Selling on Amazon Australia from outside Australia is not the same shape as opening Canada. Amazon’s own Australia expansion page tells an existing Amazon.com Professional seller to “create an Australia account” rather than extend the one they have (sell.amazon.com, data checked 2026-09-07). The same page lists exactly two ways to get goods to Australian buyers — export inventory into Australian fulfilment centres, or ship direct as Fulfilled by Merchant — and no third, borderless option. And the Australian Taxation Office draws its non-resident GST line in a place that moves depending on where your stock physically sits. Those three facts, not the fee table, are what decide whether an Australian launch is a weekend of admin or a quarter-long project.
This article is not tax advice. It maps published programme mechanics to the registration questions they raise. Your actual obligations depend on your entity, your goods and your volumes, and are determined by the ATO and your own adviser.
What Carries Over From Amazon.com, and What Does Not
| Carries over | Has to be built again | |
|---|---|---|
| Seller account | Login and Sell Globally dashboard | The Australia selling account itself |
| Monthly plan fee | Only if you link global accounts | Otherwise a separate Australian plan fee |
| Listings | Build International Listings cross-lists eligible offers | Australian compliance and category requirements |
| Fulfilment | Nothing — US FBA stock cannot serve Amazon.com.au | Australian FBA inventory, or FBM shipping |
| Advertising | Nothing published as a migration path | Campaigns, budgets and targeting in the AU store |
| Tax position | Nothing | Your Australian GST status, from scratch |
The row that surprises most sellers is fulfilment. In North America, Remote Fulfillment with FBA lets US inventory serve Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.mx and Amazon.com.br without stock crossing a border — see our guide to Amazon FBA Canada. Amazon publishes no equivalent lane for Australia.
Your Account: Australia Sits Outside the Unified Account
Amazon’s Australia expansion page splits the setup step in two. For sellers already in the US store: “If you already sell on Amazon.com with a Professional selling account, create an Australia account.” For newcomers: “If you’re new to Amazon and want to sell in the US and Australia, first create a North America and Brazil unified account. Then use your Sell Globally dashboard in Seller Central to create an Australia account” (data checked 2026-09-07).
Read that carefully. The unified account covers North America and Brazil; Australia is a separate selling account created from inside Seller Central. The dashboard is shared, the account is not. That is the biggest structural difference from opening Canada or Mexico, where an existing unified account already reaches the marketplace. Amazon’s instruction is also written for a Professional seller — our breakdown of Individual vs. Professional covers where that line falls.
On incorporation, Amazon hedges: “If you’re a business outside Australia, you may not be required to form an Australia-based company to sell your products in Australia” (data checked 2026-09-07). May not be required is not the same as has no Australian obligations — those live in the GST section below.
The Monthly Fee: Two Official Pages, Two Different Formulas
Amazon publishes the Australian plan fees on its own AU seller site: “The Individual plan costs $0.99 (excl. GST) per unit sale,” and “If you’re only listing on Amazon.com.au, the Professional plan costs $49.95 (excl. GST) per month, when you have active listings, no matter how many units you sell” (sell.amazon.com.au, data checked 2026-09-07). The same page states “All fees are in Australian Dollars (AUD)” — so that is A$49.95 before GST, not a converted US figure.
Where the two official pages diverge is what happens when you run both stores. The Australian pricing page footnote reads: “If you expand to sell in other worldwide Amazon Stores using merged accounts, you will pay the equivalent of $39.99 USD per month, split proportionately across each country or region in which you have an active listing and charged separately in each local currency” (data checked 2026-09-07). The US Australia-expansion FAQ words it differently: “if you link global Amazon selling accounts, your monthly fee will be either the equivalent of USD 39.99 per month or the sum of the selling plan fees for each region and country in which you have active listings, whichever is lower” (data checked 2026-09-07).
Both pages cap the linked-account fee around the USD 39.99 equivalent; they disagree on whether that is a flat proportional split or a whichever is lower comparison. Treat A$49.95 as the standalone Australian cost and confirm the linked figure in Seller Central before modelling margin on it.
There Is No Remote Fulfilment Lane Into Australia
Amazon’s Step 5 for Australia gives two options and only two: “Export inventory to Amazon fulfillment centers in Australia and use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to store, pack, and ship customer orders,” or “Ship orders to customers directly using a suite of solutions we call Fulfilled by Merchant” (data checked 2026-09-07).
That is a real constraint, not a wording quirk. FBA Australia is open to overseas sellers, but only by moving stock into the country first — which makes you the party bringing goods across the Australian border, with everything that implies for customs and GST. FBM keeps your inventory where it is and puts international transit in front of every Australian order. There is no middle setting.
Amazon does confirm that stock already in Australian fulfilment centres can serve orders from elsewhere: “Just like in the US, Amazon’s Australia Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF) service helps you grow your Australia-based business both in and beyond the Amazon store” (data checked 2026-09-07). It is the same stock-placement question that drives Pan-EU FBA vs EFN and expanding FBA into Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.
GST: Where Your Stock Sits Decides Who Owes It
This is the part that actually forks, and the ATO publishes both branches.
Branch one — you ship from overseas, order by order. The ATO’s rule for low value imported goods states: “If you are a non-resident business and you sell goods into Australia with a customs value of A$1,000 or less, GST applies and you will have to collect this from your customer and send the GST to us” (ato.gov.au, page last updated 11 September 2025, checked 2026-09-07). But selling through a marketplace changes who is on the hook. The ATO’s merchant guidance says: “If you sell digital products or low value imported goods to customers through an EDP, the EDP operator is generally responsible for GST payable on these sales,” and — the sentence that matters most — “If the EDP operator is responsible for GST, these sales don’t count towards your GST turnover when calculating if you need to register” (ato.gov.au, page last updated 11 September 2025, checked 2026-09-07). An EDP is defined as “a service that is delivered by electronic communication that allows you to make sales of goods or services to purchasers. Examples include an online marketplace or app store.”
Branch two — you send stock into Australian FBA. The same ATO page addresses this directly: “A non-resident business that imports goods and warehouses them in Australia prior to selling them online, directly or through an electronic distribution platform, will have a GST obligation for the goods sold because the goods are located in Australia” (checked 2026-09-07). The platform-collects-it relief does not follow your stock into the warehouse. And on the inbound shipment itself: “For consignments of goods imported over A$1,000 any GST, customs duty and clearance charges are charged to the importer at the border” (checked 2026-09-07) — an FBA restock is, by definition, a consignment over that value.
So the fulfilment choice and the tax position are the same decision made once. FBM from overseas can leave the GST with the platform; FBA in Australia puts it on you.
Simplified vs Standard Registration, and Which One FBA Rules Out
The ATO offers non-residents more than one registration route, and the cheap one has a catch that lands squarely on FBA sellers.
The trigger is the same for everyone: “You must register for GST: when your business or enterprise has a GST turnover (gross income from all businesses minus GST) of $75,000 or more (the GST threshold),” and “Once you are required to register for GST, you need to do so within 21 days” (ato.gov.au, page last updated 23 May 2025, checked 2026-09-07). Standard registration has a prerequisite: “Before you register, you need to have an Australian business number (ABN).”
Simplified GST registration exists for non-residents who “don’t need an Australian business number (ABN)” and who “don’t need to claim GST credits (including credits for taxable importations)” (ato.gov.au, page last updated 26 August 2026, checked 2026-09-07). The ATO is explicit about the trade: registering this way means you “elect to be a limited registration entity” and are “not entitled to” an ABN or to “claim GST credits for purchases.”
Put that next to branch two. Importing inventory into Australian fulfilment centres means paying GST at the border on that consignment — and simplified registration is precisely the route that forbids claiming credits for taxable importations. FBM-from-overseas and Australian-FBA sellers are not filing two versions of the same paperwork; they sit in different regimes. The threshold logic will feel familiar from our Amazon VAT thresholds guide.
The Fee Lines That Only Exist on Amazon.com.au
Three things on the Australian fee page have no direct Amazon.com twin, and all three are in AUD.
First, media closing fees: “All sellers (regardless of plan type) also pay a closing fee of $1.00 per media item that is sold,” across “Media - Books, DVD, Music, Software, Video, Video Games and Gaming Accessories, and Video Game Consoles” (data checked 2026-09-07). Second, the plan-level closing fee split: the same page states “Professional selling plan: No fixed closing fee” and “Individual selling plan: $0.99 per item sold.” That $0.99 is the same figure the Selling Plans section quotes; the page never states whether those two lines are one charge or two, so confirm the total in Seller Central before pricing (checked 2026-09-07). Third, every fee is quoted excluding GST — the page says fees “don’t include applicable taxes, such as GST,” so your GST-inclusive cost of selling is higher than the printed rate.
Referral fees sit in a familiar band: “Most referral fees are between 6% and 15%” (data checked 2026-09-07), with Media at 15%. Our Amazon referral fees guide covers how that percentage is calculated. The same page also flags a change window: “Effective June 10, 2026, we’ll make one of our largest-ever fee reductions across select Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and Multi-Channel Fulfilment (MCF) fulfilment fees” (data checked 2026-09-07).
Listings and Ads Do Not Migrate By Themselves
Listings have a published tool: “If you already sell on Amazon.com, you can use the Build International Listings tool to cross-list your products in our Australia store” (data checked 2026-09-07). Compliance does not travel with them — Amazon’s Step 3 tells you to “Review taxes and regulations and requirements for product compliance, safety, and listing in Australia.”
Advertising has no such tool. Amazon’s Australian advertising page describes the same four sponsored formats as the US store — Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and Stores — and directs sellers to the Advertising tab in Seller Central (sell.amazon.com.au, data checked 2026-09-07). It publishes no path for importing existing US campaigns, keywords or negatives. Plan on rebuilding Australian campaigns from zero; the structure in our Amazon PPC for beginners guide transfers even though the campaigns do not.
What We Could Not Verify
Amazon links an “Australia Goods and Services Tax” explainer from the expansion page, but that page (Seller Central help reference G202146000) returns only a JavaScript application shell to a request without a seller login — no readable policy text (checked 2026-09-07). So this guide does not assert how Amazon itself handles Australian GST as a platform. The ATO rules above describe what an EDP operator is responsible for in general; confirming Amazon’s specific handling needs the logged-in help page or your adviser.
Australian per-unit FBA fulfilment rates are not reprinted here either. Amazon publishes them on its own fee schedule pages and revised them in June 2026; copying a snapshot into a guide is how stale numbers get into circulation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a new Amazon account to sell in Australia?
Yes, a separate Australia selling account. Amazon tells existing US sellers to “create an Australia account,” and new sellers to open a North America and Brazil unified account first, then create the Australia account from the Sell Globally dashboard (data checked 2026-09-07). Australia is not inside the unified account.
Can I sell on Amazon.com.au using my US FBA inventory?
No. Amazon’s Australia page lists two fulfilment options only: export inventory to Amazon fulfilment centres in Australia and use FBA, or ship directly to customers as Fulfilled by Merchant (data checked 2026-09-07). There is no Remote Fulfilment programme serving Amazon.com.au from US stock.
What does the Professional plan cost in Australia?
A$49.95 per month excluding GST if you are only listing on Amazon.com.au; the Individual plan is A$0.99 excluding GST per unit sold (sell.amazon.com.au, data checked 2026-09-07). The page states all its fees are in Australian dollars. Link global accounts and Amazon describes a combined fee capped around the USD 39.99 equivalent.
When do I have to register for Australian GST?
The ATO’s threshold is a GST turnover of A$75,000 or more, with registration due within 21 days of reaching it, and standard registration requires an ABN first (ATO, page last updated 23 May 2025, checked 2026-09-07). Sales where an EDP operator is responsible for the GST “don’t count towards your GST turnover when calculating if you need to register” (ATO, checked 2026-09-07).
Does using FBA in Australia change my tax position?
It changes who owes the GST. The ATO states that a non-resident business importing and warehousing goods in Australia before selling them online “will have a GST obligation for the goods sold because the goods are located in Australia” (checked 2026-09-07), and consignments over A$1,000 attract GST, customs duty and clearance charges at the border from the importer.
The Bottom Line
For a cross-border seller, Australia is a separate account, a separate stock decision and a separate tax regime — three projects, not one checkbox. The account step is administrative and fast. The fulfilment step is the fork: with no Remote Fulfilment lane, you either accept international transit on every order or you become an importer of record into Australia. And that second choice pulls the GST question along with it, because the ATO’s platform-collects-it relief stops at the warehouse door. Decide the fulfilment lane first, get the registration route confirmed by an Australian adviser second, and only then open the fee schedule. Sequence it the other way and you will price a business model you have not yet chosen.