Importing Kenyan flowers into Australia: duty, GST, devitalisation and the permit condition

What this page is, and what it is not

This is a statement of published requirements, with dates. It is not legal advice, not a biosecurity determination, and not a quotation. Australian import conditions are administered case by case through BICON, and the department is explicit that you must find the right BICON case for your goods and read its conditions. Nothing here replaces that step.

A correction, and it is ours. An earlier version of this page said the department's devitalisation treatment guide was no longer at its published address, and withdrew the dosages on that basis. That was wrong — we had the address wrong. The guide is published, current, and set out below. We record the error rather than quietly fixing it, because a page that withdraws correct information is failing in the same way as one that publishes wrong information.

The duty position, and why it is not the UK position

Fresh cut flowers enter Australia at Free duty. That applies across the classification, not to a favoured few:

Source: Australian Border Force, Current Tariff, Schedule 3, Section II, Chapter 6, read 25 September 2026.

The distinction from the United Kingdom is worth stating plainly. Kenyan flowers enter Great Britain at 0% because Kenya holds a preference under an Economic Partnership Agreement — a preference that is conditional on origin rules being met and that another origin does not get. Australia's Free rate is the general rate. Kenya has no trade agreement with Australia and does not need one for this commodity. Nothing about the duty line distinguishes Kenyan flowers from any other origin.

The practical consequence: origin does not give you a tariff advantage into Australia, and losing an origin document does not cost you one. Where origin matters into Australia is biosecurity, not duty.

GST: the line most guides leave out

Duty being Free does not make the tax position trivial. GST is payable at 10% of the value of the taxable importation, and the taxable value is not the invoice value of the flowers.

The value of the taxable importation is the sum of:

• the customs value of the goods;
• the amount paid or payable to transport the goods to Australia and to insure them for that transport, to the extent it is not already in the customs value;
• any customs duty payable; and
• any wine equalisation tax, where applicable.

Source: Australian Border Force, GST and other taxes when importing, citing the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999, read 25 September 2026.

Read the second line again. Cut flowers from Kenya to Australia move by air. On an airfreighted perishable, transport and insurance are not a rounding error against the value of the goods — and GST is charged on them. Because duty is Free, the duty component of the taxable value is nil, so the base is the goods plus freight and insurance.

A rate is not a cost. We are not stating what your freight is, because it is contracted or spot-priced and not published. We are stating which components the tax is calculated on, which is a different thing and one you can apply to your own numbers.

GST is payable at the time of clearance unless the importer is approved for GST deferral, which is a separate approval held by the importer.

Biosecurity: four conditions on every consignment

The dip — one herbicide, doses by genus, the certificate wording →

The department states that cut flowers and foliage produced for export to Australia must:

• only contain permitted species and plant parts;
• be treated with an approved pest management measure;
• be devitalised if they can be easily propagated from the stem; and
• be sealed in pest-proof packaging to restrict the movement of any pests during storage and transport.

Source: Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Importing fresh cut flowers and foliage for commercial use, page last updated 9 August 2023, read 25 September 2026.

Devitalisation is a condition of entry, not a quality treatment. It exists so imported stems cannot establish as living plants. It applies according to whether the product can be easily propagated from the stem — which is a question about the species, not about the consignment.

The treatment, in full

Glyphosate is the only herbicide approved as a dip treatment for devitalisation of cut flowers into Australia. Any glyphosate product may be used — the dose is calculated on the active ingredient, not on the product.

The method is the same at every dose: a 20-minute immersion of stems to at least 35 cm from the cut end, or to within 5 cm of the flower head. Timing starts when the last bunch is in the solution, and flowers are not wrapped in plastic sleeves during treatment.

Note what the table says about a mixed consignment. Roses need three times the concentration carnations and chrysanthemums do. A mixed box is not one treatment — it is either separate dips or the higher rate applied to everything, and that is a question to settle with whoever performs it.

Powdery mildew — and a line that names Kenya

Roses showing powdery mildew may also need fungicide treatment, and the guide is specific about when:

"Roses from Kenya are not required to undergo any treatment for powdery mildew."

Where fungicide is required, it must be the last treatment before export — applied after devitalisation, not before — and recorded on the phytosanitary certificate.

The documentation, and what happens without it

Every consignment devitalised overseas must carry an original phytosanitary certificate describing how it was treated — the concentration of glyphosate, the duration and the dipping method. The required additional declarations are set out in BICON. What the certificate must carry, field by field →

The consequence of getting this wrong is stated plainly by the department: consignments arriving without the correct documentation and endorsements will require treatment in Australia, export, or destruction.

And the standing instruction is the department's own, not ours: treatments are subject to change and should always be verified by searching BICON. The requirements are currently under departmental review.

The permit condition, where Kenya is named

The permit, BICON, the hold and who pays, on their own page →

Most destination guides describe import permits in general terms. The Australian condition is specific, and Kenya appears in it by name:

You will need an import permit if you are importing cut flowers from Colombia, Kenya or Ecuador and are managing pests through an NPPO-approved systems approach.

Source: as above, read 25 September 2026.

Two things follow, and they are separate. First, the requirement is conditional — it attaches to the pest management pathway used, not to Kenyan origin by itself. Second, whether a given exporter's pest management is an NPPO-approved systems approach is a question for that exporter and the Kenyan plant health authority. We will not assert on their behalf that it is or is not. What we can tell you is that this is the question to ask, and that the answer decides whether a permit is needed.

Where a permit is required, a valid copy must accompany the consignment.

Classification: which code your product falls under

Roses, carnations and chrysanthemums have their own subheadings. Several of the products Kenya is strongest in do not — they sit under 0603.19.00 and are distinguished by statistical code:

Source: Australian Border Force, Current Tariff, Schedule 3, Chapter 6, read 25 September 2026.

The duty outcome is the same either way — Free. The code still matters, because it is how the consignment is declared and how it is counted in trade statistics. If you are comparing Australian import data by product, this table is why gypsophila and alstroemeria do not appear as their own headline lines.

What happens if a consignment fails

What every border does with a failed consignment, and the causes ranked on the one that publishes them →

This is the part of the Australian regime that deserves attention before you ship rather than after.

A biosecurity officer checks documents on arrival. Where documentation is invalid or incomplete, the consignment is held until correct paperwork is provided. Where goods are found to carry biosecurity risk material, the available outcomes are to re-export, or to fumigate or recondition so the goods are safe to enter — applied either to the whole shipment or to the contaminated part.

These actions are undertaken at the importer's expense. Goods remain segregated in a secure facility while the matter is investigated, which may include storage in a cold room at 10°C or below. And the department states its position on the commercial consequence directly: it does not offer compensation for goods that become unsellable while waiting for scientific assessment.

For a product with a working life measured in days, that is the real exposure on this lane — not the duty line, which is Free, and not the GST, which is calculable in advance. It belongs in your terms of sale with your supplier.

A reduced inspection rate you cannot earn

Australia runs a scheme that rewards a clean record, and cut flowers are outside it.

The department's Compliance-Based Intervention Scheme lets an importer move to a reduced intervention rate once they pass a set number of consecutive interventions — the department calls it a census number — with the rate rising again when a failure is recorded, including a failure on documentation assessment rather than on the goods themselves.

It does not apply here. The department states that products not listed in its tables are not eligible, and cut flowers appear in none of them. The eligible categories are dried fruit, vegetables and herbs; fresh fruit and vegetables; nuts; and certain other plant products. There is no cut-flower pathway and no 0603 tariff code anywhere in the scheme.

Why that matters to a buyer planning a programme. On several other commodities, a long clean record is worth money — it buys fewer interventions and less time at the border. On cut flowers into Australia it buys nothing, so a compliance history you have built on other goods, or with another supplier, does not transfer. Plan the lane on the assumption that the intervention rate does not fall with familiarity.

And the rate itself is still not published. Great Britain and the European Union both publish frequency tables by genus and origin. Australia publishes neither, and now we can say it also offers no route to reduce the rate through compliance — which makes the unpublished figure harder to work around, not easier. It remains the open question on this page.

What the department charges, and what we will not quote

The duty is Free and the GST is calculable in advance. The third cost line is the department's own cost-recovery charging, and it is the one most guides omit entirely.

The charge you will meet on every air consignment is the full import declaration charge: A$48 from 1 July 2026, up from A$46. It is levied per import declaration — not per box, not per stem — so it is a fixed cost that thins out across a larger shipment and bites hardest on a small trial order. How that compares with every other destination on this site →

Inspection is charged differently, and on a basis worth understanding. The published schedule bills inspection in 15-minute and 30-minute units, for each officer carrying out the activity, with higher rates outside ordinary hours and higher rates again on weekends and departmental holidays. The structural point for a perishable airfreight lane is that an arrival timed into an evening or a weekend is charged at a loaded rate — so the flight you book has a cost consequence at the border, not only a freshness one.

What we are not doing, and why. The department publishes its individual inspection rates, and we have the current schedule in front of us. We are not reproducing the individual rates here. They are set out against charge points in a table whose rows we could not match to charge points with complete confidence, and a fee quoted against the wrong charge point is worse than no fee at all. The structure above is stated only where it is unambiguous. Confirm the applicable rate with your customs broker against your own entry.

And two changes are already in train. Most biosecurity charges rose 3.8% on 1 July 2026 under standard indexation. Separately, the department is phasing in a new charging structure for its diagnostic work: Phase 2, expected 1 November 2026, introduces a revised fee structure and fixed fees for most diagnostic activities on imported cargo. If you are costing a 2027 programme, treat this line as moving.

What we still cannot tell you is how often a Kenyan consignment is actually inspected. Australia publishes no origin-specific inspection rate of the kind Great Britain publishes, and we have not inferred one from another market. The rate is the missing variable that turns these published unit costs into a landed cost, and we will not manufacture it.