If a boat is bought in Europe for example what is the procedure and approx costs of changing the registration to Australian and rules as to the import duty or time limits. Thanks for any input.
Would you be sailing the boat back yourself? I did the sums a while back and if you either hire a delivery skipper or have it shipped, the cost was up around 50K. You'll have both gst and import duties to pay here in Aus. and in the case of shipping, it seemed likely they would insist on the vessel being fumigated which is an additional few boat dollars expense. With our budget, none of these options made sense, however if you were in the north of 200-250k range it may start lookig attractive.
Definitely a good option to look at if you can sail the boat back yourself. A friend has just arrived back in Aus after sailing his Croation purshased Elan 45 back to Aus. It worked for him.
Strapped, I bought mine in from NZ, the NZ end was easy but here was little of a pain in the a**e .... mainly due to Customs, clearing houses (who you have to use) and that old chestnut GST.
If you are prepared to work at it and stay on top of it .... I think it works. Would I do it again, yes if it meant I got the boat I wanted.
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