Setting up an online business in Australia, registrations, fees and timelines

You have decided to launch. The product range is settled, the supplier is lined up, and you have already told friends you are starting an online store. What remains is the part that looks bureaucratic but decides how much risk you carry: getting the business registered in the order the system requires.

When the sequence is finished you will have an Australian Business Number (ABN) recorded on the Australian Business Register, a business name registration lodged with ASIC, a GST registration where your turnover requires one, a .au domain pointed at your site, and a set of terms and policies published before the first sale. Two things trip people up at the start. An ABN does not register your business, and a business name registration does not give you exclusive rights to the name. A sole trader trading under their own name does not need a business name at all. Knowing what each step actually produces is half the battle.

Before you start: the prerequisites

Work through this list before you touch a registration form. Each item is something you can mentally tick off:

A structure decision: whether you operate as a sole trader, partnership, company or trust. This is the prerequisite people skip, and it is the one that sends them backwards, because every registration after it assumes the structure is settled.
A shortlist of names: checked against the ASIC business names register and IP Australia's trade mark search before you pay for anything.
Your tax file number and identity documents: the ABN application asks for them.
An Australian presence: you generally need to be an Australian resident or entity to hold an ABN and to register most .au domains.
A fee budget: ASIC's company registration fee is $611 (from 1 July 2025, indexed each year), a business name costs $47 for one year or $108 for three, and domain and trade mark costs sit on top.
A tax plan: who your accountant is, whether GST will apply to your sales, and whether you will have employees from day one.

The registration sequence

The order below is not a suggestion; it is the order the external systems impose. ASIC registers companies, the Australian Business Register issues ABNs, and the ATO handles GST. Each step hands you the identifier the next step asks for.

Step 1: Decide the structure the registrations hang off

Every form in this process asks for your structure first, so settle it before lodging anything. The main options are:

Sole trader: lowest cost and least paperwork. You keep the profits and you are personally liable for debts and claims, so your personal assets are exposed.
Partnership: two or more people carry on business together. A written partnership agreement should cover how profits, losses and decisions are shared, because partners are personally liable for the partnership's obligations.
Company (Pty Ltd): a separate legal entity registered with ASIC. Shareholders generally have limited liability, which makes it the usual choice if you expect to scale, sign contracts with larger clients or take on investors. It costs more to establish and carries ongoing reporting obligations.
Trust: sometimes used for asset protection or tax planning. It is more complex to establish and administer and is best set up with professional advice.

There is no right answer that applies to everyone. The decision turns on your risk profile, your plans and your budget, and it drives which of the next steps you take at all.

Step 2: Register a company with ASIC before anything else

If you are incorporating, the company comes first because the ABN application will ask for its Australian Company Number (ACN). Under s 117 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), a person must lodge an application with ASIC to register a company. In practice you lodge online through the Business Registration Service (register.business.gov.au) or ASIC Connect, using Form 201.

What you need to provide includes the proposed company name, the address of the registered office, and the names, addresses and birth dates of everyone consenting to be a director, secretary or member. If you want to hold a name before lodging, you can reserve it with ASIC for a small fee. The key details of the step are:

Fee: $611 from 1 July 2025 for a proprietary company with share capital, per ASIC's fees for commonly lodged documents. Fees are indexed each 1 July in line with the Consumer Price Index.
What you get: an ACN and a company that exists as a separate legal entity from the day it is registered.
What follows: an annual review fee each year and ongoing obligations such as lodgement of financial reports and notifications of changes in directors or officeholders.

The main hold-up here is treating company registration as optional or rushing it at the last minute. It is the slowest of the identifier steps to unpick, because your ABN, bank account and contracts will all be issued in the company's name.

Step 3: Apply for your ABN

The ABN is the identifier your business uses to deal with government, to invoice, to claim GST credits and to open trade accounts. It is issued by the Australian Business Register, and the application is free. The practical details are:

Where: online through the Australian Business Register or the Business Registration Service. You can apply for an ABN, a business name and GST in one pass through the Business Registration Service once your structure is decided.
What you need: your TFN for a sole trader, or the company's ACN and details for a company.
Timing: if you supply all the information required, you usually receive notification of your ABN immediately on completing the application. If information is missing or cannot be verified, the application is processed manually and can take up to 28 days, so allow that buffer if you are working to a launch date.
What you get: an 11-digit ABN and an entry on the public Australian Business Register.

One ABN covers any number of activities carried on under the same structure. If you later run a second business under a different structure, it needs its own ABN.

Step 4: Register your business name

You must register a business name with ASIC if you trade under a name that is not your personal name (for a sole trader) or your company's legal name. The registration is national, so there is no separate state or territory registration. What you need to know:

Prerequisite: an ABN, or at least an application for one, must be in place first.
Where and how: through the Business Registration Service or ASIC's online system. ASIC's register a business name page sets out the process, and business.gov.au publishes the current fees.
Fees: $47 for one year or $108 for three years.
Timing: if you provide the right information and pay by credit card, confirmation usually arrives within 2 business days; payment by BPAY, EFT or bank transfer takes about 5 business days.
What you get: a record on the national Business Names Register and the right to trade under that name. You must display the name on your website and include it on invoices, quotes and other written communications, and you must renew before the registration expires or ASIC may cancel it.

The trap is what the registration does not do. Holding a business name does not stop another business from using the same or a similar name. Exclusive rights come only from a trade mark, which is covered in Step 6.

Step 5: Register for GST when your turnover requires it

GST is a 10% tax on most goods and services sold or consumed in Australia. You must register for GST once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 or more in a 12-month period, per the ATO's registering for GST guidance. The threshold for not-for-profits is $150,000, and some activities, such as ride sourcing, must register regardless of turnover. The essentials are:

How: through the ATO, usually online, or as part of a combined application in the Business Registration Service.
What happens if you miss it: you must register from the date you were required to, and penalties can apply for failing to register when required.
What you get: the ability to collect GST on your sales, claim credits for GST paid on your business purchases, and issue tax invoices.

If you will have employees from the start, also ask your accountant about PAYG withholding, which requires its own ATO registration.

Step 6: Secure your name territory: domain and trade mark

Your name is protected in two separate places, and they work differently:

Domain: register the .au or .com.au domain that matches your brand through an auDA-accredited registrar. You can register a domain before the site is built, and you generally need an Australian presence to hold most .au domains. If the domain you want is taken, this is the moment to discover it, not after your packaging and social handles are printed.
Trade mark: a business name registration does not give you exclusive rights, so if your brand is valuable, apply to register a trade mark with IP Australia. Run a search on the business names register and IP Australia's trade mark search tools before you commit to branding, because a name that is identical or confusingly similar to an existing trade mark is a rejection risk and an infringement risk.

Trade mark registration takes considerably longer than the ABN and business name steps, so file the application early and treat it as running in parallel with everything else.

Step 7: Put your website terms and policies in place before the first sale

The registrations make the business legal; the documents on the site make the trading legal. Before you take the first order, publish the following:

Website terms and e-commerce terms: cover how customers use the site and how you sell, including pricing, payment, delivery timeframes, returns and refunds. The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) (Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) applies to sales to Australian consumers, so product descriptions and promotions must be accurate, prices must be clear, and you must provide remedies when consumer guarantees are not met.
Unfair contract terms check: under s 23 of the ACL, a term of a standard form consumer or small business contract is void if it is unfair, and a term is presumed to be in a standard form contract unless proven otherwise. Regulators can now also seek penalties for proposing or relying on unfair terms, so have a lawyer review your terms rather than copying a template.
Privacy policy: under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), you are an APP entity required to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles if your annual turnover is more than $3 million, or if you fall within an exception, such as providing health services, trading in personal information or handling tax file numbers. APP entities must also comply with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme in Part IIIC of the Act and notify affected individuals and the OAIC when an eligible data breach occurs. Even below the threshold, payment providers and platforms will expect a privacy policy that says what you collect, why, and how it is stored.
Marketing compliance: under the Spam Act 2003 (Cth), commercial emails and SMS must be sent with consent, must accurately identify you as the sender, and must include a functional unsubscribe facility that works for at least 30 days. Keep records of how consent was obtained.
Licences and staffing: check whether your products or services need a licence or permit (for example, for regulated goods), and if you are hiring, put employment or contractor agreements in place that assign intellectual property to the business.

Where people get held up

The points below are where the sequence most often comes unstuck:

Applying for an ABN before the company exists: the ABN application for a company needs the ACN, so incorporating first is not optional. It is also pointless to hold an ABN as a sole trader and then register a company, because the company needs its own ABN.
Committing to a name that cannot be registered: if the business name is already taken or clashes with an existing trade mark, your application is rejected and your branding work is wasted. Check availability before you pay for the domain or print anything.
Missing the GST trigger: trading past the $75,000 threshold without registering means your registration is backdated to when it was required, and penalties can apply. Review your turnover against the threshold quarterly, not at year end.
Confusing the business name with brand protection: the business name register is not a trade mark register. A similar name can be used by someone else unless you hold a trade mark.

Where professional help is usually required

A lawyer does not sit in the queue for you at the Business Registration Service, but there are steps where advice is worth the fee:

Structure selection: the trade-offs between personal liability, tax and admin costs across sole trader, partnership, company and trust structures, and what each means for your particular plans.
Company paperwork: drafting the constitution, and a shareholders agreement if you have co-founders, covering ownership, decision-making, vesting and what happens if someone leaves.
Trade mark clearance and filing: searching existing marks, assessing confusing similarity, and preparing the specification of goods and services for the application.
Website terms and policies: drafting privacy, website and e-commerce terms that match how your checkout, shipping, returns and marketing actually operate, and checking them against the unfair contract terms rules.
Hiring documents: employment contracts, contractor agreements and IP assignment clauses that protect the business.
Troubleshooting: name objections, ASIC rejections, licence questions and anything that comes back from a regulator after launch.

The decision that drives the whole sequence

The single decision that determines whether this process goes smoothly is made before you lodge anything: the structure you choose, and the name you clear against the registers and trade marks. Every external step is built on those two choices. The company registration, the ABN, the business name and the GST registration each ask for the structure and the name, and changing either one later means unpicking registrations, contracts and banking issued in the old form. Spend the time on those two decisions first and the sequence runs quickly; skip them and you will loop backwards through every step.

To summarise the path: settle the structure, register the company with ASIC if you are incorporating, apply for the free ABN, register the business name if you trade under one, register for GST when your turnover passes $75,000, secure the domain and file the trade mark early, and publish tailored website terms, a privacy policy and compliant marketing practices before the first order ships. Each step produces a specific identifier or document, and the fees and timing are set out above so you can plan the sequence around a launch date rather than discovering them as you go.