Before, not after
“Your records must be able to demonstrate that you undertook your due diligence obligations before importing the product.”
Illegal Logging Prohibition Rules 2024
A record system for timber due diligence, built for Australian importers.
In effect since3 March 2025
AI does the reading. You make the call. Every consignment gets a written record, dated before it lands and kept for five years.
Chapter 01
What changed on 3 March 2025
On 3 March 2025 the reformed Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 and the Illegal Logging Prohibition Rules 2024 came into effect. The Community Protection Question at the border is gone. So is the separate Country Specific Guideline pathway. What remains is you, the importer, and a written record that has to exist before the product is imported.
Five years, from the day it lands
Rule 8(11): the record is kept for five years beginning on the day the product is imported. Digitally or on paper, but kept, and able to be produced.
And the rules keep moving
The Act already provides for importers to lodge unloading notices with DAFF. No start date has been set while a new IT system is built. When it switches on, your process changes again.
| Conduct | Penalty units | Individual · A$ | Company, up to · A$ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Act, section 12Importing regulated timber products without doing due diligence | |||
| Intentional | 300 units | A$109,200 | A$546,000 |
| Strict liability | 60 units | A$21,840 | A$109,200 |
| Civil penalty | 100 units | A$36,400 | A$182,000 |
| Section 12 carries fines only. No imprisonment attaches to a due diligence failure. | |||
| Act, section 8Importing illegally logged timber | |||
| Intentional | 500 units | A$182,000Or 5 years’ imprisonment, or both | A$910,000 |
| Strict liability | 60 units | A$21,840 | — |
| Civil penalty | 100 units | A$36,400 | — |
| On conviction under section 8, the court may also order the timber forfeited to the Commonwealth. | |||
| Act, section 84False or misleading information | |||
| Civil penalty | 60 units | A$21,840 | — |
| Per false customs declaration, notice or document. A false unloading or processing notice may also be an offence under the Criminal Code. | |||
For scale: DAFF’s 2022 estimate put the cost of due diligence across the importing sector at about A$188 per consignment, roughly 0.48% of the value of regulated imports. The penalties above are for skipping it.
Prepared by
Prepared by people who have stood at both ends of this paperwork.
The people behind Eirlys Audit come from U2 Living, a Hong Kong furniture exporter that has shipped to 600 buyers in 70 countries since 1997, producing and chasing this paperwork from the side that has to hand it over.
Eirlys is built and run in Sydney, on the side that has to keep the record.
Our method is reviewed by a licensed customs broker in New South Wales who specialises in timber imports.
We have chased supplier documents from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia ourselves, in the languages they arrive in.
Chapter 03
What the record must hold
Rule 8 of the Rules 2024 sets it out. Six information items, a written risk assessment, mitigation where the risk is not low, five years of keeping. Links go to the text on legislation.gov.au.
Step one · gather six things
Step two
Identify and assess the risk
Certified products: four matters to consider. Everything else: seven more, from the Country Specific Guidelines and the conservation status of the species to armed conflict, corruption and forest governance in the country of harvest.
Step three
Write it down
A written record of the risk identification and assessment. Where the risk is not low, written mitigation as well.
Step four
Keep it for five years
Counted from the day the product is imported.
Chapter 04
What you hold with Eirlys Audit
The six information items, gathered for every consignment.
Risk identified and assessed the way Rule 8 sets out.
Mitigation written down where the risk is not low.
Dated before import.
Each record carries the moment it was made.
Kept for five years.
Stored in Australia.
Yours to take.
Export everything you have put in, at any time, in a format that opens without us.
In one place, so you can produce them if DAFF asks.
AI does the reading. You make the call.
We keep the record. The risk call is yours, and the record shows you made it.
“While you may use AI tools to assist with your due diligence obligations, they cannot be used in isolation.”
“Using AI does not remove the requirement on you to comply with the prescribed obligations of the Rules.”
Source: Pexels
Chapter 05
Before it lands.
Written after the ship docks, a record cannot show what you knew before. Written before, it can. Eirlys Audit dates every record at the moment it is made, and keeps it where you can find it.
Ready for the next consignment?
Eirlys Audit runs in your browser. The record is yours to keep for five years, and to take with you.