China to Australia Landed Cost Calculator

Australia charges customs duty on the customs value of the goods — broadly the FOB price at the Chinese export port, converted to Australian dollars. Duty is not charged on your overseas freight or insurance, so a CIF quote has those costs stripped back out before duty is worked out.

GST is different. It's charged at 10% on the value of the taxable importation (VoTI), which is the customs value plus the duty payable plus the cost of international transport and insurance. Because GST's base is larger, the GST line is usually bigger than the duty line even though the headline rate looks higher. If your business is GST-registered you can generally claim the import GST back, so the calculator can show your landed cost excluding recoverable GST.

The Incoterm on your quote determines which costs the supplier has already covered. EXW (Ex Works) means you pay everything from the factory door, so the calculator adds your pre-export costs. FOB (Free On Board) means the supplier covers inland transport and export clearance up to the ship's rail — the most common basis for China imports. CFR and CIF include sea freight (and, for CIF, insurance), which the tool backs out so duty isn't overstated.

Getting the Incoterm right matters because it changes the customs value, and therefore both the duty and the GST. If you're not sure which term your supplier quoted, check the proforma invoice before relying on the estimate.

Under the China–Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), most goods that are genuinely of Chinese origin qualify for a 0% preferential duty rate instead of the general rate. That can remove the duty line entirely — a meaningful saving on larger orders.

The catch is documentation: to claim the preferential rate you need a valid Certificate of Origin or a Declaration of Origin that meets ChAFTA's rules. Without the paperwork, the general rate applies. Tick the ChAFTA option in the calculator only once you have, or can obtain, that documentation from your supplier.

The AUD 1,000 customs value threshold decides how tax is collected, and the two mechanisms are easy to confuse. For consignments with a customs value over AUD 1,000, duty and GST are collected at the border through an import declaration, and the import processing and biosecurity charges apply.

For low-value goods at or under AUD 1,000, there is generally no duty or border processing charge, but 10% GST is still collected — usually at the point of sale by the overseas supplier or marketplace if they're registered for Australian GST. The calculator keeps these two paths separate so a low-value order isn't shown paying border charges it wouldn't actually incur.

Beyond duty and GST, a few Australian-specific charges catch first-time importers out. The Import Processing Charge (IPC) is a flat fee that depends on how the declaration is lodged (electronic vs documentary) and whether the consignment is over the threshold. A biosecurity levy applies per consignment, at different rates for air and sea. On top of that you'll usually pay a customs broker, plus port, terminal and delivery fees once the goods land.

These are modelled as separate lines so you can see exactly what makes up the gap between the supplier's price and your shelf cost — and switch any of them off if your arrangement differs.