Importing from China to Australia - customs broker needed

Hello,

I have sourced my product that I want to import from China and am now finding out how expensive it is going to be to import to Australia! My total order is under $1000 so I avoid taxes but because it is under $1000 I need an agent to lodge all the forms for me. This is a considerable cost. If it was over $1000 then I pay taxes but I can lodge the forms to customs myself saving myself that charge - which is around $600!
Does anyone have a good import agent they can recommend in the Sydney area? I am wondering if it easier to just order more and place the forms myself into customs. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!

Hello Imagosmith,

Sorry as I am not based in Australia, I cannot refer any agent to you. But I have sent our Community Manager, Marc Ransom aka fudjj as he is based in Australia. He might be more equipped at helping you out.

In the meantime have a read at this guide - Link hidden: Login to view

Cheers :)

Thanks Richelle,

Hi imagosmith, can you tell me what products you are importing firstly and how you are having them shipped from China?

PM me if you want to keep that information private.

Cheers

OK, I've had the prices into Sydney broken down for you so you can see where all this money is going.

Australian Quarantine direction is $189 , Customs inspection fee is $88.00 and there is a Customs entry fee of $150, so there is $427.00 just there alone. Of course the forwarder would still need to get their slice as well for handling the paperwork, so there just doesn't look to be any cheaper way around that price unfortunately.

That $427 in fees outlined above would also be valid on a load in excess of 1K as well of course, with the added cost of GST to be considered. Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be cheaper to import more, it could well be, even with the GST and the fact that you will still be charged the above fees in clearing the load yourself. You may be able to get a better price per item in buying in a larger volume to counter balance all of that.

Long and the short of it, there are going to be import related costs however you do it, just can't get around those unfortunately.

Cheers

Hi!
This link would be somewhat helpful for you:
Link hidden: Login to view

Regards and good luck with your importing business!

Is the $1000 threshold calculated using the goods only or do they include the shipping costs. Last time I was just over the $1000, so this time I made sure that the goods were only $850 when I ordered. Now I have had a call that I have to pay duties and GST as the Invoice is over $1000. Last time they said it was goods only. This time I got a robot so couldn't get a clear answer why I had to pay..

From the other threads I have read in the past the threshold ideally applies to the item cost only excluding shipping.

It might be best that you check direct with your local customs office as to why you are being charged.

All the best!

From when I last spoke to Customs they had advised me that the it's not just the cost of goods, shipping cost is also included in the final total.

I've always made sure that all orders I have placed have always been just under $1000 (which includes the shipping cost). I've never had to pay any customs fees or duties.

Unfortunately it seems the Aus. Government is now looking at lowering the threshold to $500, but no one is sure of when that will happen. Whether I'm ready or not looks like I might need to think of getting in much larger quantities or even a container.

Great, I am going to be hit up with extra costs as well then. I wonder if they include the costs to get it through customs as shipping aswell. That will always put you over if that's the case. It so far has cost me the same amount as my product to get it through customs. If they lower the amount to $500 then that's pretty much what it costs to get through customs.
I am going to contact my agent today and see what he says.

Been a while since we imported in small amounts, but we always used to ensure we were under all up, including shipping cost.

There has been some talk for quite a while now on lowering the GST threshold. I'm not aware of any actual plans to do so, but there will be a lot of pressure from the retail sector to get that done sooner or later.

You also need to watch out how often you are shipping. For example, if you are landing a delivery once a week. If one package gets held up at Customs and another one lands, even if they are both under the threshold individually, if the combined total of both surpasses the 1K limit, you can still get hit the 10% on the combined load.

That's a good point fudjj.

I've always made sure that I get my first order (or orders if combined they are under $1,000) before placing more just in case they do all come at once.