Import Duty From India to Australia: What You Actually Pay in 2026

Short answer. If your goods qualify as Indian origin and you hold a valid Certificate of Origin, you pay zero import duty bringing them into Australia. The last staged tariff reductions under the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement finished on 1 January 2026, so every tariff line is now at zero for qualifying goods. Without that certificate you pay the general rate instead, which is 5 per cent on most manufactured goods.

Duty free is not automatic. It is a paperwork outcome. Most founders who call us about an Indian order have the unit price negotiated down to the cent and no idea who issues the certificate, what has to be written on it, or that their factory's name goes on it in a box they cannot hide.

Do you pay import duty on goods from India to Australia?

Not if the paperwork is right. AI-ECTA came into force on 29 December 2022. On day one it zeroed Australian tariffs on 96 per cent of Indian tariff lines. The rest were staged out over five annual instalments, and that staging completed on 1 January 2026. Australia now applies a zero rate to Indian-origin goods across the board.

Three things sit outside that.

• Goods that do not qualify as Indian origin. Assembled in India from mostly Chinese components, with no real transformation, is not Indian origin. More on the test below.
• Excise-equivalent goods. Alcohol, tobacco and fuel are a separate regime. A free trade agreement does not touch excise.
• Anti-dumping and countervailing duties. These are product and country specific, and ECTA does not remove them. Steel, aluminium and some chemicals are the usual suspects. Your broker checks the current measures against your tariff line.

GST is unaffected by all of this. You still pay 10 per cent on import. That is a separate tax and the agreement has nothing to say about it.

What do you actually pay on an Indian shipment?

Here is a real-shaped example. Numbers are illustrative, not a quote.

Say you are importing 2,000 units of a cotton homewares product, FOB Mundra at $4.20 a unit. Sea freight and insurance to Sydney comes to $1,850.

• Customs value: $8,400
• Transport and insurance: $1,850
• Duty with a valid Certificate of Origin: $0
• GST at 10 per cent of customs value plus duty plus transport and insurance: $1,025
• Import processing charge, electronic lodgement, consignment between $1,000 and $10,000: $50
• Biosecurity charge on a sea declaration: $71

Now run the same shipment with no certificate. Duty at 5 per cent adds $420. Because GST is calculated on a value that includes duty, your GST also rises, to $1,067. Total extra cost: $462, or 23 cents a unit.

The important part is which half of that $462 you get back. If you are registered for GST, the $42 comes back on your BAS. The $420 of duty does not. Duty is a permanent cost. GST is a cashflow cost. Founders conflate the two constantly and then wonder why the margin maths never lands.

If you import regularly and lodge monthly, look at the Deferred GST Scheme. It lets you push the GST on import to your BAS instead of paying it at the wharf. It does nothing for duty, but on a $100,000 container it is $10,000 you are not funding for six weeks.

For the full build of a per-unit number, including the costs that land after the shipment clears, see how to calculate landed cost per unit and destination charges explained.

What is a Certificate of Origin and who issues it in India?

A Certificate of Origin is a document stating that your goods meet the origin rules of the agreement. Under AI-ECTA it is issued in India by an authorised issuing body, not by your supplier and not by you. Indian exporters apply through the government's Certificate of Origin portal, and the certificate is issued by one of the designated agencies.

Your side of it is simple and non-negotiable. You must hold the certificate at the time the goods are imported. Not in transit. Not next week. Your customs broker needs it in hand to make the preference claim on the import declaration.

Four details that cause most of the problems we see:

1. Box 2 names the producer, and it cannot be kept confidential. If you have been buying through a trading company that calls itself the manufacturer, the certificate is where that falls apart. Read it. It is free supply chain information.
2. Box 5 carries the six-digit HS code. If the code on the certificate does not match the code on your import declaration, the claim fails. Agree the code with your broker before the exporter applies, not after.
3. Box 6 carries the origin criteria. It will read something like WO, PSR, or CTSH plus a qualifying value content percentage. An empty or vague Box 6 is a rejected claim.
4. Third country invoicing is allowed. If your invoice comes from a Singapore or Hong Kong entity rather than the Indian factory, that is fine, but the invoicing company's name, address and country must be declared on the certificate.

How does your product qualify as Indian origin?

There are three routes.

Wholly obtained. Grown, mined or produced entirely in India. Straightforward for raw agricultural and mineral goods, rare for anything manufactured.

Product specific rule. Some tariff lines have their own rule that overrides the general one. Check the schedule for your HS code before you assume anything.

The general rule. A change in tariff subheading, plus qualifying value content of at least 35 per cent on the build-up method or 45 per cent on the build-down method. Build-up measures originating material value against customs value. Build-down measures customs value less non-originating material value. You only need to satisfy one.

There is also a de minimis allowance. For non-textile goods, non-originating materials that fail the tariff change rule can be ignored if they are no more than 10 per cent of the customs value. For textiles in HS chapters 50 to 63, the same 10 per cent is measured by weight rather than value.

One trap worth knowing. Origin breaks if the goods are worked on in a third country in transit. Unloading, reloading, storing, repacking and relabelling are fine, and the goods must stay under customs control the whole time. If someone in Singapore opens the cartons and does anything more than that, you have lost the preference.

What if the certificate is missing or wrong?

You pay the duty at import. That is the first thing to accept, because arguing with a broker at the wharf costs more in storage than the duty does.

Then there are two recovery paths.

A retrospective certificate can be issued in India up to 12 months after export, where it was not issued within five business days of shipment. The export documentation number has to be on it.

Once you hold a valid certificate, your broker lodges a refund application for the duty you paid. The goods had to have qualified at the time of import. The certificate being late is curable. The goods not qualifying is not. There is a time limit on refund applications, so do not let it sit in a folder for a year.

Is India actually cheaper than China on duty?

No. This is the bit that gets sold badly.

Chinese goods have entered Australia duty free since 1 January 2019, when ChAFTA completed its own tariff elimination. Both countries are at zero. Both require a Certificate of Origin to claim it. Duty is not a reason to choose one over the other.

The real differences sit in MOQs, tooling, craft capability, lead times and how much hand-holding the factory needs. We wrote that comparison out properly in China vs India manufacturing. If anyone tells you to move production to India for the tariff saving, they have not checked the tariff.

Before you pay the balance: a six-point check

1. Confirm the six-digit HS code with your customs broker, not with your supplier. Classification is your legal responsibility as importer. See HS codes explained.
2. Ask your exporter in writing whether they have applied for the AI-ECTA Certificate of Origin, and for the issuing body's name.
3. Check Box 6 is filled with a real origin criterion and Box 5 matches your agreed HS code.
4. Check Box 2 names the actual producer, and that the name matches the factory you think you are buying from.
5. If a third entity is invoicing you, confirm that entity is declared on the certificate.
6. Make sure your broker has the certificate before the vessel arrives, not after.

Put the certificate in your purchase order terms. One line, in writing, before the deposit goes out: supplier to provide a valid AI-ECTA Certificate of Origin prior to shipment. It costs nothing to ask at that point. It costs 5 per cent to ask later. For how the rest of the terms should read, see Incoterms explained.

Duty is only one line in your cost stack, and a zero line at that if you get the paperwork right. What you do with the headroom is a pricing decision rather than a sourcing one, and Kristy covers that side in how to price a product so wholesale doesn't kill you.

We are in India every September and China every October for Canton Fair Phases Two and Three. If you are weighing up an Indian supplier and want someone in the room, see how the India trip works or book a call.