Import Duty Calculator Australia

Setting it out

Australia values goods for duty on the customs value, which is essentially the FOB price, freight and insurance are excluded from the duty base. Duty = customs value × the rate in the Customs Tariff.

GST then works differently, and this is the point most calculators get wrong. It applies to the value of the taxable importation, which is customs value plus transport, plus insurance, plus the duty itself. So freight is outside the duty base and inside the GST base.

A concrete case

Goods A$27,000, freight A$3,600, insurance A$143. Customs value is A$27,000 and duty at 5% is A$1,350.

The value of the taxable importation is 27,000 + 3,600 + 143 + 1,350 = A$32,093. GST at 10% is A$3,209.30.

Total at the border A$4,559.30. Calculating GST on the customs value alone would give A$2,700, A$509 low, purely from omitting freight and duty from the base.

What the number hides

The A$1,000 threshold relieves duty and border-collected GST, but it does not make low-value imports tax-free. Overseas suppliers above the registration turnover threshold must charge GST at the point of sale on low-value goods sold to Australian consumers, so the tax is collected either way.

Biosecurity is the other Australian-specific factor, and it is unusually strict. Goods containing wood, plant material, food, or anything that has been in contact with soil face inspection and possible treatment or destruction, with the importer bearing the cost.

Where to go from here

Use the correct GST base, customs value plus freight, insurance and duty. It is the single most common error in Australian landed cost calculations and it understates the figure by roughly the freight times the GST rate.

Then check biosecurity requirements before shipping rather than at the border. Treatment certificates obtained at origin are far cheaper than fumigation at an Australian port, and destruction of a non-compliant consignment is a total loss.

Free trade agreements and Australian sourcing

Australia has agreements with China, Japan, Korea, the US, ASEAN, the UK and others, and most reduce duty on qualifying goods to zero. Given a general tariff around 5% on many consumer goods, that removes most of the duty for a large share of imports.

Claiming preference requires a certificate or declaration of origin in the form the specific agreement requires, and the forms differ between agreements. A supplier who provides one for the wrong agreement has provided nothing useful.

Because the general rate is relatively low, the practical calculation for many Australian importers is that GST dominates, and GST is recoverable for a registered business. That means the genuine unrecoverable cost of importing into Australia is often quite small, and the numbers that look alarming at the border mostly wash through. Understanding which part is which is what makes the difference between a business that finds importing viable and one that does not.

Separately, an overseas seller who crosses the registration turnover threshold for Australian sales must register for GST and charge it at the point of sale, and the threshold counts sales to Australian consumers rather than total turnover.

Businesses frequently cross it without noticing, because the Australian portion of their sales grew gradually. Monitoring turnover by destination country against each market's registration threshold is a small piece of reporting that prevents a retrospective liability.