Getting to Australia: Customs and quarantine

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Australia has strict quarantine requirements regarding importing animal and vegetable derived products (any food, wooden products, seeds, etc). You must declare all such material, and all baggage is scanned and examined by dogs prior to entry.

Most manufactured, packaged food (chocolates, cookies, etc) is usually found to be acceptable, and will be returned to you. With items found to be a risk, you will be given the options available to you to have the goods processed, removed from Australia, or destroyed.

Even permitted food items must be declared to customs and inspected before they are allowed into the country. There is no penalty provided goods are declared properly. There is no delay associated with declaring items. Everyone goes through the same queue and scanning processes. If in any doubt, just declare it, and you will have no problems.

If you accidentally fail to declare an item you may incur an on-the-spot fine of $220, which must be paid immediately. The law has the possibility of extremely heavy penalties including fines (in the order of thousands of dollars) and even a possible jail term if you deliberately try to evade quarantine.

Australian customs also require you to declare if you are bringing $10,000 or more in or out of the country. There are no restrictions on the amount of money that can be brought in or out, but you will be asked to complete some paperwork.

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