How to export wine from Australia: licence, product registration and shipping approval

Your first export order is a good problem to have, until you discover the wine cannot leave the country without three separate approvals from Wine Australia. None of them is difficult, but they have to be done in order, and each relies on records you should already have. This guide walks through the process as Wine Australia describes it, in the order you will meet it.

When you need approval

The Wine Australia Regulations 2018 require exporters of grape products to be licensed where individual shipments exceed 100 litres, and every consignment over 100 litres needs a shipping approval. Smaller consignments can be exempt under defined conditions, as can personal luggage, household removals, trade-fair stock, commercial samples and a few other cases; exemptions are also applied for through Wine Australia’s online system. If a shipment sits close to 100 litres, confirm with Wine Australia’s export team before you book freight.

Licence → product and label registration → shipping approval → export documents. All four are handled in WALAS, the Wine Australia Licensing and Approval System.

Step 1: the export licence

• Create a WALAS account and apply for the licence there. You may need entity documents such as director details, a partnership agreement or a trust deed.
• Say whether you are a Wine Grapes Levy payer and include your ABN: levy payers get a reduced first-year fee.
• Allow five business days for processing. Fees are paid in WALAS and are not refunded if the application is withdrawn or refused; check the current fee schedule on Wine Australia’s Forms and templates page.
• Once granted, you receive a PDF licence and a Licence ID, which you need for everything else in WALAS. Licences are issued for 12-month periods and cannot be transferred.
• Report changes in circumstances as soon as practicable, and a change of business address within 14 days.

Wine Australia assesses whether the applicant is “a fit and proper person”, looking at past offences under the Act, unpaid debts or wine export charge, and earlier refusals or cancellations. A licence can later be suspended or cancelled for, among other things, incorrect descriptions of vintage, variety or origin, or failing to keep Label Integrity Program (LIP) records.

Step 2: product and label registration

Each product in a consignment must be registered and approved for export before you can apply to ship it. The application covers:

• The vintage, variety and origin composition of the wine, and — for packaged wine — the vintage, variety and origin claimed on the label. This is your LIP record, checked against the blending rules.
• The analytical details. You need a certificate of analysis, from your supplier or a NATA-accredited laboratory, and for packaged products the analysis must be post-bottling.
• The destination market.
• Label images, front and back: JPG, PNG or TIFF, at least 600 × 600 pixels and 72 DPI.
• Whether the label makes organic or biodynamic claims. Those products must also comply with the Export Control Act 2020, administered by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Wine Australia checks the analysis against the limits in the Food Standards Code and decides whether the wine is sound and merchantable and appropriately described. Some Food Standards Code labelling requirements are relaxed for export — standard drinks and pregnancy warnings, for example, are generally not required unless the importing country asks for them — but added sulphites must be declared on export labels regardless. Approved packaged products receive a PP number and bulk products a PB number.

Step 3: shipping approval

For each consignment over 100 litres, lodge a shipping application in WALAS with the export date, destination country and consignee (your freight forwarder will have these), the products by approval number, and the litres and FOB value of each. Attach an organic certificate if relevant. Wine Australia approves the shipment only if every product in it is approved and any conditions are met, and must refuse it if it believes the wine cannot lawfully be sold in the destination country.

Once approved, you receive an Export Permit Number (the WBC number) by email. Your freight forwarder needs it to obtain the Export Declaration Number from the Australian Border Force. No WBC number, no EDN, no shipment.

Step 4: export certificates

• VI-1 documents for the EU and the UK can be issued by Wine Australia.
• Certificates of origin are issued by Wine Australia for most markets; for Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore they go through the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
• Certificates of free sale can also be issued by Wine Australia.
• Anything else the importing country requires is set out in Wine Australia’s Export Market Guides — check the guide for your market before the wine is bottled, not after.

For bulk wine in containers of 60 litres or more, Wine Australia also publishes a recommended procedure for loading, unloading and transport.

What holds first-time exporters up

• No post-bottling analysis on hand when the product registration is lodged.
• A label claim (say, a single region) that the LIP composition does not support under the 85% rule.
• Label images that are too small or in the wrong format.
• Forgetting to declare organic or biodynamic claims, or not having the certificate ready for the shipment.
• Booking freight before the shipping approval and WBC number come through.
• Treating it as a one-off: the licence runs for 12 months and needs to be kept current.

Exporting without the required licence, approval or certificate is an offence under section 44 of the Wine Australia Act 2013, with a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment, so the sequence matters.

Have the records ready before you apply

Most of the work in an export application is finding information you already have: the blend composition, the analysis, the bottling date and the volumes. GrapeFlow keeps the lot history from intake through blends to bottling, the lab analyses against each lot, and stock by lot and SKU, so the composition and figures for a product registration are in one place. GrapeFlow does not apply for licences, approvals or certificates and is not affiliated with Wine Australia — the applications are still made by you in WALAS.

This guide reflects Wine Australia’s published guidance as at October 2026. Fees and procedures change; Wine Australia’s export team has the final word.