News

Foreign investment application fees have been indexed for the 2021‑22 year. Revised fees will apply to applications made and notices given as of 1 July 2021. The fee schedule and further information on the application of fees is provided in Guidance 10.

In 2019-20, over 8,200 foreign investment applications were approved, representing potential investment of $195.5 billion. This included 137 zero dollar applications with a value of $2.7 billion, following the Government’s decision to reduce screening thresholds to $0 on 29 March 2020 in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The 2019-20 Annual Report can be found on the FIRB website.

The FIRB Application Portal will be unavailable due to maintenance/updates on Friday 21 May 2021 from 6.00pm to 11.30pm AEST.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Issuing of Fee estimates

Fee estimates will be automatically calculated on the submission page for all applications except Exemption Certificates. Applicants will no longer need to provide their own fee estimate and explanation.

This will be in effect from 9.00am Monday 24 May.

The FIRB Application Portal will be unavailable due to maintenance on Friday 12 March 2021 from 9.00pm to 10.30pm AEST.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

This is the third report of the Water Register (Water Report 2020) and includes water entitlement registrations received from foreign persons between 1 July 2017 and 31 July 2020 for water entitlements held to 30 June 2020.

The Register, which is maintained by the Australian Taxation Office, has been established to provide greater transparency about levels of foreign ownership of agricultural land in Australia.

In accordance with section 4 of the Foreign Investment Reform (Protecting Australia’s National Security) Act 2020, the Treasury is conducting an evaluation of the foreign investment reforms that commenced on 1 January 2021. The review is required to be completed by 10 December 2021.

Further information on the evaluation process, including a copy of the terms of reference and details on stakeholder consultation, is available on the Treasury website

The 2019-20 Foreign Investment Regulator Performance Framework Report is now available.

Under the Australian Government’s Regulator Performance Framework, regulators must undertake an annual self-assessment of their performance against six key outcome-based performance indicators (KPIs).

The fifth report of the Register of Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land is now available.

The Register, which is maintained by the Australian Taxation Office, has been established to provide greater transparency about levels of foreign ownership of agricultural land in Australia.
 

On 9 December, the Treasurer announced that major reforms to Australia’s foreign investment framework had been passed by the Parliament. Further detail can be found on the Treasurer’s website.

Further to the update on Foreign Investment Review arrangements posted on 16 November 2020, Treasury is able to share the following information with foreign investors (subject to the passage of the Foreign Investment Reform (Protecting Australia’s National Security) Bill 2020).

The Foreign Investment Reform (Protecting Australia’s National Security) Bill 2020 and Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Fees Imposition Amendment Bill 2020 was introduced into the Parliament on 28 October 2020.

Guidance material is being prepared to assist foreign investors to meet their obligations under the proposed reforms, including transitional arrangements from the existing framework.

The first two Insights reports based on the Register of Foreign Ownership of Residential Land are now available on the FIRB website.