eCustoms Broker - The Australia Post Import Specialists

Your customs reference is a unique identifier of your parcel in the customs systems, hence it’s a mandatory requirement of customs clearance.

If you haven’t received the customs letter in the mail, then you can call customs on 131 881 (option 5, then 1) and request your Customs Reference, which will be a letter followed by six numbers - e.g. N123456.

Once received, you can submit a customs clearance request online, just select I did not receive this notice when you’re prompted to provide your Customs Notice.

Yes. This is a common scenario. We clear consignments electronically, therefore when Customs attempt to process your manually submitted N10I Import Dec, they will see that it’s already been cleared by a broker and disregard your documentation.

In a worst-case scenario, if they miss to realise this and also process it, they will send you an email and at that point you need only to reply with “It’s been cleared by a broker, please disregard” and they will do so at that time. You don’t need to pay duty/GST twice.

No, because we need your unique Customs Reference that’s associated to your consignment to clear your goods. This number will appear on the Australia Post / Customs Notice you receive in the mail.

If the tracking shows that your consignment has arrived but you haven’t received this letter in the mail, please follow the steps in the above FAQ 'What if I don't have the Customs Reference?'.

Gift are treated no differently to commercial consignments, the law requires that all goods, even gifts, over the value of AUD$1000 are subject to the assessment of customs duty and GST and checked for community protection risks. The value of a gift is assessed as the usual value that you would buy that item for in the country of origin.

Yes. The law requires that all goods – whether second hand or new, commercial or private – be subject to the assessment of customs duty and GST and checked for community protection risks.

Duty and/or GST is only collected on imported goods where the value of the goods is above A$1000, OR where the goods include alcohol, tobacco or are prohibited/restricted products. Goods valued above A$1000 must be cleared through Customs by completion of a formal Customs Entry.

If you have received a Customs Notice then the shipper has already advised customs that your goods meet these criteria.

No. Customs only “pauses” your original delivery contact with the supplier, they don’t terminate it and initiate a new one, hence your goods will continue to be delivered in accordance with the original service level contract with which they were sent from the origin.

A good customs broker will save you time and money, typically more than you pay them. While it’s not mandatory to use a customs broker to clear your imported goods, in most cases it’s certainly beneficial as outlined below.

SAVINGS: Customs brokers work to ensure you’re paying the least amount of duty/GST that’s legislatively permitted for the specific circumstances of your importation. And there’s many avenues available for us to do this.

For example, over 83% (avg.) of our postal import clients pay less to use us than self-lodgement of a N10/B374 - Import Declaration (N10) – Post form.

TIME: We provide electronic customs clearance processing which is significantly faster than self-lodgement of an import declaration as this is a manual documentary process.

For example, we clear postal consignments in just 3hrs, but self- lodgement takes customs 8-10 business days to process.

SIMPLICITY: With a customs broker, you simply provide your import documentation and they do the rest. With e-customs broker it’s even easier as you can submit online in just 5mins.

Self-lodgement requires you to complete the import declaration yourself, including applying the correct valuation and classifications of the goods based on your specific import circumstances.

LIABILITY: Using a customs broker also protects you from the risk of liability for lodging an erroneous import declaration, which can be anything up to a $12,000 strict liability fine.

The bottom line is that if you’re not 100% confident that you understand the legislation and know exactly what your lodging in your declaration, then you should use a customs broker.

Once you receive the release emails from us your consignment is “Customs Cleared” and our servers automatically notify Customs of the release. Customs then generates a release report at midnight on the day of clearance which is transmitted to Australia Post at 9am the next morning.

From this point Australia Post officers take your consignment out of the customs held facility and put it back in their general delivery cycle, and they quote 1-7 business days for delivery based on the service level the goods were sent from the origin on.

Tracking after Customs Clearance: The international tracking system will NOT change but remain as “Held in Customs” until your consignment physically leaves the Australia Post bond.

It’s up to Australia Post when they actually schedule this to occur as they are only bound to deliver your consignment within 7 business days, therefore the exact day when they commence this process after clearance notification (as outlined above) is at their discretion.

It’s not uncommon that the international tracking doesn’t change for anywhere up to 3-4 business days depending on the service level that the goods were posted on as Australia Post prioritises express consignments over standard ones.

If you haven’t received the consignment within Australia Posts 7 business day delivery window then you can call them on 13 13 18 and quote your 13-digit tracking number to ascertain the progress of your delivery.