typically 0%, provided the claim is actually made.

The postmark matters less than people think. What the border asks is: how much is this worth, where was it made, and can you prove it? Here is the whole picture, by origin country.

The shipment	What’s collected at the border
Customs value A$1,000 or less (most goods)	Nothing — GST handled at checkout by the seller or platform
Tobacco or alcohol, any value	Duty and GST always apply (tobacco also needs an import permit and can’t be posted)
Over A$1,000, FTA origin documents lodged	Duty typically 0% + 10% GST + ~A$100 fixed charges
Over A$1,000, no origin documents	Duty typically 5% + 10% GST (calculated on the duty too) + fixed charges

(General information for FY 2026–27, not advice for your circumstances. Rates checked against ABF and ATO published figures on 12 November 2026; border charges change each 1 July. The A$75,000 GST registration threshold is not indexed and may change.)

1. Do you pay tax when shipping goods to Australia?

For most goods, only when the customs value of the consignment is over A$1,000, according to the Australian Border Force. At or under that line there is no duty, no border GST and no entry charges — the parcel simply clears. The exceptions are tobacco and alcohol, which are taxed at any value.

That doesn’t mean sub-A$1,000 goods escape GST — the collection point just moves. Since 2018, overseas sellers and online marketplaces have been responsible for charging the 10% GST on low-value imported goods at checkout, once their sales of such goods to Australia pass A$75,000 a year. Sell through eBay, Amazon or a similar platform and the platform generally charges and remits that GST on your sales regardless of your own size — it’s their turnover that counts. Two practical consequences:

• Buyers: a parcel under A$1,000 shouldn’t be stopped for tax at the border — if GST was due, it was in the price you paid at the till.
• Sellers: B2B sales are carved out. An Australian GST-registered business buyer who gives you their ABN and confirms GST registration shouldn’t be charged checkout GST on a low-value sale — one to get right in your store settings.

The A$1,000 line is measured on the customs value of the consignment — normally the price of the goods themselves, excluding international freight and insurance. What counts (and what happens when one order ships as several boxes) is its own topic — our customs value guide covers it.

2. How much are duty, GST and border charges on a shipment over A$1,000?

Four charges, according to the ABF and ATO: customs duty on the customs value (typically 5% for consumer goods, 0% for most FTA-originating goods); GST at 10% of the customs value plus the duty plus international transport and insurance; an import processing charge of A$50 (consignments under A$10,000) or A$152 (A$10,000 and over); and a biosecurity charge of A$48 by air or A$71 by sea (FY 2026–27 rates).

Note the stacking: GST is calculated after duty and freight are added, so every dollar of duty also costs ten extra cents of GST. That’s why the origin paperwork in the next two sections moves the total more than its 5% headline suggests.

A worked example (illustrative). A consignment of UK-made homewares, customs value A$3,000, air freight and insurance A$300:

	With A-UKFTA origin documents	Without origin documents
Customs duty	A$0 (0%)	A$150 (5%)
GST — 10% of (value + duty + freight)	A$330	A$345
Import processing charge	A$50	A$50
Biosecurity charge (air)	A$48	A$48
Collected at the border	A$428	A$593

One set of origin documents is worth A$165 on this single consignment — and the duty component is a dead cost, not a credit. (If the importer is GST-registered, the GST comes back — section 6.)

3. Shipping from the UK or the USA — is there customs duty?

Usually not, for goods actually made there: the Australia–UK Free Trade Agreement (in force since 31 May 2023) and the Australia–US FTA (since 2005) give originating goods duty-free entry on the vast majority of tariff lines. The claim rides on origin evidence lodged with the import declaration — without it, the default rate, typically 5%, applies.

For the UK there are now two routes to preference — A-UKFTA and the CPTPP, which the UK joined in December 2024 — and a declaration of origin from the exporter or producer is the usual evidence. For the US, AUSFTA has been doing the same job for two decades. In both cases the statement that matters is “these goods originate in [country] under [agreement]” with the supporting records to back it, not a shipping label.

The eBay wrinkle for US purchases: most eBay parcels sit under A$1,000, so there’s no duty question at all — eBay charges the 10% GST at checkout and the parcel clears the border without further charges. It’s the over-A$1,000 consignment — commercial stock, a bulk buy, one expensive item — where the AUSFTA claim and the import declaration enter the picture. For the full US treatment, see importing from the US to Australia.

4. Shipping from Japan, Korea, Singapore or Hong Kong — what do you pay?

Mostly GST and the fixed charges, not duty: Australia has agreements in force with all four — Japan (JAEPA, plus the CPTPP), Korea (KAFTA), Singapore (SAFTA, plus the CPTPP) and Hong Kong (A-HKFTA) — and originating goods are overwhelmingly duty-free under them.

The word doing the work is originating. Each agreement has rules of origin, and they ask where the goods were grown, produced or substantially transformed — not which port they sailed from. The classic mistake in this corridor:

• Made in Japan, shipped from Japan — JAEPA/CPTPP rates apply, with origin evidence. ✓
• Made in mainland China, shipped from Hong Kong or Singapore — A-HKFTA and SAFTA do not apply. The goods aren’t Hong Kong or Singapore originating just because they transited there. China-origin goods have their own agreement (ChAFTA) with its own documentation — claim under the right one or pay the general rate.

Transhipment itself is fine — goods can route through a hub without losing their origin, provided they stay under customs control and aren’t processed along the way. What breaks claims is treating the ship-from country as the origin country on the declaration. If your supply chain consolidates in Singapore or Hong Kong, keep the manufacturer’s origin evidence attached to each consignment.

5. Shipping from India — what changed under AI-ECTA?

Most Indian-origin goods already enter Australia duty-free: the Australia–India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement has been in force since 29 December 2022, covering the vast majority of tariff lines from day one. The remaining lines were reported to reach zero from 1 January 2026 — worth confirming against the current tariff schedule for your product before you price on it.

In practice, for sellers shipping Indian-made textiles, homewares, jewellery or components, the duty line of the border bill is usually A$0 with a certificate of origin under AI-ECTA — leaving the 10% GST and the fixed charges, which apply regardless of origin. The same two cautions as everywhere else: the goods must originate in India under the agreement’s rules, and the claim must be made on the declaration with the evidence held. An unclaimed FTA rate isn’t applied retrospectively by default — getting duty refunded after the fact is possible but slower than claiming it right the first time.

6. Who pays at the border — and how do sellers claim it back?

Whoever is named as the importer pays — and your shipping terms decide who that is. Sell DDP (delivered duty paid) and you, the seller, clear the goods and pay the charges. Sell DAP/DDU and the courier presents the bill to your Australian customer before delivery — which is how a “surprise A$593 invoice” ends a customer relationship. For a GST-registered importer, the border GST is not a cost at all: it comes back as an input tax credit, and the deferred GST scheme can move it from a payment at clearance to an entry on the monthly BAS.

For anyone shipping more than the odd parcel, the setup that works:

• Decide the importer of record deliberately. B2C over A$1,000 on DAP terms means your customer deals with customs — fine if they know, fatal if they don’t. DDP keeps the experience clean and puts the charges in your landed-cost model instead.
• Register for GST when the numbers say so. Import GST is only claimable by the entity that imported the goods for a creditable purpose and is registered. Non-resident sellers can register — our non-resident GST registration guide covers the how.
• Use the deferred GST scheme once you’re importing monthly. With an ABN, GST registration and a monthly online BAS, the import GST is deferred from the border to the BAS — reported and credited in the same statement. It’s a cash-flow fix rather than a saving, but on regular consignments it’s the difference between financing the ATO and not.
• If a 3PL warehouses your stock, the import step is still yours, not theirs — see 3PL warehousing and Australian tax.

Getting it set up

The free path is all public: the ABF’s import declaration pages have the charges, the ATO’s GST and imported goods page has the GST calculation and the deferred GST scheme, and each FTA’s origin documentation rules are published. Nothing above needs an agent to read.

What an agent changes is the order and the defaults. We set up inbound sellers so the first consignment clears the way the fiftieth should: the importer of record chosen on purpose, GST registration and the deferred GST scheme in place before stock moves (not after the first cash hit at clearance), origin paperwork built into the dispatch routine for the corridor you actually ship, and the landed-cost model carrying the real numbers — duty at the rate you’ll genuinely pay, not the 5% you shouldn’t be paying. That’s usually one setup conversation, against months of paying 5% duty nobody owed, or a customer base learning about DAP terms from a courier’s invoice.

Start with an initial assessment — tell us what you ship, from where, and at what order values, and we’ll tell you what your consignments will actually be charged and which registrations are worth having before the next one lands.

(General information for FY 2026–27, not advice for your circumstances. Rates checked against ABF and ATO published figures on 12 November 2026; import processing and biosecurity charges change each 1 July. Worked figures are illustrative. India’s final ECTA tariff eliminations are reported, not yet confirmed on Australian official pages — check the current schedule. You may need to register for GST once your GST turnover reaches A$75,000.)