Australian Yachts Returning Home
After spending some time on our sailboat in Australia we opted to extend the journey into international waters, exploring throught Timor Leste and Indonesia. When clearing out of Australia its now required that you export your vessel through Border Force and Customs. When you return the same is required. Your Australian flagged vessel must be re imported back into Australia. This is mainly due to the fact they want to know if you have made updrades offshore and if so you will need to pay duty on the updrades. if your vessel is unchanged then no duty should be paid, only you still need to go through the beaurocratical prosess.
N10 and COLS system
Upon returning we opted to complete all paperwork ourselves as we got quotes from Customs agents that were between $500-$1200 aud - and i thought how hard can this really be...
Border force highly recomend you get an agent as the paperwork is not designed for private yachts, really we are heaped into commercial cargo paperwork and you will find it almost impoissible to andwer some of the questions and find the appropriate code.
I spent two weeks working with border force getting my paperwork fianised and decised to put everything i learnt, into this PDF to help others. In the end the prosess is very simple if you know what is truely required.
I completed my prosess in Darwin so many of the contacts are for Darwin.
*** DISCLAIMER ***
I am not a trained customs broker, or Border Force agent, I mearly colledced all of the information from them to complete my own paperwork (we did not have to pay duty on our vessel). I am taking no responcibily in your private applications and i highly encourage you to check your entrys carefully and lease with Border Force where needed.
Download E-BOOK
If you would like to attempt the Import yourself this E-book inclues screenshots of N10 paperwork and COLS system with info on how to answer each question.