The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s digital import permit system has continued its rollout through 2025 and into 2026. For plant material and forestry-related imports, the experience is meaningfully better than the paper-and-fax world of five years ago, but a series of practical issues remain.

Where the digital system works well

The biosecurity import permit for a high-volume, low-risk plant material consignment — bulk grain, certified seed of a commonly-imported variety, kiln-dried timber under existing import conditions — is now a fast electronic process. Application through the BICON portal, automatic conditions generation, fast assessment for routine cases, electronic permit issuance. Turnaround for routine permits has compressed from weeks to days.

The traceability through the system is also better. The same permit application visible to the importer, the broker, the inspecting officer, and the issuing department reduces miscommunication and rework.

Where it still falls down

Permits for non-routine or higher-risk material — new genetic material, ornamental plants from origin countries with known pest issues, timber products from new sources — still trigger longer assessment cycles. The digital system has not yet reduced the actual scientific assessment time required, only the administrative time around it.

The BICON case officer workload has grown faster than the case officer numbers. For complex cases, the back-and-forth between importer and case officer is still where most of the timeline lives. Some categories of plant material import are now backlogged at the assessment stage.

The integration with the Integrated Cargo System remains incomplete in some specific scenarios. Importers occasionally find that a permit valid in BICON does not flow correctly into the shipment clearance process, requiring manual intervention.

The new application module

The 2025 deployment of an updated BICON application module improved several user experience pain points but introduced new ones. The conditional logic in the application form is more sophisticated, which means fewer rejected applications for missing information, but the form itself is longer and the navigation is less intuitive for occasional importers.

Industry feedback in early 2026 has been mixed. Heavy users prefer the new module; occasional users find it more difficult.

The plant material categories most affected

Several plant material categories have seen meaningful changes in their import permit process in 2025-26. The treatment requirements for some timber species have tightened in response to khapra beetle and other ongoing biosecurity concerns. The conditions for live plant material have been adjusted in light of emerging pest pressures.

Importers of these categories should verify the current BICON conditions for each specific commodity before each consignment. Conditions that applied 12 months ago may have changed.

The practical advice

For importers of plant material in 2026: start permit applications earlier than the previous lead times suggested. Validate the BICON conditions immediately before each consignment. Maintain direct communication with the assigned case officer for non-routine applications. Use a customs broker familiar with plant material import for novel categories.

The digital system is genuinely better than what came before, but the underlying biosecurity assessment work is unchanged and remains the rate limit on import permit timelines.