Excise licences for fuel and petroleum products

When you need an excise licence

If you manufacture, produce or store excisable fuel or petroleum products in Australia, you need an excise licence.

Under the Excise Act 1901, it is an offence to operate without an excise licence – criminal penalties may apply.

There are different types of licences. It is important for you to understand:

• what excise licences you need to hold for your business or situation
• the conditions of the licence you hold
• your obligations as an excise licence holder.

You don't need to pay to apply or renew excise licences. However, we may ask you to lodge a financial security to protect the excise duty revenue.

A financial security can be a bond, bank guarantee, cash deposit or similar financial product (or any combination given in a form and manner we approve) for an amount of money which may be forfeited if you fail to comply with your excise obligations. There is no statutory limit to the amount of a security, but the amount is generally set by reference to the level of revenue at risk.

Your licence will be valid from the day we grant it until it is cancelled. There is no renewal process for excise licences relating to fuel and petroleum products.

How to apply for an excise licence

For fuel and petroleum products, there are 2 licence types you can apply for:

• Manufacturer licence
• Storage licence

These licences may cover a single premise (a single-premises licence) or multiple premises (an entity-level licence), and you can apply for either depending on your business needs.

Manufacturer licence

You need a manufacturer licence if you:

• manufacture or produce fuel and petroleum products
• recycle petroleum products
• store underbond fuel and petroleum products, including products you will use in the manufacture or production of other excisable goods.

Among other things, a manufacturer licence will specify the:

• conditions attached to the licence, including product restrictions
• type of excisable fuel and petroleum products you can manufacture
• locations of the premises
• activities you can do with those goods.

Apply for a licence to manufacture excisable products – fuel

Storage licence

We issue fuel storage licences if you only deal in underbond packaged or drummed fuel where no further manufacture takes place.

If you store underbond fuel in bulk tanks, we would generally issue you with a manufacturer licence as blending fuels is considered to be excise manufacture.

Apply for a licence to store excisable products – fuel

Entity-level licence

An entity-level licence is one licence that covers multiple premises.

You can either:

• apply for a new entity-level licence (where you don't currently hold an excise licence)
• vary one of your existing excise licences to cover multiple premises (new or existing).

Your entity-level licence will contain a schedule which lists the premises, authorised activities, goods, and any special conditions that apply to your licence.

If you are granted an entity-level licence, you may also receive a general movement permission. This allows you to move and receive underbond goods of the same kind, for which you are licensed, between any other licenced premises (including other entities' licenced premises).

For example, if your business is licensed to recycle petroleum products and it holds a general movement permission, you can move those goods to any other site that is licensed to store or manufacture the same petroleum products. You can also receive petroleum products underbond from those licensed entities.

Contact us to apply for an entity-level licence.

Varying your licence

If you hold an existing manufacturer or storage licence, you can apply to vary your licence to:

• consolidate your licences into an entity-level licence that covers multiple premises
• add a new premises to your existing licence
• remove a premises from your licence.

We can also vary your licence to remove a premises if we have reasonable grounds to suspend your licence in relation to those premises.

Contact us to apply for a variation to your licence.

Your obligations as a licence holder

As an excise licence holder, you have obligations you need to meet which will be set out on your licence. This includes:

• stock control – manufacturing, storing and moving your goods
• lodging an excise return and paying excise duty
• record keeping
• advising us if your business changes or ceases.

In addition, fuel or petroleum product excise licence holders need to:

• conduct volume correction to be able to correctly work out the amount of excise duty you need to pay
• understand how to correctly calculate fuel excise duty payable.

Tell us if you change or cease your business

If you hold an excise licence and you change or cease your business operations, you need to notify us.

Changing your business operation

You must tell us within 30 days of changes to your business, including:

• change in ownership
• change in people who manage or control your business
• criminal charge or conviction of you or others who manage or control your business
• receivership, administration, liquidation or bankruptcy
• change in premises
• change that substantially affects the physical security of the premises or plant and equipment used in relation to excisable goods at the premises
• change in the type of excisable goods you manufacture or store
• change in the type of excise equivalent goods (EEGs) you store or use in excise manufacture
• cessation of manufacturing or storing excisable goods or EEGs.

Ceasing your business operation

As a condition of your excise licence, you must write to us within 30 days of ceasing to operate your business to request we cancel your licence.

Before we cancel your licence, we need to ensure you no longer have any excisable or customable products. To do this we:

• conduct a final audit of goods at the licensed premises
• work out if you're liable to pay any excise duty.

If you decide to sell your business inclusive of stock, we'll try to cancel your licence at the same time as we approve the licence for the new owner. That way there will be continuity of licensing for the premises and goods. However, this doesn't mean we will automatically grant the new owner a licence.

If you don't intend to sell the goods with your business, you can either:

• pay any outstanding excise duty on goods held at the licensed premises and then dispose of the goods as you wish
• move the goods to another licence holder's premises if you have permission from us.

If you're ceasing your excise activities and closing down your business permanently, you'll also need to cancel your GST and cancel your ABNOpens in a new window registrations after you have met all of your tax and super obligations.

When we may suspend or cancel your licence

When we have reasonable grounds to do so, we can:

• suspend or cancel your excise licence, or
• suspend particular premises covered by your entity-level licence or remove those premises from your entity-level licence.

Reasonable grounds for suspension or cancellation include:

• you are not fit and proper as an individual or company
• you are the associate of an individual or a company that is not fit and proper
• you or any other partner in the partnership is not fit and proper
• a person who participates in the management or control of the premises specified in the licence is not fit and proper
• a director, officer or shareholder who participates in the management or control of the company is not a fit and proper person
• you don't have, or have available to you, the skills and experience required to carry out the activity authorised by the licence
• the physical security of the premises is inadequate
• the plant and equipment used at the premises are inadequate to protect the excise revenue related to the goods at the premises
• you have no market for the goods covered by the licence
• you aren't complying with your record-keeping requirements
• you have breached a condition of your licence
• you have made a false or misleading statement to us
• cancellation is needed to protect the related excise revenue
• cancellation is needed to ensure you comply with the excise law
• you have not conducted any activities authorised by the licence at any premises covered by the licence for a period of at least three years.

Licence suspension

If we suspend your licence, the activities you are approved to do under your licence may be restricted. If you are granted an entity-level licence, we may suspend your licence in relation to a particular premises rather than the entire licence.

Suspension may be a temporary measure or may lead to the cancellation of your licence or removal of the premises from your licence.

Licence cancellation

In addition to the above, we may also cancel your licence when:

• you ask us to (for example, where you intend to cease business)
• no remaining premises would be covered by the licence because of a variation to remove a premises from your licence.

For more information, see section 4 of the Excise guidelines for the fuel industry.

Obtaining licence information for third parties

You can use the Excise and excise-equivalent warehouse licences register from August 2024 to find out if entities you intend to do business with hold a licence granted under the Excise Act or Customs Act.

You can also contact us for information about the excise licences and permissions of third parties you deal with.

Other registrations

If you're in business, you may also have other registration obligations – some registrations are compulsory, while others are optional.

You can also find out more about Permissions to move excisable fuel and petroleum products.