Importing in stink bug season: what BMSB measures do to your timeline and cash

If you import machinery, metal products, vehicles or parts from the USA, Canada or much of Europe, the next seven months run on different rules. Brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) season covers goods shipped between 1 September 2026 and 30 April 2027, and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry applies extra measures to them during that window. Plan the treatment and you lose a few days. Miss it and a container can sit at the port while your supplier balance, duty and GST are already paid.

This guide covers what’s caught, what changed this season, and how to plan the cash.

What is BMSB season, and why does it matter to an importer?

The brown marmorated stink bug is a serious agricultural pest that isn’t established in Australia. In the northern hemisphere autumn and winter, it shelters in dry, protected spaces, which includes shipping containers, machinery cavities and vehicles. That’s why the measures follow the northern seasons.

For you, the season matters for three reasons:

• Time. Treatment, inspection or a hold adds days between the ship berthing and the goods reaching your warehouse.
• Cost. Treatment, extra storage, handling and transport to a treatment site all go into landed cost.
• Cash timing. Your supplier is usually paid before shipment, and duty and GST are due before release. A hold pushes back your sales, but none of those payments move.

Which goods and countries are caught?

Two things decide whether your shipment is in scope: where it was made or shipped from, and what it is.

Countries. The target risk country list is broadly unchanged from last season. It includes the USA, Canada and a long list of European countries, including Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Greece, plus countries such as Turkey, Georgia and Uzbekistan. Always check the department’s current list rather than relying on memory, because routing counts as well as origin. Goods shipped from a target risk country, or loaded on vessels that berth there, can be caught.

Goods. The department splits targeted goods into two tiers, based on tariff classification:

Tier	Typical goods	What happens
Target high-risk goods	Broadly, heavy and hard goods such as machinery, vehicles and parts, iron, steel and other metal products, timber, stone and ceramic goods	Mandatory treatment
Target risk goods	A wider range of goods considered lower risk	Increased random onshore inspection

Your customs broker can check your exact tariff classification against the department’s list. Do it at the quote stage, not when the ship’s already at sea.

Emerging risk countries. China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom aren’t target risk countries, but they’re classed as emerging risk countries. Certain goods from them face more random onshore inspections during the season. A random inspection doesn’t mean treatment, but it can still add days.

What changed for the 2026–27 season?

The season dates, target goods and countries are broadly the same. Three changes affect planning:

1. Ethyl formate is now an approved onshore treatment, alongside the existing approved methods: heat treatment, methyl bromide and sulfuryl fluoride. More onshore options may help where treatment capacity has been the bottleneck.
2. The Safeguarding Arrangements Scheme has been discontinued. Importers who relied on it as an alternative clearance pathway now need to treat or be inspected like everyone else, and existing approvals no longer count.
3. The rolled goods policy has been removed. Break bulk cargo must be loaded within 120 hours of treatment, with no extension, so a delayed sailing can mean treating again.

If last season’s process relied on either of the last two, budget again for this season.

Offshore or onshore treatment: which is better for your cash?

For target high-risk goods, how you ship decides your options:

Cargo type	Treatment options	If untreated on arrival
FCL in a sealed, six-sided hard-top container	Offshore before loading, or onshore at container level by an approved provider	Treated onshore before release (time and cost added)
LCL and FAK containers	Treated at container level, offshore or onshore, before deconsolidation	Whole container treated before anyone’s goods are unpacked
Open-top, flat-rack, break bulk	Offshore treatment required	Can be directed for export

The department’s guidance to prepare before importing encourages offshore treatment, and from a cash-planning view it’s usually the better choice:

• You know the cost up front. It’s on the supplier’s invoice or the forwarder’s quote, so it goes into your landed cost before you commit.
• Fewer surprises at the border. Onshore treatment depends on provider capacity in peak months, and every day waiting is a day of storage.
• LCL is shared risk. In a consolidated container, one untreated consignment can hold up the whole box, including yours, until it’s treated.

Offshore treatment only works if the provider is on the department’s approved list and the certificate matches the shipment. Ask the supplier for the provider’s name and check it before the goods are loaded.

How does a held container affect your cash?

This is the part that rarely makes it into the planning. By the time a container is held, most of the cash has already gone out:

• The supplier balance was paid before shipment or against documents. See paying the balance before shipment.
• Duty, import GST and broker fees are due before release. The ATO notes that GST on imports is generally paid before goods are released, unless you’re on deferred GST.
• Government charges apply per full import declaration, including the biosecurity cost recovery charge that DAFF set at $71 for sea cargo from 1 July 2026.
• Treatment, storage and handling are added while the goods wait, and demurrage or detention can start once free time runs out.

Meanwhile, the money that pays for all of it, your sales, gets pushed back by however long the hold lasts. If the next order’s deposit or balance falls due in that gap, two shipments’ worth of cash is tied up at once.

If that overlap is already on your calendar, a quick enquiry now is easier than a rushed one with a container waiting.

Worked example: a machinery parts importer in October

Illustrative only. The business and numbers are invented and rounded.

A Brisbane wholesaler imports agricultural machinery parts from Italy, one 40-foot FCL a month. The supplier quoted on FOB terms and assumed the buyer would sort out BMSB treatment. Nobody did.

Item	Planned	What happened
Supplier balance	Paid before shipment	Paid before shipment
Duty, GST, broker and charges	Due on arrival	Due on arrival
Onshore treatment	Not budgeted	About $2,500 including transport to the treatment site
Extra storage and container time	Not budgeted	About $1,800
Goods available to sell	Day 3 after berthing	Day 12 after berthing

The extra $4,300 hurt, but the bigger issue was timing. Sales from that container landed nine days late, which put them after the next month’s supplier balance. For about a fortnight, the business had two containers’ worth of cash tied up at once.

For the next order, the owner:

1. had the broker confirm the parts were target high-risk goods;
2. changed the purchase order so the supplier arranged heat treatment through an approved provider, with the cost itemised on the invoice;
3. added a week of buffer to the import order calendar for every shipment loaded between September and April;
4. set up a revolving facility sized to cover one overlapping balance plus border costs.

A BMSB season checklist for importers

Before you confirm any order shipping between now and 30 April:

• Check the tariff classification against the target high-risk goods list with your broker. The customs broker fees page covers what to expect from them.
• Check country of manufacture and route, including transhipment ports.
• Put treatment in the purchase order: who arranges it, which approved provider, which method, and who pays.
• Match your Incoterms to the treatment. On FOB or EXW, the supplier won’t arrange treatment unless the contract says so. See Incoterms for importers.
• Prefer FCL over LCL for target high-risk goods if the volume is anywhere close, so someone else’s untreated cargo can’t hold up yours.
• Add days and dollars to landed cost. Include a treatment line and a storage contingency in your landed cost calculation.
• Map the cash. Use the import cash timeline planner to see where a one-to-two-week delay lands against your next balance and BAS.
• Have the border bill ready before the vessel berths, so the only wait is the biosecurity one. See funding duty and GST at the border.

Keep the next container moving

BMSB season doesn’t stop you importing. It makes the gap between paying for stock and selling it longer and less predictable for seven months of the year, and that’s the gap we work on every day.

If a held container, a treatment bill or two overlapping balances are squeezing your cash this season, our enquiry takes about a minute, and there’s no credit check when you first enquire. We don’t pass your details around a pile of lenders, so your phone won’t light up with strangers. A real person reads your enquiry, looks at your shipments, supplier terms and border costs, and calls you to talk through the options. Please fill the form in accurately, especially order values, shipping dates and what’s due when, so we can match the right option first time.

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