The Australian Business Register and your privacy
We are authorised to collect the information on this application by one or more of the following acts:
The information we collect helps us to administer laws relating to taxation. Where authorised by law to do so, we may give this information to other government agencies, including regulatory and law enforcement bodies.
Some of the information we collect will appear on the Australian Business Register and Super Fund Lookup. Selected information may be made publicly available and some may be passed to other government agencies, including Commonwealth, state, territory and local government agencies where that is authorised by law.
Information available to the public
Australian Business Register
Some information on the ABR is publicly available. This includes:
- ABN
- ABN status (date of effect of the ABN registration)
- entity name
- entity type (such as super fund, company, trust)
- trading name
- state (from the address provided as the main business address)
- postcode (from the address provided as the main business address)
- GST registration - status and date or dates of effect (if applicable)
- deductible gift recipient status and date or dates of effect (if applicable)
- tax concession charity status and date or dates of effect (if applicable)
- income tax exempt fund status and date of effect (if applicable)
- Australian Company Number (ABN) or Australian Registered Body Number (ARBN) (if applicable)
- the date of an ABN change - if the Registrar has changed the entity's ABN
- the date of ABN cancellation - if the Registrar has cancelled the entity's registration.
This information will allow members of the public to find out whether:
- they are dealing with registered entities
- those entities are registered for GST
- those entities are endorsed to access charity tax concessions
- gifts made to those entities are tax deductible.
Some or all of this information may be provided in bulk to third parties. A fee to cover the administrative costs of providing this information may be charged to those third parties for this service.
A printout of this information is also available as a certified extract of the ABR.
If an entity requests a certified copy of its own register details, this will be provided free of charge. The extract will contain all of the information set out above, plus additional information including the full address for service of notices, correspondence and email addresses.
If you request a certified copy of another entity's register details, you will be charged a fee of $20 for the first page (a standard certified extract is usually one page), and 10 cents for any subsequent pages. You will be provided with the same information that is available to the public (free) at abr.gov.au
All requests for certified extracts need be in writing and sent to:
Further information about the ABR can be obtained from abr.gov.au or by phoning 13 28 66 between 8.00am and 6.00pm Monday to Friday.
Register of super funds
In addition to information from the ABR, some details of a super fund are publicly available through Super Fund Lookup at business.gov.au. This information, which was collected upon the super fund's registration, can be disclosed by the Commissioner of Taxation under the SIS Act.
Super Fund Lookup contains publicly available information about super funds that have an ABN and includes:
- self-managed super funds regulated by the ATO
- approved deposit funds and eligible rollover funds regulated by the APRA.
Subject to the stated disclaimers, the purpose of the list is to:
- identify both compliant and non-compliant funds
- identify funds that have been wound up
- access 'real time' data about a fund's complying status
- access fund contact details (such as postal address)
- identify if the fund is regulated by the ATO or APRA.
We are authorised by the SIS Act to request and disclose this information.
Suppressing ABR information
In exceptional circumstances, you can request that certain information that would otherwise be made available to the public on the ABR or Super Fund Lookup, be suppressed. These circumstances include cases where a person has fears for their safety or that of their family.
If you want to apply to the Registrar to withhold some of the details available to the public about the entity, provide a letter detailing:
- the information to be suppressed
- a copy of any supporting material
- the reasons for the suppression.
- You can enclose this information with the application and mail it to
Information not available to the public
Information you supply on this application that will not be available to the public via the ABR includes:
- the name and contact details of authorised contact persons
- tax file numbers
- telephone numbers
- all business activity details (such as staffing and ownership details)
- all taxation information (such as financial institution account details for ATO refunds, GST details, including GST turnover)
- details of individuals and organisations associated with the entity.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 30 April 2013