An Easy Guide to Import Your Car from NZ to Australia

I recently moved to Canberra from Wellington for a job at the Australian National University and had to import my trusty Toyota Corolla Wagon that they do not sell in Australia and that would have been twice the price if I were to sell it in NZ and buy a replacement similar age car in Australia. The process was super easy despite much scare mongering online! Here is what you need to do.

*NB!* This assumes that you are importing a family car as part of your move to Australia. :-)

1. Go to the Australian ROVER system, create a simple account and pay around $2 to apply and obtain (takes about a week) a permission to import the vehicle into Australia: https://rover.infrastructure.gov.au/

2. Go to AutoHub and nobody else as they are by far the easiest and most experienced car mover I got a quote from: https://autohub.co.nz/ - follow their instructions and it costs around $3K including all fees for the valuer etc to ship the car the fast way directly from NZ to Australia and it takes around one month from drop off to pick up including customs clearance. Or even cheaper and much longer if you decide to go via Japan - go figure. :-) The paperwork they ask you is pretty straight forward and you will need your original Bill of Sale and knowing your VIN by heart. :-)

3. Take the car to your local Espresso Car Wash (https://espressocarwash.co.nz/) and ask them to wash it (no need for waxing or detailing!) as best they can for export - costs around $130 and is a good deal.

4. Drop off the car on the day when instructed (most likely in Auckland) at the AutoHub and take off both number plates and take out registration card.

5. Go to the local VTNZ station and pay $10 and hand in your NZ number plates to deregister the car in NZ, stop your car insurance and any other payments like AA membership.

6. When your car arrives to Australia and the valuer is done, you will get your total bill from Autohub including the $3K or so for the moving and valueing and another 15% from Australia with 5% Duty and 10% GST depending on the value of the car. For example, my car was valued at $15K so it was $3K + $3K = $6K total bill.

7. Call Shannons (https://www.shannons.com.au/) and get your car insured! There is a good chance that nobody else will insure your car as many NZ new cars are not sold in Australia (e.g. my Corolla Wagon) so insurers do not know how to deal with them while Shannons is a specialist and can insure anything and costs the same or even cheaper than the mainstream insurers and includes road side assistance if you need one! You can even insure it before you get the number plates sorted (which is what I did)!

8. Expect the silly $550 customs cleaning bill even if your car is brand new and super clean as 99.99% of cars fail bio security checks in Port Kembla! :-) The cleaning will add an extra week to your wait but my total wait from arrival to Australia to release was just 2.5 weeks.

9. Go to Service NSW and get Unregistered Vehicle Permit the day before you are picking up your car and get it to drive it without plates form the pick up debot to your house in the ACT (https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/apply-for-an-unregistered-vehicle-permit) - costs just $30 and is a small yellow sticker you put on your windscreen.

10. Call Access Canberra and get a local Unregistered Vehicle Permit over the phone and book an appointement at Hume roadworthy inspection station to make sure your vehicle is compliant ($40 for the permit and $70 for compliance check) - no sticker, just have the email from them to show to the police if stopped. :)

11. Your car is insured and road worthy - get your plates like any other Australian car and enjoy your ride!

12. Note that at this point you need to pay stamp duty (3% in the ACT based on the ORIGINAL PURCHASE price many years ago in NZ including GST) as well as annual registration and insurance. But the road worthy inspection only takes 15 minutes and you can get number plates right away by visiting Access Canberra office!