Importing a HiAce costs far more than the auction price suggests

The auction price is roughly two thirds of what a Japanese import really costs you. Garage Apex’s worked example of a 25-year-old Toyota shows a $20,000 purchase becoming about $30,230 on the road, per its published cost breakdown. Importing a HiAce works the same way.

The extra money arrives in three waves. Freight before the van leaves Japan, tax the day it lands, then compliance and registration before you can legally drive it. Each wave has a range, and the third one is where budgets come apart.

What does it cost to ship a HiAce from Japan?

Freight and insurance are the first bills, and they land before the van does. Roll-on roll-off shipping from Japan to Australia runs $2,500 to $3,000 for a typical vehicle, according to Garage Apex, and marine insurance sits at 1.5 to 2 per cent of the vehicle’s value, or roughly $450 to $600 on a $30,000 van.

Nobody forces you to buy the insurance. Skipping it means a HiAce sitting on an open vehicle deck for several weeks is entirely your risk, for the sake of a few hundred dollars on a purchase worth tens of thousands. Take the cover.

You also need a road vehicle import approval, which is government permission to bring that specific van in. The application goes through the Department of Infrastructure’s ROVER portal, costs $50, and must be paid online at the moment you submit it, according to the department. Do it early.

How much do duty and GST add?

Customs duty is 5 per cent of the customs-assessed value of the vehicle on its own, and GST is 10 per cent of a bigger number, according to the Australian Border Force. GST is charged on the value of the taxable importation, which is the customs value plus the duty plus the freight and insurance, so your shipping bill gets taxed as well as the van.

On a taxable importation of $35,000, that works out at about $3,500 in GST, on Garage Apex’s figures. The duty can come out at zero on a Japanese-built vehicle under JAEPA, the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, Garage Apex notes, though eligibility is specific enough that you should budget for the 5 per cent and treat the exemption as a bonus.

Luxury Car Tax is the line most HiAce buyers can ignore. It runs at 33 per cent of the value above the threshold, which the Australian Border Force put at $80,567 for vehicles that are not fuel-efficient in 2025-26, and $91,387 for those that are. A used commercial van rarely gets near either number, but check the current year’s threshold before you assume.

None of this is optional or deferrable. The vehicle stays under customs control until you have handed over a valid import approval and paid the duty, GST, LCT and any other charges that apply, the Border Force says. A van you cannot pay for is a van sitting on a wharf accruing storage.

What do compliance and registration cost once it lands?

Compliance is the widest figure in the whole exercise, running from $1,500 to more than $10,000 depending on the vehicle and the work required, according to Garage Apex. That is the workshop work needed to bring an imported vehicle up to Australian standards so it can be entered on the Register of Approved Vehicles, and it is the number to pin down before you bid, not after.

The paperwork has also tightened. From 1 July 2026, submissions to the Register of Approved Vehicles must include motive power data for every vehicle type except trailers, according to the Department of Infrastructure. Your workshop handles it, but it is one more thing that has to be right.

Here is the whole stack in one place, with the third column showing who sets each figure, because that changes how much you can rely on it. The duty, GST and LCT rates are legislated and come from the Australian Border Force, the approval fee is fixed by the Department of Infrastructure, and the service-provider lines are one importer’s published estimates, from Garage Apex, which says its own figures are estimates only and should be replaced with specific quotes before you commit.

Cost line	Typical amount	Set by
Ocean freight, Japan to Australia	$2,500-$3,000	Garage Apex estimate
Marine insurance	1.5-2% of value	Garage Apex estimate
Road vehicle import approval	$50	Government fee
Customs duty	5% of customs value	Legislated rate
GST	10% of taxable importation	Legislated rate
Luxury Car Tax, if applicable	33% above $80,567	Legislated rate
Customs broker	$250-$500	Garage Apex estimate
Port and quarantine	$500-$2,500+	Garage Apex estimate
Compliance workshop	$1,500-$10,000+	Garage Apex estimate
Roadworthy certificate	$250-$350	Garage Apex estimate
Registration and stamp duty	$800-$2,100+	Garage Apex estimate
Port-to-door transport	$300-$2,000+	Garage Apex estimate

Treat the estimate rows as a shape, not a quote. Broker fees, port charges, roadworthy inspections and stamp duty all vary by state and by operator, and none of them is published as a national schedule, so the only figure you can plan around is the one a named broker, workshop or state road authority gives you in writing.

Is importing a HiAce cheaper than buying one already complied here?

Usually not, unless the complied van in front of you is asking more than about $26,500. Take an H100 HiAce, the 1989 to 2004 generation that is now old enough for the 25-year pathway Garage Apex used for its LandCruiser example, and assume you win a tidy one at auction for $15,000. That $15,000 is an assumption, not a market quote, so substitute your own number.

Run the rates over it. Freight at the middle of the range adds about $2,750 and insurance about $275, per Garage Apex. Duty at the Border Force rate of 5 per cent is $750, and because GST applies to the van plus duty plus freight and insurance, it lands on $18,775 and costs about $1,880. Add the $50 approval, a broker at $375, port and quarantine at $1,500, a roadworthy at $300, registration and stamp duty at $1,450 and transport home at $600, and the running total reaches $24,930 before a spanner is picked up.

Compliance decides the rest. At the bottom of the $1,500 to $10,000 range Garage Apex quotes, the H100 lands at about $26,430 on the road. At $8,000 of workshop time it is closer to $32,930. Either way you have added roughly $11,400 to $17,900 on top of a $15,000 van, a far worse ratio than the 51 per cent uplift on Garage Apex’s $20,000 LandCruiser, because the fixed costs do not shrink when the vehicle gets cheaper.

That is the comparison that matters. A complied, registered H100 already on the ground here has to be asking more than about $26,500 before the import route wins, and you should check current local listings for the exact generation and grade you want before you bid on anything in Japan. A newer H200 or H300 on the Department of Infrastructure’s other pathways changes the sums, mostly by raising the compliance bill.

Best for buyers chasing a HiAce specification that was never sold new in Australia, who have a written compliance quote in hand and accept the auction price is about two thirds of the total. Not for anyone hoping to save money on an ordinary van, because the roughly $10,230 of import costs in Garage Apex’s worked example will usually swallow the gap to a local price.