Reporting Requirements
Masters and agents of all cruise ships and commercial vessels are subject to a range of reporting requirements for immigration purposes, including pre-arrival reports, crew sign-on and sign-off, reporting in the case of desertion or a stowaway, or when medical evacuation is required.
Pre-arrival reports
As a general rule, vessels are required to provide pre-arrival passenger and crew reports to Customs no later than 96 hours before arriving in Australia. All crew, spouses and dependant children of crew members and passengers are required to be included on the pre-arrival reports and to be subject to immigration clearance on arrival at the first port of call.
Customs Approved Form 13 ‘Ship Pre-arrival report’ should be completed for the vessel, the crew report should be completed on Approved Form 3B, and the passenger
report should be completed on Approved Forms 2A and 2B. These forms are available
from Customs.
See: Australian Customs and Border Protection Service > pre-arrival requirements
For international cruise ships electronic passenger and crew reports are
required to be transmitted through the department's Advance Passenger Processing
(APP) system.
See: Advanced Passenger Processing