Now lawBusiness & Trade Introduced in the House of Representatives, 09 Oct 2025

ASIC company fees from 2011 to 2025 confirmed as legal

A slip in some 2011 rules meant some company fees were worked out in a way the rules did not clearly allow. This law says those fees were legal all along. Nobody has to pay more or get money back.

Official name: Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025

Who it affects

• Company owners: The fees you already paid stay as they were. There is no extra bill and no refund.
• Companies that paid late fees or 10 year up-front fees: The amounts you paid between 2011 and 2025 are now confirmed as legal.
• Special purpose companies: Their lower yearly fees charged in that time are confirmed as legal.
• The company and finance watchdog: It no longer faces doubt about whether it had the power to collect those fees.

A 2011 fee rule mistake

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is the company and finance watchdog. It keeps the official list of companies. It checks that they follow the rules.

Every company pays the watchdog a review fee each year. It is due on the date the company was first set up. The amounts are set in detailed rules the government writes without a new vote. The fees go up each year to keep up with prices.

In 2011 the government changed those rules. It raised the base amount for some fees. It left others the same. But the words about how fees rise each year did not match what the government meant.

The watchdog kept charging fees the way the government meant. Then it did a routine check. It found the written rules did not clearly back up how it had worked out some fees.

Which fees were affected

The problem hit three kinds of fee. Late fees are charged when a company pays its yearly fee late. A 10 year up-front fee lets some companies pay ten years of fees in one go.

Special purpose companies are some kinds of company that pay a lower yearly fee. Some of them hold property or money for other people.

The government fixed the rules in 2025. The new rules started on 12 March 2025. That left the question of fees charged in the years before the fix.

What the law does

The law adds a new section 7A to the Corporations (Review Fees) Act 2003. That is the law that sets the yearly company fees. It covers fees for review dates from 1 July 2011 up to 11 March 2025.

It says those fees count, and always counted, as the amount the government meant. So every fee the watchdog collected in that time counts as charged the right way.

This law is backdated. It reaches back and changes how the law is read for past years. The government says this is needed so the law matches what it always meant. It says companies that paid are not affected in real life.

Say you run a small building company. You paid a late fee in 2018. Without this law, someone could argue the amount was not properly allowed. With it, your fee stands as charged. You owe nothing more, and you get no refund.

Start date

This bill is now law. The Treasurer is the minister in charge of the economy. The Treasurer's team brought it into the House of Representatives on 9 October 2025. The House passed it on 3 February 2026. The Senate, Parliament's second house, passed it on 5 March 2026.

The Governor-General, the King's representative, signed it into law on 13 March 2026. It became Act number 6 of 2026. It started the day after it was signed.

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum

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