What is a Carnet?

If you are visiting Australia and you want to bring your own vehicle to travel around in, you can apply for a carnet in your country of residence. It lets the vehicle in without import duty or tax, on the condition that it leaves again.

The full name is a Carnet de Passages en Douane, usually shortened to CPD carnet. It is an international agreement, so the same document is recognised in a long list of countries rather than just this one.

It carries all the detail about the vehicle. Make, model, colour, engine capacity, seating capacity, registration number, owner and value. Customs stamps it on the way in and again on the way out.

Which vehicles it covers, and which it does not

The Australian Border Force publishes both lists. Here they are in full.

Racing cars and rally vehicles are the ones that surprise people. A competition car coming in for an event is not a touring vehicle, so a CPD carnet is the wrong document. In limited circumstances an ATA carnet may work instead, and otherwise temporary importation can be arranged under a security lodged with Border Force. Ask before you ship.

Who issues it

CPD carnets come from automobile associations that belong to the Federation Internationale d’Automobile or the Alliance Internationale de Tourisme. You apply to the one in your own country, not to the country you are visiting, and that association sets the fee.

In Australia it is the Australian Automobile Association. So if you are an Australian taking your own vehicle overseas temporarily, the AAA is who you go to. If you are coming here from Europe, it is your motoring association at home.

Red Nav does not issue carnets and no freight company does. What we handle is the shipping and the border side.

Twelve months, and one extension

A CPD carnet is valid for one year from the date it is issued, and the vehicle has to be out of the country before it expires.

If something genuinely gets in the way, the holder can apply for one extension on the original document, and the application has to be received and approved before the expiry date. That means Border Force form B257, a copy of the carnet and a written statement covering the reason and your current visa details, all submitted to the Australian Automobile Association. They then liaise with Border Force and with your own motoring association at home.

It is worth knowing that the business version, the ATA carnet, works differently. Those are never extended at all, only replaced.

Looking for the business version? An ATA carnet is the document for equipment, samples and exhibition stands going overseas temporarily. This page is about the Carnet de Passage, which is for vehicles.

What happens at the port

This is the part that costs people time and storage money.

The same port, both ways

Border Force will often want to inspect the vehicle, so the carnet has to be presented in the same port it arrives at, and again in the same port it leaves from. It cannot be done somewhere more convenient.

At the counter

The original carnet goes to the Cargo Clearance counter at that port to be endorsed. Bring the bill of lading or air waybill, and your passport plus visa, itinerary or residency details.

Anything inside the vehicle is separate

This one catches nearly everybody. Goods packed inside the vehicle are not covered by the carnet. They have to be declared separately, either as Unaccompanied Personal Effects or on an import declaration. A carnet covers the vehicle, not the contents.

Biosecurity still applies

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has its own clearance requirements and they have to be met before anything is released. On a vehicle that usually means soil. Wash it properly, underneath included, before it is loaded.

Registration and insurance are on you

The carnet deals with duty and tax and nothing else. You still have to keep your overseas registration in order, and every Australian state and territory road authority has its own insurance requirements for a vehicle being driven on its roads. Check the ones for where you are actually going.

The rules while the vehicle is here

A vehicle on a CPD carnet must be exported before the carnet expires, must only be used for touring by a visitor or temporary resident, and must not be sold, loaned, mortgaged, hired, given away, disposed of or altered in any way without permission from Border Force.

Loaned is the one that gets broken innocently. Letting a friend borrow the campervan for a fortnight is a breach, and so is leaving the vehicle here while you fly home for a while. If you have to go back overseas and leave it, you need permission from Border Force first.

If the conditions are not met, Border Force lodges a claim with the Australian Automobile Association for the duty and taxes owed, and your own motoring association at home collects that from you or keeps your bond. Further penalties can apply on top. The whole system only works because somebody has already guaranteed the money.

If the vehicle ends up staying

Sometimes people decide to keep it. You have to get permission from Border Force before the carnet expires, then obtain a vehicle import approval from the Department of Infrastructure, and then a licensed customs broker handles the rest. An ordinary import declaration is not the route.

Red Nav arranges that through licensed customs brokers. We are not a licensed brokerage ourselves and we do not pretend to be.

What we actually do

We handle the freight. Getting the vehicle on a ship or an aircraft, getting it off the other end, and making sure the carnet is presented at the right counter in the right port so it is released rather than held.

What we do not do is issue the carnet, clear customs ourselves, or arrange your insurance. We will tell you plainly which part is ours and which part is yours before anything gets booked.

Where this comes from. The rules on this page were read from the Australian Border Force website on 10 September 2026, from its CPD carnets and carnets pages. Both vehicle lists are reproduced in full. Rules change, so check the current position with Border Force or with us before you ship anything.