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Foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in Indonesia

23 March 2023: Due to the heightened risk of FMD in Indonesia, Biosecurity New Zealand has enhanced processes in place for travellers arriving in New Zealand.

Passengers arriving on direct flights from Bali will:

  • use a dedicated biosecurity lane and baggage carousel on arrival at Auckland Airport
  • face additional risk assessment questioning from officers and may be directed to undergo baggage searches
  • require footwear to be disinfected.

The measures build on the enhanced processes Biosecurity New Zealand introduced in July for passengers arriving on indirect flights from Indonesia, including a ban on bringing in meat products.

We encourage arriving air passengers from Indonesia to wear closed-toed shoes for their flight back to New Zealand rather than open-toed footwear like jandals/flip flops/sandals. This will speed up the process for disinfecting footwear.

Travellers can protect New Zealand from FMD by:

  • avoiding contact with wildlife or livestock such as cattle, pigs, or goats
  • avoiding visiting farmland or rice fields
  • making sure shoes and clothing are free of any soil or dirt
  • avoiding bringing back risk items, including animal-based food products and skulls or untanned leather souvenirs
  • staying away from New Zealand farms or livestock for at least a week after arrival.

Passengers will be asked enhanced biosecurity questions upon arrival. These include:

  • Have you been in contact with any wildlife or livestock such as cattle, pigs, or goats?
  • Have you visited any farmlands (including rice fields)?
  • Do you have any shoes or equipment contaminated with soil or that have been on any farmlands/rice fields?
  • Do you have any animal products such as food items and souvenirs such as skulls and untanned leather?

Make sure you answer these honestly. A false declaration may incur a $400 fine.

Farmworkers from overseas

If you're a farmworker coming from places where FMD is established (including Malaysia and Indonesia) be aware of New Zealand's travel requirements. You also cannot:

  • feed ruminant protein to other ruminants (such as cattle, sheep, lambs, goats, deer, alpacas, and llamas)
  • feed food to pigs that could contain (or have contacted) uncooked meat.

Campaign to raise FMD awareness for travellers – Media release

Declare or dispose: What you need to know

To make sure your arrival in New Zealand goes smoothly, you'll need to know about:  

  • Passenger Arrival Cards – these are usually given to you to complete by your crew on your way to New Zealand. The cards tell you what we consider are 'risk goods'
  • declaring all risk items on your card – goods like food, plants, wooden products, soil, water, outdoor equipment, and animal products. Declared risk goods may then be inspected
  • disposing of undeclared risk goods in marked amnesty bins on your arrival
  • prohibited and restricted items like products from endangered animal or plant species
  • infringement fees, fines and penalties for not declaring risk items on your Passenger Arrival Card.

Find information for travellers in other languages

Video – Welcome to Aotearoa (1:23)

Watch our in-flight biosecurity video. It reminds all international visitors about the importance of protecting Aotearoa from unwanted pests and diseases.

Transcript - show/hide

 

Welcome to Aotearoa.

Our country.

Our lakes, rivers, lands and seas.

Our home.

This fragile place is all we’ve got.

It’s vulnerable to pests and diseases.

That’s why we guard it, as if our way of life depends on it… Because it does. But we need your help.

Fruits, vegetables and eggs like these can’t be brought into New Zealand.

Nor can most meats, honey, cooking ingredients, herbs, and seeds or spices…

Anything made of plants or wood can carry unwanted pests or diseases that could destroy our natural environment.

Put any items you aren’t sure about in the airport amnesty bins.

Used outdoor equipment is a problem too.

If in doubt, declare it for inspection, on the arrival card.

Or ask a biosecurity officer like me.

Because once you arrive, your bags may be x-rayed and inspected.

And if you haven’t declared, you’ll be fined $400.

As a visitor here, I’ll be asking one thing of you:

Look after it. Protect it.

Declare or dispose risk items.

Avoid a $400 fine.

[end transcript]

You must declare risk goods

When you arrive in New Zealand, you'll have to complete a Passenger Arrival Card and declare any biosecurity risk items. The Customs website has an example of the card.

Passenger Arrival Card – Customs website

Note, the Passenger Arrival Card is a legal document. If you make a false or incorrect declaration – even by accident – you are breaking the law and you can be fined or put in prison.

It's not possible for us to list all the goods considered a risk. This is because an item's risk isn't always the same. It depends on things like the country it comes from, its ingredients, or packaging.

As part of the declaration process, an officer is likely to ask you questions to clearly establish what you are carrying. The answers you give in this interview are part of your declaration. If you give incomplete answers about your risk goods, you can still be fined or prosecuted if any are found during an inspection – even if you declared them on the Passenger Arrival Card.

Types of risk goods

WHAT FOOD AND OTHER ITEMS CAN YOU BRING?

Use our tool to help you find out

We've got a tool to help you quickly get an answer about whether your food or other item is allowed into New Zealand. We don't have everything listed in the tool but it covers the food and other items we most frequently get asked about. The tool will also tell you whether there are any weight or quantity restrictions.

Go to the tool – Check if you can bring or send an item to NZ

Types of risk goods

Your Passenger Arrival Card lists the kinds of items considered a potential risk to New Zealand:

  • Any food – cooked, uncooked, fresh, preserved, packaged or dried.
  • Animals or animal products – including meat, dairy products, fish, honey, bee products, eggs, feathers, shells, raw wool, skins, bones or insects.
  • Plants or plant products – fruit, flowers, seeds, bulbs, wood, bark, leaves, nuts, vegetables, parts of plants, fungi, cane, bamboo or straw, including for religious offerings or medicinal use.
  • Other biosecurity risk items –including animal medicines, herbal medicines, biological cultures, organisms, soil or water.
  • Equipment used with animals, plants or water – including for gardening, beekeeping, fishing, water sport or diving activities.
  • Items that have been used for outdoor or farming activities – including any footwear, tents, camping, hunting, hiking, golf or sports equipment.

Note that:

  • on arrival in New Zealand, your bags may be sniffed by detector dogs, x-rayed or searched.
  • detailed information about the requirements for bringing goods to New Zealand is in documents called import health standards.

What happens when you declare risk items?

Some of the risk items you declare may be allowed into the country:

  • if a quarantine officer at the border is satisfied your items pose no risk
  • after treatment of the risk items.

However, some items may not be allowed into the country under any circumstances and may be confiscated or destroyed.

Items that require treatment are sent to private independent treatment companies. You can collect items sent for treatment at a later date.

Find out more about risk items

Expand all

Inspecting and assessing your risk items

MPI quarantine officers will make a risk assessment of your declared items by asking you more questions or through a visual inspection. Sometimes they will need to refer to legal documents called import health standards. In general, if there is not an import health standard (IHS) for your item, it can't be brought into the country. (Import health standards are not generally for specific items but are more generic. For example, there is not an import health standard for milk but milk is covered in the IHS Specified foods for human consumption containing animal products as a "dairy product").

For items that are covered by an IHS, the standard gives information including:

  • packaging requirements
  • countries the item can come in from
  • any paperwork required with the item
  • any treatments the item may require prior to coming to New Zealand or on arrival.

Note that import health standards can change without notice. For example, if there was a disease outbreak overseas.

Find out more about import health standards

Failing to declare

People failing to declare biosecurity risk goods – even by accident – may be instantly fined an NZD$400 infringement fee. Anyone caught smuggling a prohibited or risk item could:

  • be fined up to NZD$100,000
  • face up to 5 years in prison
  • be deported.

Make sure you declare or dispose any risk goods. If in doubt, ask a quarantine officer when you arrive at the airport.

Find out more

Who to contact

If you have questions about what to declare, email info@mpi.govt.nz

New Zealand Traveller Declaration

Travellers are no longer required to complete a New Zealand Traveller Declaration to enter New Zealand. New Zealand’s COVID-19 entry requirements were removed on 20 October 2022.

  • Air travellers departing to New Zealand from Thursday 20 October 2022 do not need to complete a New Zealand Traveller Declaration.
  • If travellers have already completed a Traveller Declaration for travel from Thursday 20 October 2022, they will not be required to present a Traveller Pass on arrival in New Zealand.
  • Travellers no longer need to test for COVID-19 on arrival or prove their COVID-19 vaccination status to enter the country.
  • The declaration will be reintroduced in mid-2023 and will replace the paper Passenger Arrival Cards.
  • Travellers who are not a New Zealand or Australian citizen may need to apply for a visa or a New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority (NZeTA) to enter New Zealand. 

Note: Existing biosecurity requirements to declare or dispose of food and other risk items on arrival still apply.

Further information about the New Zealand Traveller Declaration is available at:

New Zealand Traveller Declaration

 

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