Many clients have asked me about a Custom Border Hold,
So what is a Customs Border Hold!
The Australian Customs Service has the discretion to X-ray any containers, and there are two main reasons for this:
- Checking the integrity of the Customs Clearance process as a whole.
- Preventing the importation of prohibited good into Australia by searching containers looking for illegal or dangerous goods.
We here at integrity Logistics has seen an increase of Australian Customs Border Hold activity especially on FCL containers over the last 3 months. Australian Customs place Border Holds on containers either before or as the containers are offloaded from the ship. Although they are selected randomly in their system ( which is called ICS – Integrated Cargo System ) sometimes there are other reasons aHold is placed on the container. There are any number of reasons why a container can be chosen and the Customs Service have no obligation to disclose this information to you or I as the customer or owner of the products inside these containers.
Australian Customs cannot and will not guarantee how long these Border Holds will take but they advise that usually we must allow up to 72 hours from the date container is off loaded from the ship. Historically we have seen these Border Holds can take any time up to 10 days for reasons customs very rarely will disclose.
Although this is rather frustrating to both you and I please keep in mind that these holds are in place to protect our country. The Australian Border Force is responsible for the protection of Australia’s border in partnership with a range of intelligence , law enforcement & other agencies. Integrity Logistics & warehousing has the direct access to the ICS system to monitor the status of your container for the final release.
So please understand that these issues are out of everyone’s control and that we will work with the authorities to ensure that these delays are minimised wherever possible.
