Half the imported timber the government tested could not be traced to its source. For builders, the problem is not just where the wood comes from. It is that the paperwork meant to prove it has stopped meaning much.

Here is the part that should stop any builder in their tracks. When the federal government quietly tested a batch of timber products sold in Australia, half of the imported samples could not be traced back to where the wood actually came from. Not some. Half.

And the products carrying private certification marks, the very stamps builders rely on to prove a product is clean, were wrong most of the time. Around 63 per cent of certified import samples were incorrectly labelled.

Every Australian grown sample, by contrast, matched its declared species and origin. The traceability problem is almost entirely an imported one. And right now, Australia has no independent system of its own to check any of it.

What the testing actually found

The findings come from a report by verification firm Source Certain, commissioned by the Department of Agriculture and released last year under freedom of information laws. Investigators combined market surveillance with laboratory analysis across more than 174 timber based products. Of the 74 imported items, 37 returned results inconsistent with their claimed origin or species. That is a 50 per cent failure rate on imports, and it lands at a time when imported engineered wood is doing more of the heavy lifting on Australian sites than ever. 

The categories that failed were not obscure. They included oak, teak and birch products, a range of softwoods, and manufactured items such as veneers, engineered wood and plywood. Source Certain singled out Russian plywood and laminated veneer lumber, including birch, larch and pine LVLs, alongside Chinese made veneers and plywood and Burmese teak as groups of particular concern.

The report stopped short of saying every mismatch was illegal. But it was blunt about what the scale of the discrepancies means. The volume of products with dubious provenance entering the Australian market is high enough to be a real problem, and the pattern matches what enforcement agencies have found in other countries with proper due diligence laws.

Why the certificate on the docket may not mean what you think

For most builders, provenance has never been something you test. It is something you trust. The product arrives with a certification mark, a chain of custody claim, a line on the docket, and that has always been enough. You order the LVL, it turns up certified, you build with it.

The testing pulls that assumption apart. Source Certain found that imported products commonly carried certification claims that were absent, expired, inconsistent with the certifier’s own records, or otherwise unreliable. In plain terms, the stamp was on the product but the record behind it did not hold up.

Importers are likely relying too heavily on third party certification as a solution to conclude the risk of illegal provenance is negligible. The report says the findings undermine the credibility of the certification mark itself.

That matters because certification is the entire basis on which Australia currently manages timber origin risk. The country runs no independent origin testing programme of its own. There is no government lab routinely checking whether the larch beam in a frame is actually from where the paperwork says. The assurance starts and ends with a certificate, and the testing says the certificate is the weak point.

How this connects to the Russian timber story

This is where the traceability gap stops being abstract. For the past few months the trade story dominating timber coverage has been Russian wood reaching Australian building sites despite sanctions, rerouted and milled through China to dodge the 35 per cent tariff Australia placed on Russian goods in April 2022. The shifting trade conditions builders are now navigating sit underneath all of it.

The Australian Forest Products Association estimates up to 100,000 cubic metres of timber carrying Russian origin wood enters Australia each year, and that as many as 15,000 new homes built annually could contain it. Declared LVL imports hit 205,343 cubic metres in the year to October 2025, a 63 per cent jump, with China supplying 69 per cent of that total as its prices fell by more than 60 per cent.

Tariffs were supposed to stop this. The reason they have not is the same reason the certification system is failing. Both depend on a country of origin declaration. Once Russian timber is milled into LVL or plywood across a border, it clears the substantial transformation test and is declared as a product of China. The tariff never applies, and the certificate follows the new declaration, not the original log.

Timber NSW made exactly this point in its submission to the Senate inquiry now examining the issue. Its chief executive Maree McCaskill argued that lifting the tariff alone will not work, because the whole regime relies on origin declarations that cannot be trusted. The body wants origin testing tightened, not just duties raised.

Australia is now the outlier

The international comparison is not flattering. The European Union has banned timber originating in Russia or Belarus and, in April this year, tightened its rules specifically to close the third country routing loophole that lets Russian wood enter once it has been processed elsewhere. The United Kingdom has prohibited any direct or indirect purchase of Russian timber products.

Australia has taken neither step. Its 35 per cent tariff applies only to timber declared as Russian in origin, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has said importers are expected to conduct their own due diligence on their supply chains. That expectation is doing a lot of work, given the government’s own commissioned testing found provenance could not be verified half the time.

With Western markets sealing themselves off, the rerouted product has to go somewhere. A country that relies on certificates it cannot independently check, and applies no origin testing of its own, is a logical destination.

What this means if you are the one buying

None of this is the builder’s fault. You are not running a forensic timber lab out of the site shed, and you were never asked to. The system was built so you would not have to. The point is that the system has a hole in it, and until it is fixed, knowing the hole is there changes how you buy.

A few practical shifts are worth thinking about. None of them require you to become a provenance expert overnight.

• Treat the certificate as a starting point, not a guarantee. If a product’s origin matters to you, your client, or your compliance position, ask the supplier to stand behind the chain of custody in writing, not just hand over a stamp.
• Know which products carry the most risk. The testing pointed at engineered wood, plywood, veneers and LVL, and at birch, larch and pine specifically. These are structural products, not finishes, which makes the provenance question harder to wave away.
• Ask your merchant where their LVL and plywood is milled and sourced. A supplier who can answer clearly is managing the risk. A supplier who cannot is passing it to you.
• Keep your own records. If provenance ever becomes a contractual or compliance question on a job, the builder who documented what they were told and what they ordered is in a far stronger position than the one relying on memory.

This is fundamentally a knowledge gap, not a conduct problem. The information needed to buy carefully has not been put in builders’ hands, and the checks that should sit upstream are not there. Where provenance touches your compliance and regulatory obligations, that gap is worth closing on your own terms rather than waiting for the rules to catch up.

Where this goes next

The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee has been examining the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia, with timber industry submissions pressing for the tariff to be extended to all products containing Russian material, for anti dumping action, and for proactive checks at the border. The committee’s report is due in the second half of 2026.

Source Certain’s own recommendation goes further than the tariff debate. It argues Australia should move away from a paperwork based model of assurance toward a testing based one, embedding routine species and provenance verification into procurement and compliance, backed by real enforcement. In other words, stop taking the certificate’s word for it and check the wood.

Whether government acts on that is a policy question. What builders can do in the meantime is simpler. Understand that the certificate has lost some of its weight, ask better questions of the people selling you structural timber, and keep a record of the answers.

Your Questions Answered:

Is Russian timber still entering Australia despite sanctions?

Yes. Australia placed a 35 per cent tariff on Russian timber in April 2022, but industry bodies say the product is still arriving, just relabelled. Russian logs are shipped to China and milled into engineered products like LVL and plywood. Once that happens, the finished item clears the substantial transformation test and is declared a product of China, so the tariff never applies. The Australian Forest Products Association estimates up to 100,000 cubic metres of timber carrying Russian origin wood enters Australia each year, and that as many as 15,000 new homes built annually could contain it.

How much imported timber fails origin testing in Australia?

Half of it, in the one government commissioned test we have. A report by verification firm Source Certain, prepared for the Department of Agriculture and released under freedom of information laws, examined more than 174 timber based products. Of the 74 imported items, 37 came back inconsistent with their declared species or origin. That is a 50 per cent failure rate on imports. Every Australian grown sample, by contrast, matched. The traceability problem is almost entirely an imported one.

Does FSC or private certification guarantee a timber product’s origin?

No, and that is the uncomfortable part. The same testing found that around 63 per cent of imported samples carrying private certification marks were incorrectly labelled. Certification claims were sometimes absent, expired, inconsistent with the certifier’s own records, or otherwise unreliable. The stamp was on the product, but the record behind it did not hold up. Certification is still useful as a signal, but the testing shows it cannot be treated as proof of origin on its own.

Does Australia have its own timber origin testing programme?

No. Australia runs no independent origin testing scheme of its own. There is no government lab routinely checking whether the species and source on the docket match the actual wood. The country relies almost entirely on certification and country of origin declarations for assurance, which is exactly the system the government’s own commissioned testing found to be unreliable. The technology to verify where a log was cut exists, but it is not currently built into Australian procurement or compliance.

What should builders ask suppliers about LVL and plywood provenance?

Ask where it is milled and where the raw timber is sourced, and get the answer in writing where it matters. Engineered products like LVL, plywood and veneers carry the most risk, particularly birch, larch and pine, because that is where the testing found the most mismatches. A merchant who can clearly state the milling country and stand behind the chain of custody is managing the risk for you. One who cannot is passing it to you. Keep your own record of what you were told and what you ordered, so provenance is documented if it ever becomes a contractual or compliance question on a job.

Last updated: 23 June 2026

Sources: Source Certain report for the Department of Agriculture (FOI, 2025); AFPA and Timber NSW submissions to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee; DFAT statements; EU and UK sanctions measures, as reported by Wood Central and the Sydney Morning Herald.

This article is general news analysis for the Australian building industry and does not constitute legal, financial or compliance advice. Builders with specific concerns about timber sourcing obligations should seek advice relevant to their state and circumstances. The Good Builder is not a law firm or financial adviser.

Author: TGB Editorial