A wedding photographer in Marrickville did $68,000 of booked work in eleven months and had $14,000 of December jobs in the diary. She thought GST was “next year’s problem”. GST turnover is not last year’s tax return and it is not what has already hit the bank. It is a current test and a projected test. She was already required to register.

Most Australian businesses must register when GST turnover hits $75,000. Non-profit organisations have a $150,000 door. Taxi, limousine and ride-sourcing have no door at all: register from the first fare. The rest of this essay is about measuring the $75,000 properly, deciding whether to go early, and getting off the register without leaving a mess.

This is general information for Australian readers, not tax, legal or BAS advice. Thresholds, the 21-day rule and cancellation tests live on the ATO site. Confirm them for your entity — especially if you have related businesses, grants, or a mix of taxable and input-taxed supplies — before you register, delay or cancel.

What GST turnover is, and what it is not

GST turnover for the registration test is the GST law’s turnover, not a Xero sales report you filtered on a Sunday.

Count:

  • taxable supplies you make
  • GST-free supplies you make (basic food, many health services, exports that meet the tests, and so on)

Do not count:

  • input-taxed supplies (residential rent, many financial supplies)
  • the GST itself
  • sales of capital assets that the test tells you to ignore
  • amounts that are genuinely not consideration for a supply

A not-for-profit that receives a government grant must ask whether the grant is consideration for a supply. Some are; some are not. Do not drop every grant into “turnover” or exclude every grant on principle. Read the grant agreement and, if it is material, ask the agent. Our grant acquittals piece is about the file after you decide; the decision still needs a human.

Related entities can matter. If you have two companies that the GST grouping or the “associate” rules treat as one story, do not measure $75,000 in each silo and smile. This is a common way a family group registers late.

Current turnover and projected turnover

You look both ways.

Current GST turnover is, in outline, what you made in the current month plus the previous eleven months.

Projected GST turnover is, in outline, the current month plus the next eleven months, using a reasonable projection.

If either figure is $75,000 or more ($150,000 for a non-profit), you are required to register — unless an exception applies. The photographer’s diary of December weddings is not a hope. It is projected turnover. A café that signs a corporate catering contract on the 3rd of the month has to redo the projection that week, not at 30 June.

Seasonal businesses get this wrong in both directions. A Christmas-hamper maker who does $60,000 in November and $5,000 in each other month has already crossed the line in the current-year lookback. A swim-school that is quiet in winter and booked in summer has to project the summer.

Use invoices and signed work, not vibes. If you are on cash for everything else, still build this test from supplies, not from receipts. Registration is a GST-law test. Cash versus accrual is a reporting method you choose after you are in the system.

Twenty-one days, not “when I get around to an ABN update”

Once you are required to register, you generally have 21 days to do it. The ATO does not treat “I was waiting for my bookkeeper” as an extension.

If you register late, you can still be liable for GST on the taxable supplies you made while you were required to be registered. That is the expensive shape: you did not charge GST, you cannot easily go back to last year’s couples and add 10 per cent, and you may still owe it. Pricing including GST from the day you know you will cross the line is cheaper than a reconstruction.

Register through the Australian Business Register / ATO channels with the ABN you already have. If you do not have an ABN, that is a prior problem. Trading without an ABN has its own withholding consequences for your customers.

Taxi and ride-share are a different statute of reality

If you provide taxi travel — and the GST law has for years included ride-sourcing in that idea — you must register for GST regardless of turnover. The first fare is enough.

A teacher who drives Friday nights on a platform is not “under $75,000, so no GST”. She is in the taxi rules. She charges GST, she lodges, she claims credits on the creditable portion of running costs, and she keeps the platform statements as source documents. Private use of the car still reduces the credits. A logbook is not optional because the app has a map.

Do not copy a friend’s ABN settings. Friends are often wrong.

Non-profits at $150,000

Associations, charities and many clubs use $150,000. That is still GST turnover, not “all money in the bank”. Memberships, ticketed events, op-shop sales, raffles, commercial activities and some grants can sit in different GST treatments. Input-taxed fundraising has its own corners.

A community choir that lives on $80,000 of donations and $40,000 of ticketed concerts may or may not be over the line depending on what those donations are. A disability service that is mostly GST-free health or related supplies can still be over $150,000 of GST-free turnover and therefore required to register. Remember: GST-free supplies count toward the threshold. Registration does not mean you start taxing those supplies. It means you enter the system, charge GST where it applies, and claim the credits you are entitled to. See mixed supplies and input tax credits.

Boards like to delay registration because “we are not a business”. The threshold does not care. Put the rolling twelve-month calculation in the treasurer’s pack.

Voluntary registration — when it is a tool

You may register before you are required to. Once you do, you generally:

  • charge GST of 10 per cent on taxable supplies
  • issue tax invoices
  • lodge activity statements on the cycle you are given
  • stay registered for at least twelve months (the usual voluntary-cancellation wait)

It is worth considering when:

  • you are about to spend on a fit-out, a van, or equipment with a lot of GST in it, and you will have taxable or GST-free (not input-taxed) use
  • your customers are registered and will claim the credit, so the 10 per cent is not a real price rise
  • you want the discipline of a BAS before the threshold arrives

It is often not worth it when:

  • your customers are consumers who cannot claim credits (wedding couples, café walk-ins) and you will wear the price rise or the margin cut
  • your costs are mostly wages — Super Guarantee is 12 per cent from 1 July 2025 and Payday Super runs from 1 July 2026; there is no GST on wages to reclaim
  • you will resent the quarterly calendar more than you will use the credits

A new café in Goodwood, South Australia, spending $55,000 plus GST on a second-hand fit-out and a machine, and expecting $90,000 of taxable coffee in year one, will usually register from day one. The credit on the fit-out is real. The customers were always going to pay café prices.

The Marrickville photographer, still at $40,000 and buying a $3,300 laptop, may wait. The credit is $300. The administrative cost is a year of BAS dates and a pricing conversation with every couple.

Pricing once you are in

Registered means your taxable prices include GST unless you have a very clear, lawful reason to quote plus-GST to a registered client. Consumers should see a single price.

If you quoted $3,000 for a wedding before you knew you had to register, you cannot quietly keep $3,000 and owe $300 to the ATO without eating it. Build 10 per cent into new quotes the week the projection crosses the line, not the week the registration confirmation email arrives.

For business clients, issue a proper tax invoice. They need it to claim the credit. You need the copy for the five-year file.

Company tax is a separate conversation. A base-rate company pays 25 per cent; otherwise 30 per cent. GST is not income tax. Do not “keep the GST to cover company tax”. Put it in a clearing account. Spend it and you will meet the ATO without the money.

Cancellation

You can apply to cancel GST registration if you are no longer required to be registered — typically because GST turnover has dropped below the threshold and you are not in the taxi rules. If you registered voluntarily, you usually wait twelve months.

Cancellation is not a software archive. You must:

  • lodge the final activity statement
  • account for GST on taxable goods still on hand, in the way the cancellation rules require
  • stop charging GST and stop issuing tax invoices that claim you are registered
  • keep the records for five years

A tradie who has a quiet year and cancels, then books a $90,000 extension in March, is back in the projected-turnover test. Do not cancel because you are tired of the form. Cancel because the test has changed and you have worked the numbers.

If you simply stop lodging, you are not cancelled. You are non-compliant, and late lodgement plus a possible GST-on-hand adjustment is a worse week than a cancellation form.

A practical monthly habit before you are in, and after

Before registration, keep a rolling twelve-month worksheet: invoiced taxable and GST-free supplies, a projection for signed work, and a note on anything you excluded. Twenty minutes a month. The photographer’s diary is the projection.

After registration, the worksheet becomes G1. Simpler BAS will ask for it. Full BAS will ask for more. Either way, the threshold calculation is the ancestor of the activity statement. If you could not measure $75,000, you will not be able to measure G1.

Put the registration date, the reason (threshold / taxi / voluntary), and the method (cash or accrual) on the chart of accounts legend. The next bookkeeper should not have to guess when 10 per cent started.

The original Bookkeeping Centre registered clients as a BAS agent and then made the first statement a reprint. That sequence still works. Measure the threshold honestly, register on time, price on time, and keep a clearing account. The BAS and GST hub is the rest of the file: mixed supplies, due dates, and the habit of not spending the ATO’s 10 per cent because the week was tight.