What you can take into
the Cook Islands

 

One of the most important things to check up on when planning a visit to a country is its customs laws and banned items.

The Cook Islands has a reasonable limit for duty-free items if you are over the age of 18.

And, for smokers, it is a heaven-sent opportunity to stock up as the cost of bringing smokes or tobacco on your way out of the Cook Islands is possibly the cheapest in the world.

Feel like paying NZ$40 for five packets of roll-your-own tobacco? Then this is the place.

Otherwise the duty-free limits are pretty normal.

Smokers can take in 200 cigarettes, or one kilogram of tobacco, or 50 cigars.

And drinkers can take 4.5 litres of wine, or 4.5 litres of beer, two litres of spirits, liqueur, or other spirituous beverages.

You may take in goods worth up to $250 and your own perfumes.

What you can't take into the Cook Islands

Banned imports to the Cook Islands include fruit, meat, livestock, drugs, indecent or pornographic material, fireworks, firearms, gunpowder and ammunition.

When Leaving the Cook Islands

There is a $55 departure tax that can be paid either at the airport, or at Westpac banks.

- Richard Moore