Registering a company takes about a day. What nobody hands you afterwards is the calendar: a fixed set of dates that starts the week you register and repeats every quarter and every year from then on. Most of the deadlines carry automatic penalties, and two of them are enforced by different regulators that don’t talk to each other.
This guide lays out the whole first year for a new Australian proprietary company: what’s due in week one, what changes the day you pay yourself a wage, the quarterly rhythm, and the two annual dates people miss. It follows on from our guide to choosing between a sole trader and a company. If you’re still deciding, read that one first.
By Lily Zhang, CPA · Registered Tax Agent · Reviewed 3 August 2026
The short version
⭐ A new Australian company answers to two regulators on two separate clocks. The ATO side runs on quarters: if the company is registered for GST, a Business Activity Statement is due on 28 October, 28 February, 28 April and 28 July each year, and from the first pay run the company must report wages through Single Touch Payroll on or before every payday and get 12% superannuation to each employee’s fund within 7 business days of that payday. The ASIC side runs on your registration anniversary: an annual statement arrives each year, and the company has two months to pay the review fee and pass a solvency resolution. Company profits are taxed at 25% for most trading companies, and the first company tax return is generally due by 28 February the following year when lodged through a registered tax agent.
Now the detail, in the order it will actually hit you.
Week one: five jobs before the first invoice
1. Director ID. Every director needs a director identification number, and the rule is strict: you must have one before being appointed. If you registered the company with yourself as director, this should already be done. Appointing a spouse or business partner later? They apply first, through the Australian Business Registry Services, then get appointed.
2. ABN and TFN. The company needs its own Australian Business Number and Tax File Number. These usually come through with registration if your agent applied for them together. Check the ABN shows on ABN Lookup; banks and suppliers will.
3. A separate bank account. The company’s money is not your money. That sentence sounds obvious in August and gets expensive by June, so open the company account before the first dollar arrives. More on this under “first-year traps” below.
4. Bookkeeping software, from day one. Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks, connected to the bank account, with a chart of accounts that matches how you’ll report. Reconstructing a year of transactions at tax time costs more in accounting fees than twelve months of software subscriptions, and the numbers come out worse.
5. Registrations you may need now. PAYG withholding if you’ll pay wages (see below), and GST if you expect to cross the threshold quickly. Which brings us to the line every new company watches.
GST and the $75,000 line
You must register for GST once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, and the test is forward-looking: the moment your rolling 12-month turnover hits the line, or you can reasonably expect it to, you have 21 days to register. Plenty of new companies cross it mid-year, keep invoicing without GST, and meet the problem at tax time, when the ATO can treat those invoices as GST-inclusive. One-eleventh of your revenue is an expensive rounding error.
Registering voluntarily below the threshold can also make sense, mainly to claim back GST credits on set-up costs and equipment. The trade-off is real: registration means charging 10% on every invoice and lodging a BAS every quarter. It’s a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default.
The day you first pay anyone, including yourself
A company that pays wages, to staff or to its own director, becomes an employer in the ATO’s eyes. Three things switch on at once:
- PAYG withholding. Register before the first payment. The company withholds tax from wages and reports it on the BAS.
- Single Touch Payroll. Every pay run is reported to the ATO on or before payday, through your payroll software. There is no paper fallback worth using.
- Superannuation, on payday. The super guarantee rate is 12%, and since 1 July 2026 the quarterly payment cycle is gone: contributions must now reach each employee’s fund within 7 business days of payday. New employers never knew the old quarterly world, which is an advantage. Set super to pay with each pay run and it stays paid. The detail is in our Payday Super guide for employers.
State obligations arrive here too: workers’ compensation insurance is compulsory once you employ, and it’s a state scheme, WorkSafe in Victoria, WorkCover in Queensland. Registering is quick; being caught uninsured after an injury is not a survivable conversation.
The quarterly rhythm: BAS
Once GST-registered, the company lodges a Business Activity Statement each quarter. The statement rolls up GST collected and paid, PAYG withholding from wages, and, once the ATO puts you in the system, PAYG instalments toward your own company tax.
| Quarter | Period | Due date |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | July – September | 28 October |
| Q2 | October – December | 28 February |
| Q3 | January – March | 28 April |
| Q4 | April – June | 28 July |
Two working notes. First, lodging through a registered tax or BAS agent generally buys you extra time on most quarters under the agent lodgment program. Second, the due date is also the payment date: a BAS lodged on time but paid late still accrues general interest charge. If cash flow is tight, lodge on time anyway and talk to the ATO (or have your agent do it) about a payment plan; the penalties for not lodging are separate from, and stack on top of, interest on unpaid amounts.
The two annual dates
ASIC annual review. Around each anniversary of registration, ASIC issues the company an annual statement. From that date the company has two months to pay the annual review fee and for the directors to pass a solvency resolution, a short signed statement that the company can pay its debts as they fall due. There is nothing to lodge if the details are correct, which is exactly why it gets missed: it looks like junk mail and behaves like a deadline. Late payment fees are automatic and increase the longer it sits. ASIC indexes its fees each July, so check the current schedule rather than trusting a number from last year’s blog posts.
The company tax return. The company’s first income year ends on 30 June, however few months it has existed by then. Most trading companies with turnover under $50 million pay tax at the base rate of 25%. For a newly registered company lodging through a registered tax agent, the first return is generally due by 28 February the following year. Your exact date depends on the company’s circumstances, so confirm it rather than assuming; the point is that it is months later than most founders guess, which is useful for cash-flow planning and dangerous for record-keeping discipline.
On records: the Corporations Act requires a company to keep written financial records for seven years, in a form that would let a true and fair set of financial statements be prepared and audited. “The bank feed is in Xero” satisfies this only if the transactions are actually coded and reconciled.
A worked example: registered 15 August 2026
| Date | What’s due |
|---|---|
| August 2026 | Director IDs before appointment; ABN/TFN active; company bank account open; bookkeeping software connected; PAYG withholding registered if paying wages |
| First payday | STP report on or before payday; 12% super into funds within 7 business days; workers’ comp policy in place |
| 28 October 2026 | First BAS (July–September quarter), if GST-registered by then |
| 28 February 2027 | Q2 BAS (October–December) |
| 28 April 2027 | Q3 BAS (January–March) |
| 28 July 2027 | Q4 BAS (April–June) |
| August 2027 | First ASIC annual statement; pay review fee and sign solvency resolution within 2 months |
| By 28 February 2028 | First company tax return (income year ended 30 June 2027), lodging through a registered tax agent |
Four first-year traps
Treating the company account as a wallet. Money you take out of a company is a wage, a dividend, or a loan. A wage needs payroll, STP and super. A dividend needs profits and franking decisions. Anything else is a loan to you, and under Division 7A an undocumented, unrepaid loan can be taxed as an unfranked dividend in your personal return. Decide how you’ll pay yourself before the first transfer, and paper it.
Leaving the books until June. Every deadline above is easy with reconciled books and miserable without them. Monthly bookkeeping is the difference between a BAS that takes an hour and one that takes a weekend. This is the core of what our bookkeeping and payroll service does for new companies: the books stay current, so every lodgment is a review rather than an excavation.
Crossing $75,000 without noticing. Put a rolling 12-month revenue figure somewhere you’ll see it monthly. The 21-day registration window is short, and backdated GST comes out of your margin.
Assuming registration came with tax settings. Registration gives you a company. It doesn’t choose GST timing, put you on PAYG instalments correctly, or set a payroll cycle that satisfies payday super. Those are decisions, and the cheap time to make them is before the first quarter closes, at the start.
How we run this for Melbourne and Brisbane companies
Wiselink runs the whole first-year cycle under one roof: bookkeeping and bank reconciliation, payroll with STP and payday super, quarterly BAS, the ASIC annual review, and the company tax return, with the year-end work reviewed by a senior accountant rather than lodged straight from the software. One team holding the whole chain means the BAS numbers, the payroll records and the tax return agree with each other, which is what the ATO’s data matching checks first.
Lily Zhang is a CPA, Registered Tax Agent and ASIC Registered Agent; the firm is an NTAA member and a Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks partner, and has worked with Australian companies since 2013. You can verify the tax agent registration yourself on the TPB public register. We work in English and Chinese, with offices in Camberwell (Melbourne) and Eight Mile Plains (Brisbane); with cloud bookkeeping the postcode matters less than the pay cycle, and both offices run the same process.
If your company is newly registered, or registered months ago and the calendar above is news, book a free 20-minute call or phone us: Melbourne (03) 9600 0803 · Brisbane (07) 3188 8081. Twenty minutes is usually enough to tell you which registrations you’re missing and what the next two deadlines are.
FAQ
Do I have to register for GST as soon as the company is registered?
No. GST registration becomes compulsory when the company’s GST turnover reaches $75,000, measured on a rolling basis and including the turnover you can reasonably project; once you hit or expect to hit the line you have 21 days to register. Below the threshold, registration is optional. Registering early lets you claim GST credits on set-up costs, but commits you to charging 10% GST and lodging quarterly BAS, so it’s worth a deliberate decision rather than a default.
When is my new company’s first tax return due?
The company’s first income year ends on 30 June regardless of when in the year you registered. For most newly registered companies lodging through a registered tax agent, the first return is due by 28 February of the following year. The exact date depends on the company’s circumstances and lodgment history, so confirm your date with your agent instead of assuming.
Can I just transfer money from the company to myself when I need it?
Not safely. Money leaving a company is a wage, a dividend, or a loan, and each has rules: wages need PAYG withholding, STP reporting and super; dividends need available profits; and an undocumented loan can be treated under Division 7A as an unfranked dividend taxed in your personal return. Decide the method before your first draw and document it. This is the single most common, and most fixable, first-year mistake we see.
What is the ASIC annual review, and do I lodge anything with the ATO for it?
They’re separate. ASIC issues an annual statement around your registration anniversary; within two months the company pays the annual review fee and the directors sign a solvency resolution. Nothing is lodged with the ATO for this, and lodging your tax return does not satisfy ASIC. The two regulators run on different clocks, which is why we put both on one calendar for clients.
We’re in Brisbane. Does it matter where the accountant sits?
For this work, rarely. Bookkeeping, payroll, BAS and the tax return all run through cloud software, and ATO and ASIC lodgments are electronic. Wiselink has offices in Camberwell in Melbourne and Eight Mile Plains in Brisbane, and both run the same process with the same review step; Queensland-specific items, like WorkCover registration, are part of the standard setup for Brisbane clients.
