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With over 35 years’ experience in helping people moving to Australia, Contact us before you start making your arrangements, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with our efficient and friendly service 

Start with A no obligation free chat with us about how we can help plan and manage your move to Australia. Our helpful, experienced moving team will cover off all aspects of your removals, even things you may not have thought of before.

We will take the stress and hassle away by managing all the details, including professional packing, and managing the safe and secure transport of all your household belongings, as well as insurance, customs clearance, and even unpacking each carton at the other end.

  Universal Removals provides a complete removal, storage and relocation service to individuals, families and business. When you choose Universal Removals you are choosing to move with an acknowledged specialist in the international removals, storage and relocation industry, with a network which covers Australia and extends all over the world. This enables us to offer you a special standard of service, tailored to your individual requirements. Whether you are moving house or planning a corporate relocation (or both), you will appreciate the high level of personal service that we have to offer

What can I take with me?

You will of course want to know what personal and household effects you can take with you, which ones you might have to pay duty or tax on, and which you cannot take into Australia.

For example, you can import any household goods and personal effects that you have owned and used for 12 months or more before you depart for Australia duty-free. But they can ALL be subject to a physical examination by the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS), carried out in AQIS approved premises. Such an inspection can hold things up for up to 14 working days after the consignment has arrived. Because of this inspection full containers are not and cannot be delivered direct to residence. There are standard charges for AQIS inspections based on the volume of the consignment, so make sure your removals company quotes for these separately prior to shipment.

But what items are most likely to attract the interest of AQIS? Certainly any items that may have come into contact with the soil or vegetation - not just the obvious things like garden tools and garden furniture, bicycles and camping equipment, golf clubs or cricket bats, but shoes, boots and any outdoor sportswear. There are also vacuum cleaners and anything containing dried vegetable matter, such as pine cones and wreaths within Christmas decorations.

It's essential that you thoroughly clean such items before you depart, and it may be worth considering other treatments such as fumigation and/or steam cleaning - again, get advice from your removals company about this. But even then, AQIS may still at their discretion order further cleaning or treatment, which will incur additional costs.

All motor vehicles are subject to Customs Duty and/or Goods and Services Tax (GST). Before they can calculate the amounts, your removals company will need to establish the date of purchase of the vehicle and the original purchase price. For vehicles less than 30 years old, both Customs duty and GST are charged at 10%. For vehicles over 30 years of age, there is still 10% GST, but no Customs duty. So won't that save you a few dollars on your vintage car collection? Well probably not actually - because there's an additional Luxury Car Tax (LCT) at 25% applied to vehicles exceeding a certain level, currently A$57,009.

There's no Customs Duty on a Motor Cycle, but GST at 10% will apply. You must obtain import approval prior to shipment, otherwise your vehicle will be re-exported or destroyed, as well as facing a possible fine of up to A$13,000. Incidentally, you also need to get import approval for such items as ride-on mowers, quad bikes, motorised scooters and mini motorbikes.

As far as your pet's concerned, the best advice is to go to the website; Taking Dogs, Cats and Other Pets to Australia - www.affa.gov.au. Suffice it to say that as long as you follow the correct procedures, you won't be separated from your pet for too long.

At Universal, we are highly experienced in this field, and have a specialist dedicated international moving division on hand to advise you of everything you need to do, pack and fill in. We will appoint a dedicated Moving specialist for you, who will look after your move from start to finish, right to your new Aussie pad

Some other useful sources of information include: