I have a German friend who wishes to hunt in Australia next year whom I think is mistaken in the legal requirements of taking his firearms out of Germany and returning with them.

This is a language communication problem, but I believe he thinks if he takes his rifle out of Germany when he returns it is confiscated and it takes about two months to be returned to him.

But I have also been told the German legal requirements are not a lot different to Australia where as long as the citizen obtains an export and re-import firearms permit for rifle and any ammunition then everything is usually OK. This also makes sense to me as otherwise how can a lot of German hunters hunt in Africa with their own rifles.

I would appreciate any information on what permits are required, preferably the actual German names of the permits and how my friend woul go about obtaining them. I specifically mean the German documents as I can work out the Australian side of any documentation.

Also the name of one or two very good German language hunting forums, which I can direct my friend to, where maybe similar information is already available.

Thank you for any help.

No problem at all to be expected. I just came back from a hunting trip to Canada, even the transit through the US was completely troublefree.

If the guns are indicated in his permit (Waffenbesitzkarte), all he has to do is to declare them on reentry, the customs officer checks the serial number and that's it.

Hi NitroX,

I just can confirm what DUK has said - no problems whatsoever. If the gun is in his gun ownership card ("Waffenbesitzkarte"), then he can simply go to the airline counter, tell them that he is travelling with a gun, then they will call the border police which is checking his gun ownership card and that's it (For sure he needs to pack it in a locked gun case and have the ammo separate).

In addition, he also needs a customs form (it's called INF3) where his gun(s) are registered so when reentering customs knows that he is not importing guns from outside Germany.

When returning he simply gets his gun case and then walks to the border police, tell them I bring back my gun, show them the gun ownership card (and the INF3 form) if they are asking and that's it...

(When travelling with guns within the European Union he also needs a European Firearms Pass, but that's another story...)

The best german hunting forum is the Wild&Hund-Forum.

Best regards,

Erik