6 May 2024
Who does this notice affect?
External Territories – Travellers and Residents from Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Island travelling to Australia.
What has changed?
The 2017 factsheet titled Bringing seafood into Australia from Christmas Island or Cocos (Keeling) Islands, or between the Territories is out of date and not suitable for use.
Instead, importers from Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) island are advised to refer to the department’s Biosecurity Import Conditions database (BICON) before importing or bringing goods into Australia to ensure they comply with biosecurity import conditions. BICON contains the biosecurity import conditions for all animal, biological, plant and mineral products for import into Australia.
Import conditions for fish and seafood can be found in BICON by searching the following terms and selecting the relevant case from the list of options:
- “Fish” – for fish including fish caviar, fish roe, fish viscera and fish maw
- “Seafood” – for molluscs other than snails (e.g. mussels, squid, oysters) and crustaceans other than prawns (e.g. lobster, crayfish)
- “Snails” – for sea snails such as gong gong
- “Prawns” – for prawns
To view import conditions for each case, importers will need to follow the prompts that applies to their import scenario.
It is the importer's responsibility to determine, understand, and comply with the import conditions associated with their goods.
It is also the importer’s responsibility to identify and comply with all requirements of any other regulatory organisations and advisory bodies prior to and after importation. This includes regulations such as the Christmas Island Applied Laws Ordinance 1992 and Cocos (Keeling) Islands Applied Laws Ordinance 1992 which apply further restriction on the permissible quantities of seafood exported from external territories.>
Further information
If you require any further information, please contact Food Biosecurity Imports on 1800 900 090 or email imports@aff.gov.au.