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The correct Payment Reference Number must be used when paying your foreign investment application fee.

Using an incorrect Payment Reference Number will lead to delays in your payment being processed. The statutory period for each application or notice doesn’t start until the fee has been paid or waived.

The Payment Reference Number for each non-residential application is found at the top left of the Foreign Investment Application Fee Details email. The Payment Reference Number is eighteen digits long and is unique to your application.

The Treasury has released a working paper on foreign investment into Australia. The paper aims to provide further insights into foreign investment in Australia by examining the trends, the sources and the positive effects of foreign investment into Australia. The available data on foreign investment in Australia suggests a fairly consistent trend over time despite increases in the number of foreign investment applications received by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

The foreign investment application system will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance from 5pm AEST Thursday 30 June 2016 to 8am AEST Friday 1 July 2016.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please be aware that any applications that are not completed before the maintenance begins, will not be saved and will need to be resubmitted when the system becomes available.

From 1 December, the Government introduced changes to strengthen Australia’s foreign investment framework through amendments to the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 and the introduction of the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Imposition Fees Act 2015. The legislation aims to strengthen the laws around foreign investment and will impose penalties for breaching the foreign investment rules.