The France-to-Australia corridor is one of the longest relocation routes in the world, and every successful move has two halves that must line up. On the French side you are exporting a household out of the European Union under the rules of the French customs authority, and closing your affairs with the French tax administration. On the Australian side you are importing those same goods under Australian Border Force and biosecurity control, arguably the strictest arrival regime on the planet. This guide walks through both halves in the right order, plus a short note on the reverse journey. It is written for a resident of France, French or foreign, who is relocating to Australia and wants to know what the official rules actually say before signing with a mover.

Key takeaways

• Moving your household out of France to a non-EU country requires no customs declaration for ordinary personal effects, but you must hold a detailed, valued, signed inventory and proof of your change of residence (douane.gouv.fr, France Diplomatie).
• The French customs authority is the Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects (DGDDI); specific goods (weapons, gold and precious metals, dual-use tech, alcohol, protected species, cultural goods) still need an export declaration and sometimes a tax (douane.gouv.fr).
• Leaving France is primarily a tax formality, not a town-hall one: you notify the tax office of your new address and file for the departure year, and large securities holdings may trigger exit tax (form 2074-ETD) (impots.gouv.fr, exit tax).
• In Australia your shipment is declared on Form B534, the Unaccompanied Personal Effects Statement, to the Australian Border Force (ABF, B534 form).
• Goods you have owned and used for 12 months or more can generally enter duty- and GST-free; anything newer must be declared and may attract duty and 10% GST (ABF, ABF GST on imports).
• Biosecurity is separate from customs: the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) can inspect, treat or refuse goods carrying soil, plant, wood or animal material (DAFF).
• Pets need a rabies-titre-tested BICON import permit for arrival; France is an Australian Group 3 approved country, and the process takes at least six months (DAFF cats & dogs, Group 3 dogs).
• Cars need a Vehicle Import Approval before shipping, applied for through the ROVER portal under the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018 (infrastructure.gov.au).

1. Your Australian residency status shapes the customs treatment

The single most useful thing to understand is that how your goods are treated at the Australian border depends on why you are arriving, not on how the goods travel. The Unaccompanied Personal Effects concession exists for people arriving from outside Australia to live there. To qualify for duty- and GST-free entry, the goods must be your own personal property that you owned and used overseas for at least 12 months before departing for Australia (ABF). Migrants taking up residence and returning residents both fall inside this concession; short-term visitors and temporary imports do not, and their goods are assessed differently.

That 12-month test is the line that matters in practice. A sofa you have used for five years sails through; a television you bought the month before you left must be declared and may be charged duty plus 10% GST (ABF GST). Your visa subclass does not create or remove the concession by itself, but your intention to reside is what makes you eligible to claim it. Vehicles and pets sit outside this concession entirely and follow their own approval regimes, covered below.

2. The France export side: DGDDI, leaving, and the tax exit

France’s customs service is the Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects (DGDDI), and its guidance for a private individual moving a household out of the EU is refreshingly light. For your ordinary furniture and personal effects there is no customs declaration to lodge (douane.gouv.fr). What customs does expect you to hold is a document justifying the change of residence (passport, property title or lease), a landlord or town-hall attestation or a sworn statement, and an inventory of the transferred goods in duplicate, detailed, valued, dated, paginated and signed (France Diplomatie). Keep this inventory: it is the same document your Australian mover will build the B534 from.

Certain categories are not exempt from formalities. Leaving French territory with weapons and ammunition, gold and precious metals, dual-use products and technology, wine and cellar stocks, protected wild fauna and flora, or cultural goods requires an export declaration and, in some cases, a tax (douane.gouv.fr). That export declaration is the EU’s Single Administrative Document (the DAU), lodged electronically in the DELTA system before the goods leave; in practice your freight forwarder handles it for any restricted item in your shipment.

On deregistration: France has no compulsory population register, so unlike Germany or the Nordics there is no municipal "deregistration" stamp to collect. The formal act of leaving is fiscal. You notify your tax office of your new foreign address through your personal account, and for the year of departure you file a return covering your French-source income up to the departure date (impots.gouv.fr). You should also close or update your health-insurance and family-benefit affairs, but the tax step is the one with legal weight. If you hold substantial shareholdings, check whether you are caught by the exit tax on unrealised capital gains, declared on form 2074-ETD at the moment you transfer your tax domicile abroad (impots.gouv.fr exit tax). Confirming exactly when you cease to be a French tax resident is worth a conversation with your local tax office before you go (impots.gouv.fr démarches).

3. Ports and transit times (freight-industry estimates)

Your household almost certainly leaves France by sea. The realistic departure gateways are Le Havre on the Channel (operated by the HAROPA PORT authority), Marseille-Fos on the Mediterranean, and Dunkerque in the north. Le Havre and Marseille-Fos handle most deep-sea container traffic bound for Oceania.

Transit times below are freight-industry estimates, not official government figures, and they move with schedules, transhipment and season:

• Sea freight, port to port: roughly six to nine weeks from a French port to Australian east-coast hubs such as Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, before customs and biosecurity clearance.
• Door to door by sea: commonly 10 to 14 weeks once collection, consolidation, sailing, clearance, inspection and final delivery are added.
• Air freight: a few days in transit, but multiples of the sea cost, so it suits documents, essentials and a small "first weeks" box rather than a full household.

Treat any single number a mover quotes as a planning midpoint, and always ask whether it is port-to-port or door-to-door.

4. The Australia import side: Form B534 and biosecurity

When your goods arrive without you on the same flight, they are Unaccompanied Personal Effects, and they are declared to the Australian Border Force on the B534 Unaccompanied Personal Effects Statement (ABF). The form, completed in English and signed, lets the ABF decide whether your shipment qualifies for the duty- and GST-free concession and whether it needs inspection (B534). Anything you have owned for less than 12 months must be listed, and penalties apply for false or misleading statements.

Clearing customs is only half the arrival. Every shipment is also assessed for biosecurity risk by DAFF, and this is where France-to-Australia moves most often get delayed. Australia is an island continent that has kept out pests and diseases found elsewhere, so goods carrying soil, seeds, plant matter, wood, or animal material are targeted for inspection, cleaning, treatment, re-export or destruction at your cost (DAFF). Practical consequences: scrub garden tools, outdoor furniture, bikes and vacuum cleaners spotless; declare anything wooden, wicker or straw; empty and dry anything that held food or plants. A clean, honestly declared shipment is inspected and released; a dirty or vaguely declared one sits in a fee-charging queue.

5. Pets: the rules at both ends

Bringing a cat or dog from France to Australia is a long, sequenced project, not a booking. For Australia’s purposes, France is a Group 3 approved country (DAFF cats & dogs). Your animal must arrive with a valid biosecurity import permit obtained through the Biosecurity Import Conditions System (BICON) (DAFF permits). The Group 3 pathway requires a microchip, current rabies vaccination, a Rabies Neutralising Antibody Titre Test (RNATT) with an endorsed laboratory report, and, for dogs, vaccination against or a negative test for leptospirosis; the whole process takes at least six months and ends with a stay in the government Post Entry Quarantine facility at Mickleham, Victoria (DAFF Group 3 dogs). Your dog must enter Australia before its RNATT result expires, so timing is unforgiving; start early.

The French export side must match. Your pet must be microchipped and registered in the national I-CAD file, and it must travel with a veterinary export certificate: completed by your vet with the analyses, vaccinations and treatments the destination requires, then countersigned by an official veterinarian under the French agriculture ministry’s DGAL / departmental DD(ec)PP system (agriculture.gouv.fr). In short: Australia sets the medical bar, and a French official vet certifies you have met it.

6. Vehicles, money, and the things people forget

Vehicles. Do not ship your French car on a whim. Under the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018 it is an offence to import a road vehicle into Australia without approval, and you must obtain a Vehicle Import Approval before the car is shipped, applying through the government’s ROVER portal run by the Department of Infrastructure (infrastructure.gov.au). Assessment can take up to 60 business days. On top of the approval come ABF duty, GST and possibly luxury car tax, plus asbestos and biosecurity checks. For most one-car households the cost and paperwork outweigh the value; verify eligibility before you commit.

Money. Leaving France with cash, bearer instruments or gold of €10,000 or more must be declared to French customs, which you can do online via the DALIA service (douane.gouv.fr). Arriving in Australia, the mirror rule applies: AUD 10,000 or more (or foreign-currency equivalent) in physical currency must be declared to AUSTRAC/ABF at the border (AUSTRAC). Bank transfers of any size are unlimited; it is physical money that is reported.

Things people forget: valuing your inventory honestly (it drives both French customs and Australian assessment), keeping proof you owned key items 12+ months, and not packing prohibited biosecurity items "just this once." Alcohol and tobacco in a shipment are always dutiable and taxable in Australia regardless of the personal-effects concession.

How Flyto handles your France to Australia move

Flyto runs its own offices, warehouses, teams and vehicles across Northern, Central and Southern Europe, so the French collection, packing and export documentation are handled in-house to a single standard. The deep-sea leg and the Australian arrival are delivered through a carefully chosen network of freight partners and subcontractors, plus trusted local agents in Australia for customs, biosecurity and final delivery. We coordinate the whole chain end to end, and we are honest that the Australian side runs on vetted local partners rather than our own trucks.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to pay French export tax on my furniture?
No. Ordinary personal effects leave France without a customs declaration or export duty. Only specific categories, such as precious metals, cultural goods or weapons, need an export declaration and sometimes a tax (douane.gouv.fr).

Will I pay Australian duty and GST on my household goods?
Generally not, if you owned and used them for 12 months or more before leaving. Newer goods must be declared on the B534 and may attract duty and 10% GST (ABF).

How early should I start the pet process?
At least six to seven months before departure. The RNATT rabies titre test and its waiting periods, plus a Post Entry Quarantine booking, set a hard minimum timeline (DAFF).

Can I ship my car?
Only with a Vehicle Import Approval obtained through ROVER before shipping; importing without approval is an offence (infrastructure.gov.au).

Do I still need to file French taxes after I leave?
Yes, for the departure year you declare French-source income and register your new address with the tax office; large asset holders should check exit tax (impots.gouv.fr).

What about moving back from Australia to France later?
Returning to France from outside the EU, you can transfer your household free of duty and VAT if you lived outside the EU for at least 12 months and owned the goods for at least 6 months, by lodging form cerfa 10070*03 within 12 months of settling (service-public.gouv.fr, cerfa 10070).

Sources

• DGDDI — moving outside the EU (déménagement hors UE)
• DGDDI — transfer of residence outside the EU (expatriés)
• France Diplomatie — déménagement / customs formalities
• impots.gouv.fr — leaving France / arriving in France
• impots.gouv.fr — steps when moving abroad
• impots.gouv.fr — exit tax
• DGDDI — carrying €10,000+ out of the EU
• DGDDI — DALIA online cash declaration
• Ministère de l’Agriculture — pet movement / official veterinary certificate
• Australian Border Force — Unaccompanied Personal Effects
• Australian Border Force — Form B534
• Australian Border Force — GST and other taxes on imports
• DAFF — moving or immigrating to Australia (biosecurity)
• DAFF — bringing cats and dogs to Australia
• DAFF — Group 3 step-by-step guide for dogs
• DAFF — import permits (BICON)
• Department of Infrastructure — importing a road vehicle
• ROVER — road vehicle import portal
• AUSTRAC — moving money overseas
• Service-Public.fr — settling in France from outside the EU (F492)
• Service-Public.fr — duty-free entry declaration, cerfa 10070*03
• Service-Public.fr — declaration of transfer of residence outside France