As a registered and experienced Customs Broker we do facilitate the shipment and delivery of goods across geographical borders for individuals and organizations.
The general public is often unaware of the sheer magnitude of goods and raw materials that cross these international borders every single day and what is involved in clearing these goods through customs in different countries.
There are three main ports at Sydney, these are Port Botany, Port Jackson and Port Kembla.
At Port Jackson there are facilities for RoRo vehicles (roll-on roll-off).
Almost anything with wheels that’s imported into Australia requires an import approval, its important that you check to ensure that your vehicle, motorcycle, caravan, camper trailer, motorhome etc is eligible for an approval prior to shipping. Vehicle’s and motorcycles are the most complicated, so please read through the below information to check to see if you think you’ll be eligible for an import approval. If you have any questions, or you’d like to speak with us on the phone then please give us a call and one of our friendly team can talk through it with you.
To protect our Australian car market our government has set up a complex set of rules and regulations to heavily restrict the import of vehicles and similar cargo into Australia. To try and understand the laws in full would take pages and pages of information so we will do our best to summarise the basics below.
Your first step when importing is to gain an import approval, these are issued through the Department of Infrastructure – the type of import approval depends on the circumstances surrounding the import. For the purpose of this article we will focus solely on vehicles intended to be registered for use on Australian roads.
If you don’t intend to register the vehicle on Australian roads then you are welcome to import pretty much anything you like – Race cars, monster trucks, dirt bikes, dune buggies etc will be all OK to import under the ‘Non-Road Vehicles Option‘
For your vehicle, there are no major restrictions. You will simply need to apply for a vehicle import approval under the ‘Interim measure: vehicles older than 25 years’ option.
The approval should be granted on the basis that the vehicle is older than 25 years old at the time of import approval application.
For more information as well as details on how to apply please see the following link – https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/vehicles/imports/import_options/interim-measure.aspxhttps://infrastructure.gov.au/vehicles/imports/
This option is probably the most complicated, it means your vehicle needs to be imported under the Australian Governments ‘Registered Automotive Workshop Scheme’ (RAWS)
It means the vehicle MUST be on the RAWS list in order to be eligible to import into Australia, here is a link to the list (RAWS List)
If you find the make and model of vehicle you are looking to import on the list, then it will display a list of RAWS depot’s around Australia who are able to handle the import approval and compliance process for you. Your first step would be to contact the RAWS depot to check on costs and the process. If you are happy with the costs for the approval and the compliance, then it’s best to get in touch with Willship so we can advise on freight costs, import taxes etc and we can move forward from there.
If this is the case, then you can apply for a ‘personal import approval’ which allows you to import a vehicle and bypass the RAWS requirements on newer model vehicles. It’s a great option for ex-pats looking to move back to Australia who are lucky enough to of owned and used their vehicle’s overseas for in excess of 12 months.
More information on personal imports on the following link – https://infrastructure.gov.au/vehicles/imports/import_options/pis.aspx
Awesome! This makes things really easy, if the vehicle is fitted with an Australian compliance plate then you’ll just need to apply for an import approval under the Australian Plated Vehicle’s option.
If you can prove that the vehicle was originally exported from Australia then you’re also able to import it back into Australia without having to pay any import tax. Getting it back on the road is also really easy as well, it will just need a safety certificate and then you can re-register it.
