The ACT property developer licence

The Property Developers Act 2024 creates a licence you must hold before you may develop residential property in the ACT. Applications opened on 1 October 2025. The requirement becomes mandatory on 1 October 2026, and it is triggered at three or more dwellings.

Most coverage of this describes it as a builder-style licence. It is not. It attaches to the entity carrying out development activity, and the first activity it catches happens long before anybody is on site.

Three activities, and the first one is the DA

From 1 October 2026 a licence is required to do any of the following in relation to a project of three or more dwellings:

• Apply for development approval.
• Arrange residential building work — applying for building approval, giving a commencement notice, or obtaining a certificate of occupancy.
• Sell or advertise dwellings off the plan.

Read the first one twice. The licence is not a construction-stage formality — it is a precondition to lodging the development application. On a normal Canberra infill programme the DA goes in a year or more before a builder is engaged, so the licence has to be in hand at the point where most people are still deciding whether the site is worth buying.

That is what makes it a site-acquisition question rather than a paperwork question, and it is why it appears on every property page here the moment a scheme reaches three dwellings.

Three dwellings, again

Three is now the same number three times over. It is the licensing threshold, it is where the missing middle remission does its best work, and it is the point on the density curve where most Canberra blocks either start paying or stop.

The consequence is unglamorous but real: the third dwelling carries costs the Lease Variation Charge table does not show. An application fee, an annual licence fee, a per-dwelling activity fee, a credit-rating report, and — the expensive one — the lead time to obtain all of that before you can lodge. Whether they exceed the charge itself depends on your own rating and programme costs, which no published schedule can tell you.

What is not caught

• Single dwellings and dual occupancies. The Act does not apply to them. Two dwellings is outside the scheme entirely.
• Class 3 buildings — hotels, student accommodation, boarding houses.
• Class 9c residential aged care buildings, and certain approved aged care providers registered as public benevolent institutions.

Community housing providers are not exempt from the licence itself, but they are exempt from the activity-based per-dwelling component of the fee.

The transitional arrangements

Two dates do real work here, and they are not the same date:

• Development approval before 1 October 2026. The project may proceed, and minor amendments to that approval may be sought without a licence, under the transitional provisions in s 162B of the Planning Act 2023.
• Building approval before 1 October 2026. The activity-based per-dwelling fee is not payable. If building approval issues on or after that date, it is — even where the DA predates it.

Off-the-plan selling is the exception that catches people: a campaign that started before commencement and continues past it needs a licence.

What the application involves

This is not a form you complete on the afternoon you decide to lodge. Access Canberra assesses whether the applicant is suitable, which means character, compliance history, financial and operational capacity, and any history of a cancelled or suspended licence. The application requires:

• An entity rating report from an approved rating entity — currently Equifax Australasia only, as a standard iCIRT assessment. The Directorate publishes its rating entity requirements as a PDF.
• ACN/ABN, registered office, and full details of every person in a structural role: directors, secretary, Director IDs.
• Current and historical company extracts.
• Details of associated entities and their key people, under s 8 of the Act.
• Suitability declarations, and the fee.

The Registrar may issue a licence for up to seven years. Applications are lodged through Access Canberra's online service — Property Developer Licence — new application. The online form has no save function, so assemble everything above before you open it. The Government's own advice is to start early so the licence is in place by 1 October 2026: no assessment timeframe is published, and the rating report alone is not same-week work. The licensing team is on 02 6207 8096, or cwpl@act.gov.au.

Fees — and a figure worth not trusting

The fee has four parts: a one-off application fee, an annual licence term fee, an activity-based fee charged per residential dwelling and payable at building approval, and a fee to vary a licence. They are GST-exempt.

Deliberately, no dollar figures appear on this page. The amounts are set by determination and re-made each financial year — the current one is the Property Developers (Fees) Determination 2026, notified 30 July 2026. The per-dwelling figures circulating in blog posts and advisory notes are generally lifted from the 2025 announcement of the scheme and have since been re-determined. Price the current instrument, not the press release.

What this tool tells you, and what it does not

Every scheme modelled here reports the published threshold: at three or more dwellings, the licence is flagged, with the commencement date and the triggering activities. That is a mechanical test on a dwelling count.

It is not an eligibility assessment. Whether you can hold a licence turns on your financial capacity, your relevant experience and a fit-and-proper test, and that is a matter for Access Canberra — not for a screening tool. Nothing here is legal advice, and the scheme's own guidance is nuanced by project stage. Start at the ACT Government's licensing page.

Licensees must also comply with the Relevant Property Developer Code of Practice, which commences on the same day.

The practical order of operations

1. Screen the site. If it does not clear both gates at three dwellings, the licence question never arises.
2. If it does clear, treat the licence as a line in the programme and a line in the feasibility, not an afterthought.
3. Obtain the rating report and apply, before the DA rather than after it.

Where to apply, and what to read

Everything below is a primary source. Nothing on this page substitutes for them, and where they disagree with this page, they are right and this page is stale — check the review date at the foot.

Applying

• Access Canberra — Property Developer Licence, new application. The form itself.
• Property developers licensing scheme — the scheme's home page, and the one to start from.
• Key terms and definitions. Read this before deciding you are outside the scheme; "dwelling", "regulated residential building" and "associated entity" all carry defined meanings.
• Equifax Australasia — ACT rating reports, the only approved rating entity, under NI2025-316.
• Construction and Workplace Licensing: 02 6207 8096, cwpl@act.gov.au.

The law

• Property Developers Act 2024 — the scheme, the offences, the Registrar's powers.
• Property Developers Regulation 2025 — exemptions and the detail.
• Relevant Property Developer Code of Practice 2025 — binding from 1 October 2026.
• Property Developers (Fees) Determination 2026 — the current fees, and the only figures worth quoting.
• Planning Act 2023 s 162B — the transitional provision for approvals predating commencement.
• Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003 — where the off-the-plan selling obligations live.

When does the ACT property developer licence become mandatory?

1 October 2026. Applications opened a year earlier, on 1 October 2025, and the Government's advice is to apply early enough that the licence is in hand by the commencement date — no assessment timeframe is published.

Do I need a licence to build three townhouses in Canberra?

Three or more dwellings is the threshold, so yes, from 1 October 2026. Two dwellings — including a dual occupancy — is outside the scheme entirely.

Do I need the licence before lodging a development application?

Yes. Applying for development approval is itself a licensed activity, alongside arranging residential building work and selling or advertising off the plan. It is not a construction-stage formality: the licence has to exist before the DA goes in, which on a normal infill programme is a year or more before a builder is engaged.

How much does an ACT property developer licence cost?

There are four components: a one-off application fee, an annual licence term fee, an activity-based fee charged per residential dwelling and payable at building approval, and a fee to vary a licence. They are GST-exempt. The amounts are re-determined each financial year, so the figure to price is the one in the current Property Developers (Fees) Determination — not a figure quoted in an article.

My development approval predates 1 October 2026 — do I still need one?

A project approved before commencement may proceed, and minor amendments to that approval may be sought without a licence, under s 162B of the Planning Act 2023. Building approval is a separate date: if it issues on or after 1 October 2026 the per-dwelling activity fee is payable even where the DA predates it.

Who is exempt from the ACT developer licensing scheme?

Single dwellings and dual occupancies are outside it, as are Class 3 buildings such as hotels, student accommodation and boarding houses, and Class 9c residential aged care buildings. Community housing providers still need the licence but are exempt from the per-dwelling activity fee.

What do I need before I can apply?

An entity rating report from an approved rating entity — currently Equifax Australasia, as a standard iCIRT assessment — plus ACN/ABN and registered office, full details and Director IDs for everyone in a structural role, current and historical company extracts, details of associated entities, and suitability declarations. The rating report is the long pole; it is not same-week work.

Does this tool tell me whether I need a licence?

It reports the published threshold. Every scheme modelled here flags the licence at three or more dwellings, with the commencement date and the triggering activities — a mechanical test on a dwelling count. Whether you can hold one turns on financial capacity, relevant experience and a fit-and-proper test, and that is a matter for Access Canberra.