New Caledonia

Conditional and arrival-direction only: no form is filed by every traveller. The duty to declare arises only for a traveller ARRIVING in New Caledonia who carries goods that must be declared — prohibited or authorisation-required goods, goods exceeding the traveller franchise in quantity or value, goods carried professionally or beyond strict personal/family use, goods under temporary admission, or duty-free purchases. A traveller with nothing to declare simply uses the green channel (« Si vous n'avez rien à déclarer, vous pouvez passer au filtre vert »), no proactive submission being required, although customs may stop any traveller at any time. Submission medium: in person, at the border — at Tontouta, after immigration formalities and baggage reclaim, a traveller with goods to declare, or unsure whether goods must be declared, must present himself voluntarily to a customs officer (« vous devez vous présenter volontairement à un agent des douanes »). New Caledonia has customs and fiscal autonomy: its rules are specific and distinct from metropolitan France's and from any other collectivity's (« La fiscalité et les règles douanières en Nouvelle-Calédonie sont spécifiques »), so metropolitan franchise levels do not apply; duties and taxes on goods beyond the franchise are paid at the customs office (DGDDI: « acquitter les droits et taxes correspondants au bureau de douane »). Goods to declare whatever their origin or provenance: (1) prohibited or authorisation-required goods (weapons, drugs, items from protected species, radio equipment, import-quota goods including tobacco beyond franchise); (2) goods exceeding a per-traveller QUANTITY threshold (tobacco, alcohol, perfumes, eaux de toilette, coffee or tea); (3) any other goods exceeding the per-traveller VALUE franchise (table below); (4) goods carried professionally or beyond strict personal/family use; (5) temporary-admission goods, notably under an ATA carnet. Cross-border cash is a separate, both-direction duty (see NC-cash-declaration), not an item of this arrival goods declaration. Traveller franchise on arrival (achats ou cadeaux): tobacco — 200 cigarettes OR 100 cigarillos OR 50 cigars OR 250 g of smoking tobacco; alcoholic beverages — wines 2 litres AND (spirits/alcoholic beverages over 22°: 1 litre OR alcoholic beverages under 22°: 2 litres); coffee — 500 g OR 200 g of extracts and essences; tea — 100 g OR 50 g of extracts and essences; perfumes — 50 g; eaux de toilette — 25 centilitres; other goods — 30,000 XPF per traveller aged 15 and over (15,000 XPF per traveller under 15). Travellers aged UNDER 17 (« âgés de moins de 17 ans », i.e. 16 and below — the limit is 17, not 18) may not import tobacco or alcoholic beverages duty-free. Franchises may not be pooled by several persons for the same object, and an object whose value exceeds the franchise is taxed on its FULL value without abatement. Duty-free purchases (duty free at port, airport or aircraft, or under bordereaux de détaxe) are subject to declaration on arrival, customs collecting the duties and taxes due after applying the franchises.

Conditional, BOTH directions: the duty arises only where a natural person transports, across a border between French territory and foreign territory (« lors de tout passage de frontière entre un territoire français et étranger »), sums (cash or cheques), titles (shares, bonds, etc.) or valeurs of an amount equal to or greater than EUR 10,000 (« égal ou supérieur à 10 000 euros »), for his own account or that of another person, natural or legal (« pour son compte ou celui d'autrui »), whether or not he owns the money; travellers below the threshold file nothing. The paper form expressly covers entries and exits (by sea, air, post); the DALIA teleservice covers transports and shipments of cash to or from abroad. XPF side, deliberately not normalised: the regional page converts the threshold as « soit 1 193 317 XPF ou équivalent en devises », the DGDDI central page as « 1 193 300 francs CFP » (a 17 XPF difference), and the regional Tontouta arrival list uses « dépassant 1 193 317 XPF » (exceeding) whereas the regional cash section uses « égal ou supérieur » for EUR — so the EUR ≥ 10,000 rule is the operative threshold and the exact-XPF boundary is left open (see unresolved NC-cash-xpf-threshold-boundary). Route exemption: only itineraries in direct connection between two French zones are exempt (« seuls les itinéraires en correspondance directe entre 2 zones françaises sont dispensés de l'obligation déclarative de capitaux »); example: from New Caledonia to Metropolitan France with a stopover in a foreign country (Singapore, Japan...) the capital declaration is obligatory even if passengers remain in the transit zone; listed exempt examples are direct flights New Caledonia ↔ Wallis-et-Futuna (except with a stopover via Fiji) and New Caledonia ↔ French Polynesia; if a flight is diverted to a foreign country, a capital declaration may be required on arrival on French soil. Submission medium: online filing via the DALIA teleservice is the rule (« la télé-déclaration (via DALIA) devient la règle »), accessible on computer, smartphone and tablet, with or without a DALIA account; account creation is « rapide, facile et gratuite » and gives pre-filling of later declarations and a history (DKS). If online filing is impossible: a signed written declaration (form CERFA 13426*05) in duplicate may be deposited with the customs service concerned (sea, air and post deposit points are listed on the regional page) at the latest at the moment of entry into or exit from French territory or of the transfer of the funds; the form may IN ADDITION be sent to those services by post, in duplicate and signed, at most five days before the border crossing — an option, not an obligation on ordinary travellers. At a customs check at the border the declarant/passenger must present the complete and valid declaration, as a dematerialised version downloadable from the teleservice or a paper version printable from it; any breach of the declaration obligation is subject to sanctions. The central DGDDI DALIA service page (updated 14/04/2026) expressly lists New Caledonia (with Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, French Polynesia and the islands of Wallis and Futuna) for transports and shipments of cash from or to abroad, under articles L722-6 and L722-7 of the code monétaire et financier.