com.au, net.au domain name rule changes costly for Australian small businesses

30 September 2026

.au Domain Administration (auDA), the organisation that administers top-level domains in Australia, is proposing changes to the rules governing the registration of .com.au and .net.au domain names.

If the changes are adopted, people wishing to hold a .com.au or .net.au domain name will need to have a registered business matching the .com.au or .net.au domain they wish to use.

For example, so I can continue to hold disassociated.com.au (which redirects to disassociated.com), I may need to register a company in the name of disassociated. At the moment, all I need is an Australian Business Number (ABN), which is in my name, not disassociated’s.

ABN’s are free, while, at the moment, a registered business name costs forty-seven dollars (AUD) for a year, or one-hundred-and-eight for three years. Forty-seven bucks a year doesn’t seem excessive, that’s about the same cost as eight cups of coffee.

However, many small Australian businesses are using numerous .com.au or .net.au domain names. The requirement to potentially hold numerous registered business names, in order to license the associated domain names, stands to send expenses sky-rocketing for local small businesses.

Many small businesses in Australia, usually operated by sole-traders — people working alone — sometimes supply any number of goods and services, and each might have its own domain name.

Someone operating, say, twenty businesses, will find themselves paying over seven-hundred dollars a year, if they pay the fee for three years at a time to register their business names.

Even that may not seem much, particularly if revenues are reasonable, but overseeing numerous registered business names stands to increase the administrative workload for small businesses.

And that’s before we get to trademarks, which might also be needed to qualify for a .com.au or .net.au domain name. The cost of an Australian trademark starts at two-hundred-and-fifty dollars. Running numerous small businesses online now begins to look incredibly expensive.

The proposals are intended “to support trust and confidence in com.au and net.au for the benefit of the Australian community.” In other words, curb fraudulent and other undesirable conduct. This is something I think all Australian small businesses would understand.

But what of people who have been legitimately using Australian domains for, in some cases decades, as I have? It doesn’t seem right that small businesses operating online, who have been doing no wrong all this time, should suddenly have harsh, and burdensome requirements, imposed on them.

To date nothing has changed, and auDA says there will be consultation once they finalise draft licensing rules. But if you are a .com.au and .net.au domain name holder, and concerned by the changes, you might want to consider signing the petition opposing the proposed policy changes.

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