Import professional tools and hardware
from Europe to Australia

Germany is the centre of gravity and it is not close. Bosch Professional, Festool, Metabo, Fein, Knipex, Wera, Wiha, Hazet, Stahlwille, Gedore and Würth all run their deepest catalogues at home, and the trade suppliers that carry them — Contorion, SVH24, Hoffmann Group, Würth's own channel — price for professionals rather than for a foreign distributor's margin. Italy is the second pillar, mostly for hand tools and workshop equipment: Beta Utensili and USAG are the reference names, with a service and accessory ecosystem that rarely crosses borders intact. Spain contributes cutting and striking tools with a long industrial history — Bellota, Irega, Egamaster, Palmera — and the Czech Republic adds Narex, whose chisels and woodworking tools have a following far bigger than their distribution.

For a business the practical question is not which brand but which format. Hand tools, measuring instruments, bits and accessory systems are the ideal repeat purchase: dense, durable, unaffected by mains voltage, and easy to consolidate from several suppliers into one shipment. Corded power tools are where you need to stop and read the operations section below before ordering anything. And if you are stocking a workshop rather than reselling, the European trade catalogues are usually where the specialist references live — the sizes and variants a local distributor decided were not worth listing.

Australia draws a clear line. At or below a customs value of A$1,000 there is no customs duty and no import processing charge. Above it, the Australian Border Force assesses duty, GST and the processing charge at the border before release, with MFN duty around 5% on most clothing, footwear, leather goods and hand tools, and 0% on a lot of electronics. The Australia–EU free trade agreement was concluded in March 2026 but has not entered into force, so plan on MFN rates and treat any preference as future upside rather than a line in your costing.

GST is where the business case differs from the consumer one. There is no GST-free threshold: 10% applies either way. Below A$1,000 it is collected under the vendor-collection model — by the seller, the platform or the redeliverer, which is what a forwarding service is. Above A$1,000 it is assessed at the border. The good news for a company is that if you hold an ABN and are registered for GST, import GST is normally claimable as an input tax credit, so it becomes a cash-flow item rather than a cost. Give us your ABN and GST status at onboarding and we will reflect it in how your shipments are documented.

Three technical facts decide whether a tool order is a good idea, and we would rather you know them now than after the pallet lands. First, mains voltage. European corded tools are built for 230 V at 50 Hz. That is fine for the United Kingdom, Australia, Israel, the UAE and Chile, which run at or near the same voltage. It is a real problem for the United States, Canada, Mexico and Colombia, which run at 110–127 V: a 230 V corded saw will not work on a 120 V site without a transformer, and no amount of good freight pricing fixes that. Cordless platforms are usually the answer — the tool itself has no mains voltage, and many chargers are 100–240 V, though you should confirm per model rather than assume.

Second, lithium batteries. Cordless tool batteries are dangerous goods in air freight, with rules that vary by whether they are loose, packed with equipment or contained in equipment. Some can move under specific conditions, some cannot move by air at all, and the answer depends on the cell and the service. Ask us before you order batteries rather than after they arrive at the warehouse. Third, conformity marking: CE marking is a European conformity regime. Placing tools on your local market for resale may require local marking or certification — RCM in Australia, NOM in Mexico, INMETRO in Brazil, and the market expectations around UL/ETL listing in North America. We ship your goods and document them properly; local compliance for resale is your side of the line and worth checking before you commit to volume.