In accordance with the provisions of certain international conventions on road traffic, Australia recognises the temporary import of vehicles for a period of less than 12 months by visiting foreign nationals of signatory countries who hold a visitor's visa.

In this category vehicles may be allowed entry in one of two ways:

1. By presenting a valid Carnet de Passage en Duane at port of entry to Australia, in which case no Vehicle Import Approval is required (Note: a vehicle must have sufficient registration cover from the person's home country to cover the period of the temporary import).
2. By submitting an application to import a vehicle accompanied by a copy of a current overseas registration document valid for the period of the visit and passport pages showing nationality, personal details and valid Australian visitor's visa.

If you are travelling on a "Temporary Resident" Visa then you are not eligible to import your vehicle under (b) above.

$50.00 application fee (for category (b) above), purchase document, current overseas registration document valid for the period of the visit, passport pages showing nationality, and Australian visitor's visa.

Light at the end of the tunnel, no local registration required.
You need to download the application form VSB10 from http://www.dotars.gov.au/transport/s...VSB10_Form.pdf
and the explanatory leaflet from http://www.dotars.gov.au/transport/s.../pdf/VSB10.pdf


------------code fixed by Grant-----------

I have just undergone the whole procedure in Perth 2 weeks ago. I entered on te Carnet basis.

The most important issue is to have the vehicle in a very clean condition. Especially the underside, mudguards, tyres are inspected by the quarantine office. So make sure to have it well cleaned before getting it ready for freight.

The fees in Oz (applies to Western Australia) are as follows:

1. The freighter (Quantas in my case) asked 125 AUD handling charge.
2. Customs were free.
3. Quarantine inspection (AQIS) wanted 90 AUD
4. The vehicle inspection centre cost me 60 AUD This was necessary in order to get my bike registered. A kind of roadworthiness test.
5. Licensing office charged me 80 AUD. This included the mandatory 3rd party insurance.

Normally you do not need to have your vehicle registered, when entering a country on a temporary import basis, but for Oz this is compulsory. You do not register it in the general sense, getting an Oz registration no., but your registration no is entered in the computer system.

In Perth the freighters are all near the international airport, so is of course customs and quarantine. Quantas is situated in the Affleck Rd. The vehicle inspection can be done in Perth East, 20 Bronte St. The licensing deptm is in the Sutherland St. Streetmap can be aquired at the inspection centre.

To get to the international airport there are two possibilities: taxi or shuttle. No public transport. Shuttle can be booked under phone (08) 1300 666 806.

__________________
Only when we pause to wonder
do we go beyond the limits of our little lives.
(Rod McKuen)

Vaufi, I've just read that Western Australia does not accept any other Australian State's "overseas registered vehicle permit", can you check your permit and see if it is valid outside of Western Australia?

I'm just wondering how the hell you get an overseas regsitered vehicle permit when crossing into WA from South Australia or the Northern Territory - theres nothing for miles!

Roger, My wife and I are importing our bikes under Carnet into Sydney. As I see it, EVERY state requires An 'Overseas Registered Vehicle Permit' to be purchased seperatley, for that particular state!
The 'Permit' is simply 3rd party insurance, as I understand it.
If the cost of the inspection is $60 and the 'permit' is $80 per state, it all begins to look alittle ridiculous.
Ridiculous laws need to be ignored.
Do the right thing, as we intend to do.
Once your bike has cleared customs, and the nice customs man gives you the address of the Reistry office, point your bike in the other direction and leg it!

Where I live in Queensland an unregistered, uninsured vehicle gets its number plates removed on the spot, and the coppers can impound the vehicle until the owner fixes up the problem. The "on the spot hooning" laws have given a lot of power to the coppers, just be very wary of being stopped by the police as your vehicle/bike will immediately come up as unregistered and uninsured when they do a rego check in the national database.

Remember that third party injury insurance is compulsory in all Australian States - its not for you, but the person you may injure. If you do have an accident and injure someone, you may condemn them or their family to a life of poverty because you dont want to buy insurance.

Following on from Roger's prior point, I did also read about each state requiring separate insurance. However, last year I e-mailed the WA authorities and told them I was planning to take insurance in Darwin NT - they said that would be fine and nothing more was required in WA. Sadly I have deleted the e-mail.

Also when we took out the insurance had bikes inspected in Darwin they felt that their third party insurance was valid for all of Australia.

Would also add that the whole process in Darwin was very efficient. Our bikes were unpacked from the container, inspected and cleared by quarantine (AQIS), cleared by customs, inspected for roadworthiness and insured on the same day. sydney could be a different matter.