Total Shipment Visibility, Simplified
Access all your shipment details in one place - track departures and arrivals, manage documents, notifications, invoices, and more.
Access all your shipment details in one place - track departures and arrivals, manage documents, notifications, invoices, and more.
Reliable customs clearance and compliance ensures your business an efficient and cost effective transit of goods critical to your businesses supply chain and operations.
The highly skilled team of customs brokers and customs clearance agents at MTF Logistics Sydney based location can manage all cargo with the highest level of care and diligence, ensuring it arrives at its location complete with all required documentation and permits reducing delays that can be costly to your business.
All customs clearance agents at MTF are fully licenced and can offer professional advice and cost effective solutions for all forms of freight methods including sea shipping, air cargo, road and rail transport.
MTF Logistics offers you an extensive logistics service package backed by many years of import and export experience to the handling of all your customs formalities and Australian Quarantine (DAFF) requirements.
All our Sydney based brokers are experienced and certified to provide services that can be tailor-made to fit your unique customs clearance requirements and needs.
Customs formalities and Australian Quarantine (DAFF) requirements include:
In addition to Australian and NSW specific based custom clearance and freight forwarding, our team has had experience in exporting freight to many overseas ports including Asia, Europe, the Middle East, US, Canada and South America. Our aim is to help your business extend its supply chain to a multitude of locations across the globe.
With a high attention to detail at every stage of cargo transit including pickup, documentation, customs clearance and delivery or pickup, this ensures an efficient and cost effective service delivery and reduces delays that can be costly to your business.
Contact MTF Logistics today on 1300 710 683 and speak to our professional freight forwarding consultants to discuss your needs and arrange for an obligation free quote.
This page should not repeat the freight forwarding content. It should cover the clearance work itself, because that is what somebody searching for a customs broker is trying to understand.
The thresholds are fixed and worth knowing before you commit to a shipment.
Goods valued over AUD 1,000 need a full Import Declaration, an N10, and attract all relevant duties, taxes and charges. Goods at AUD 1,000 or less clear on a Self-Assessed Clearance and generally attract no duty, tax or charge — with the exception of tobacco, tobacco products and alcohol, which are dutiable at any value. Goods over AUD 1,000 going into a licensed warehouse use a Warehouse Declaration, an N20; goods at or under AUD 1,000 cannot be warehoused at all.
Separate from duty and GST, Border Force applies an Import Processing Charge per declaration. Lodged electronically, a declaration between $1,000 and $10,000 costs $50.00, and $10,000 or more costs $152.00. Documentary lodgement costs $90.00 and $192.00 respectively. Warehouse declarations are $23.00 electronic.
On top of that, Border Force collects biosecurity charges for the Department of Agriculture on every full import declaration: $48.00 for air cargo and $71.00 for sea.
None of that is negotiable, and all of it is separate from a broker’s fee. Any quote that does not distinguish between the two is not telling you much.
Tariff classification. Every good has an HS code, and the code determines the duty rate. Get it wrong low and you face a demand and possibly a penalty later. Get it wrong high and you have quietly overpaid, sometimes for years. It is technical work and it is the core of what a broker does.
Valuation. Border Force wants the transaction value with the correct additions. Assists, royalties and commissions all have rules. Guessing is expensive.
Biosecurity. This is what most commonly strands a container, and the current season is live right now. The brown marmorated stink bug measures for 2026-27 run from 1 September 2026 to 30 April 2027, applying to targeted goods manufactured in or shipped from target risk countries within that window. The shipped-on-board date on the ocean bill of lading is what counts — gate-in dates are not accepted, and that distinction catches people out every season.
Two things changed for 2026-27 worth flagging: ethyl formate is now an approved treatment option, onshore and offshore, with offshore providers required to be registered under the AusTreat scheme; and both the Rolled Goods Policy and the Safeguarding Arrangements Scheme have been removed.
Timber packaging is the other recurring one. ISPM 15 treatment and marking on pallets and crating is checked, and untreated timber will hold a container.
Port Botany is a biosecurity first point of entry for freight containers, general goods, inorganic bulk goods and waste, and Sydney Airport is a permanently serviced first point of entry for all goods. In practice that means inspections can happen on arrival rather than requiring a move to another site — which saves time and cost when something is selected.
When freight and clearance sit with different companies, the gap between them is where shipments stall — each waiting on the other, neither owning the problem. We hold both, so the documentation is being prepared while the cargo is still on the water rather than after it lands and starts accruing storage.
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