Overview
- The federal government announced on Sunday it will spend $56.1 million over four years to expand the Australia Traveller Declaration from a Qantas pilot into a national digital system.
- The pilot has involved more than 450,000 passengers since October 2024 and will extend to Qantas flights into Perth and Adelaide by the end of 2026 before a phased rollout to all international airports and seaports over 12 to 18 months.
- From next year the form will be offered as a webform that issues a QR-coded digital pass and the government will work with airlines to build the same function into apps; paper cards will remain available for people who cannot use digital options.
- Agencies including Australian Border Force and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will use earlier and cleaner digital data to speed processing, strengthen biosecurity risk checks and support national security screening.
- The reform aims to cut queues for arriving travellers, support upgrades to departure and cruise-clearance systems and ready Australia’s borders for forecast visitor growth and the 2032 Brisbane Games while addressing past short-lived digitisation attempts by planning a staged rollout with fallbacks.