$75,000: Do Australian Small Businesses Have to Charge GST on Invoices? [2026 Guide]

Whether GST belongs on an Australian invoice in 2026 comes down to one number. Once a business’s GST turnover reaches $75,000 ($150,000 for non-profit organizations), registering for GST and charging it on every taxable sale becomes compulsory, according to the Australian Taxation Office. Below that line, charging GST is not just unnecessary, it is not allowed at all. This guide covers the decisions that number sets off: when to charge GST, how to price a quote GST-inclusive instead of GST-exclusive, the invoicing mistakes that trip up small businesses on both sides of the threshold, and how the BAS reporting calendar changes with turnover.

Do you have to charge GST on your invoices?

Only a business that is registered for GST, or required to be, can put GST on an invoice. Registration becomes compulsory once GST turnover for the current month plus the previous 11 reaches $75,000, or $150,000 for a non-profit organization, or once that total is projected to reach $75,000 in the current month plus the next 11, according to the ATO. A business that has not crossed either test, and has not chosen to register voluntarily, is simply not part of the GST system yet, and no invoice it issues should carry GST at all.

Figure 1: The GST turnover at which registering for GST, and charging it on invoices, becomes compulsory. Source: Australian Taxation Office, Registering for GST.

That $75,000 figure has not moved since GST began on 1 July 2000, so it is not indexed to inflation the way an income tax bracket might be, which means the share of small businesses crossing it only grows over time as prices rise. Working out whether a business has actually reached it is less a single lookup than an ongoing calculation, and the ATO’s own example is a useful sanity check on how that plays out in practice. A sole trader named Barry sells specialized car parts; at the end of May, his current GST turnover, the trailing 12 months of gross business income, sits at $31,170, comfortably under the threshold. That figure alone does not settle the question, because the ATO also requires a projected turnover test: the current month’s income plus the estimated next 11 months. Barry has to keep recalculating that projection every month, since the moment either the current or the projected figure reaches $75,000, the 21-day registration clock starts, whichever test trips it first, not necessarily the one a business owner happens to be watching.

Figure 2: A sole trader’s current GST turnover measured against the $75,000 registration threshold, from the ATO’s own worked example. Source: Australian Taxation Office, Registering for GST.

A business under $75,000 can also choose to register voluntarily, most often to claim GST credits on its own purchases, and once it does, the same charging obligation applies exactly as if it had crossed the threshold. There is no in-between status: for GST purposes, a business is either registered, and must charge GST on its taxable sales, or it is not, and must not.

Should your invoice price be GST-inclusive or GST-exclusive?

For anything advertised or quoted to a consumer, GST-inclusive. Australian Consumer Law requires a business to display the total price of a product or service as a single figure, the minimum total amount a customer could actually be asked to pay, including GST and any other mandatory charge, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

That single-figure rule means a GST-registered business advertising or quoting a job to a consumer should lead with the GST-inclusive total, not a GST-exclusive number with the tax added on afterward. A tradie who quotes “installation: $500” and then adds $50 GST as a surprise on the final invoice has not just handled the paperwork awkwardly, the exclusive figure was never a complete price under the ACCC’s own rule. The fix is straightforward: quote and invoice on the number the customer actually pays, and show the GST-exclusive amount and the GST component as a breakdown underneath if it helps, as long as the inclusive total is displayed at least as prominently. For invoices between two GST-registered businesses, a separate set of ATO tax invoice content rules, not this consumer pricing rule, governs the exact format instead, including when the wording “Total price includes GST” can stand in for a separate GST line.

What are the most common GST invoicing mistakes small businesses make?

The two most expensive mistakes sit on opposite sides of the $75,000 line: charging GST without being registered for it, and not charging GST after registration was already required. A handful of smaller mistakes show up constantly too, and most of them trace back to treating GST as a percentage trick rather than a registration status.

Figure 3: Only a business that is registered for GST, or required to be, is allowed to charge it on an invoice. Source: Australian Taxation Office, When you cannot claim a GST credit.

Charging GST while not registered, or not required to be, is not just a paperwork slip. The ATO’s own guidance on claiming GST credits states that a supplier who is not registered, or required to be registered, for GST cannot charge GST, which means a customer billed GST by such a supplier has been charged for something that was never legitimately payable, and cannot claim a GST credit for it either. Running the mistake the other way is just as costly: a business that crosses $75,000 and keeps invoicing without GST can end up owing GST on every sale made since the date it should have registered, even on invoices where the customer was never billed for it, on top of the shortfall itself.

Beyond that binary, a couple of smaller errors turn up on Australian invoices repeatedly. Taking 10% of a GST-inclusive price instead of dividing it by 11 overstates the GST component on every affected invoice, a mistake BillyPaid’s 1/11 rule breakdown already covers in full with worked examples. Missing a required field, most often the buyer’s ABN on a sale of $1,000 or more, or the words “tax invoice” itself, makes an otherwise correct-looking invoice technically non-compliant, the exact requirements set out in BillyPaid’s Australian tax invoice requirements guide.

How often do you need to lodge a BAS for GST?

It depends on GST turnover, not on how the business happens to charge GST. Most small businesses report and pay quarterly by default, businesses with GST turnover of $20 million or more must report monthly, and a business that is only voluntarily registered under the $75,000 threshold can elect to report annually instead, according to the ATO.

GST turnover	Reporting cadence	Typical due date
Voluntarily registered, under $75,000	Annual (optional)	31 October
$75,000 up to $20 million	Quarterly (default; monthly optional)	28 Oct, 28 Feb, 28 Apr, 28 Jul
$20 million or more	Monthly (mandatory)	21st of the following month

Table 1: Australia’s GST reporting cadence at a glance, by turnover tier. Source: Australian Taxation Office, Due dates for lodging and paying your BAS.

Figure 4: How many days sit between the end of each quarter and its BAS due date. The December quarter’s 28 February due date already carries a built-in one month extension. Source: Australian Taxation Office, Due dates for lodging and paying your BAS.

Most small businesses never move off that quarterly default, and the ATO does not expect them to. Quarterly filers use one of three reporting methods, the full method, the Simpler BAS method for GST turnover under $10 million, or GST installments, where the business pays a fixed quarterly amount and reconciles the actual figure once a year. A business can also opt into monthly reporting voluntarily below the $20 million threshold, usually to smooth out cash flow with smaller, more frequent payments rather than one larger quarterly bill, or because it fits more naturally alongside other monthly bookkeeping. Nothing about the cadence changes what a business owes, only how often it has to sit down and calculate it, which is exactly why the turnover-based trigger points matter more than any preference for filing often or rarely.

Figure 5: The turnover gap between a business that is still eligible for voluntary annual GST reporting and one where monthly reporting becomes mandatory. Source: Australian Taxation Office, Registering for GST; Monthly GST reporting.

The gap in that last chart is deliberate context, not a rounding artifact: a business can be more than 260 times larger than the voluntary-registration ceiling and still be reporting quarterly, since $20 million is where monthly reporting turns mandatory, not where it merely becomes available. For the fuller picture of how consistently Australian businesses actually meet these deadlines, BillyPaid’s BAS lodgment guide covers on-time lodgment rates in detail.

Why does getting GST right on an invoice affect how fast you get paid?

A GST error, whether it is charging GST without being registered, missing the ABN field, or quoting a GST-exclusive number a customer did not expect, is one of the most common reasons an Australian invoice gets kicked back for correction instead of paid, and every day spent fixing and resending it is a day added onto an already slow-paying market.

Australian small businesses are already paid an average of 6.9 days late (Xero Small Business Insights, March quarter 2026), a gap BillyPaid’s Australian late payment data covers in full. A rejected or corrected invoice, for a GST error or anything else, adds directly onto that number rather than resetting the clock, since most payment terms only start counting from a valid invoice in the first place.

The Bottom Line

GST on an Australian invoice comes down to three questions, not one calculation. Is the business registered, or required to be, at $75,000 turnover? Is the price shown to the customer the GST-inclusive total, the number Australian Consumer Law actually requires? And does the BAS get lodged on the cadence that turnover, not preference, sets: quarterly by default, monthly at $20 million, or annually only if voluntarily registered under the threshold? Getting any one of the three wrong turns a routine invoice into a correction, a dispute, or in the worst case a retroactive GST bill.

BillyPaid’s invoice generator applies the correct GST-inclusive total automatically once a business marks itself as GST-registered, calculates the 1/11 GST component on every line without the 10%-of-the-total mistake, and keeps every invoice formatted to the ATO’s tax invoice rules by default, so the registration decision only has to be made once, not re-solved on every invoice a small business sends.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do all small businesses in Australia have to charge GST on their invoices?

No. Only businesses that are registered for GST, or required to be because their GST turnover has reached $75,000 ($150,000 for non-profit organizations), charge GST on their invoices. A business under that threshold that has not voluntarily registered is not registered for GST and, according to the Australian Taxation Office, cannot charge GST at all.

Should a price I quote a customer include GST or not?

For anything advertised or quoted to a consumer, Australian Consumer Law requires the total price displayed to be a single figure, the minimum amount the customer could pay, including GST and any other mandatory charge, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. A GST-registered business quoting a job should show the GST-inclusive total as the headline price, not a GST-exclusive number with the tax added on later.

What is the most common GST mistake small businesses make on invoices?

Two mistakes account for most of the trouble: charging GST while not registered for it, which the ATO says a supplier in that position cannot legitimately do, and continuing to invoice without GST after turnover has already crossed $75,000, which can leave a business owing GST on sales made since the date it should have registered, even where it never charged the customer for it.

How often does a small business need to lodge a BAS for GST?

It depends on GST turnover. Most small businesses report and pay quarterly by default, with the four business activity statements due 28 October, 28 February, 28 April, and 28 July, according to the Australian Taxation Office. Monthly reporting is mandatory once GST turnover reaches $20 million and optional below that, while a business voluntarily registered under the $75,000 threshold can elect to report annually instead, due 31 October.

Sources and References

1. Australian Taxation Office: Registering for GST, the $75,000 and $150,000 thresholds, the 21-day registration window, and the current-versus-projected turnover test.
2. Australian Taxation Office: When to charge GST (and when not to), last updated December 2016.
3. Australian Taxation Office: When you cannot claim a GST credit, confirming a supplier not registered or required to be registered for GST cannot charge it, last updated August 2024.
4. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: Price displays, the single total price and minimum total cost rule under Australian Consumer Law.
5. Australian Taxation Office: Due dates for lodging and paying your BAS, quarterly, monthly, and annual due dates.
6. Australian Taxation Office: Quarterly GST reporting, for businesses with GST turnover under $20 million.
7. Australian Taxation Office: Monthly GST reporting, the $20 million mandatory threshold.
8. Australian Taxation Office: Annual GST reporting, available only to businesses voluntarily registered under $75,000.
9. Australian Taxation Office: Tax invoices, the “Total price includes GST” wording and tax invoice content rules, last updated August 2025.

Note: All figures verified as of October 2026.