Excise licences for excisable alcohol

When you need an excise licence

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

Under the Excise Act 1901, it is an offence to manufacture, produce or store excisable goods without an excise licence – criminal penalties may apply.

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

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

You don't need to pay to apply for excise licences. However, we may impose additional conditions on your licence or 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 alcohol products.

How to apply for an excise licence

Find out the excise licence you need and apply for a:

• Manufacturer licence
• Storage licence
• Licence to brew on premises
• Licence for duty-free sales.

These licences may cover a single premises (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 beer
• distil spirits (we do not grant licences to distil spirits for personal consumption)
• undertake maturation of spirits, including when you have already paid excise or customs duty on them
• blend or reduce the strength of spirits, including when you have already paid excise or customs duty on them
• manufacture liqueurs and other excisable beverages
• repackage beer
• store the excisable alcohol products you manufacture at your excise-licensed premises
• denature alcohol
• add flavours or colours to excisable products (such as in-line mixing as part of packaging into bottles, cans or kegs), including when you have already paid excise or customs duty on them.

Among other things, a manufacturer licence will specify the:

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

Apply for a licence to manufacture excisable products – alcohol

Repackaging duty-paid beer

Packaging isn't a manufacturing process for excise purposes.

However, manufacturing beer has an extended meaning to cover if you are repackaging beer that was previously entered at a concessional rate.

You need a manufacturer licence if you:

• buy beer in kegs or containers (that has been duty paid at a concessional rate)
• repackage it into individual sealed containers that are     
  • less than 8 litres
  • 8 – 48 litres (inclusive), where the container is not designed to connect to a pressurised gas or pump delivery system, or other prescribed system.

An exemption to this applies to the first 10,000 litres of beer repackaged at a particular premises where the:

• beer is repackaged into exempt beer containers (sealed individual containers that are no more than 2 litres and are not pressurised) for the purposes of retail sale
• retail sale occurs immediately after repackaging.

For businesses that repackage beer at more than one premises, each premises is subject to its own threshold in terms of the volume of repackaged beer.

Storage licence

You need a storage licence to store underbond excisable goods.

Among other things, a storage licence will specify the:

• conditions that apply to the licence
• type of excisable alcohol products you can store
• locations the goods can be stored
• activities, if any, you can do with those goods.

Apply for a licence to store excisable products – alcohol

Licence to brew on premises

If you brew beer for non-commercial purposes using commercial facilities or equipment – for example, brew on premises shops – it will be subject to excise duty.

It is the responsibility of the operator or proprietor of the shop to hold an excise licence and pay the excise duty, even though shop customers are brewing the beer.

Apply for a licence to brew on premises

Licence to store and sell goods duty free

To store excisable alcohol products and sell these products duty free, you need a licence to do so.

Apply for a licence to store excisable goods with permission to sell duty-free

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 will allow you to move and receive underbond goods of the same kind, for which you are licensed, between any other licensed premises (including other entities' licenced premises).

For example, if your business is licensed to manufacture beer and it holds a general movement permission, you can move those goods to any other site that is licensed to store or manufacture the beer. You can also receive beer 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 new premises to your existing licence
• remove premises from your licence.

We can also vary your licence to remove 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 your excise return and paying excise duty
• record keeping for excisable alcohol
• advising us if your business changes or ceases.

Other obligations for excisable alcohol

If you manufacture excisable alcohol, you also have to measure alcohol volume and strength to correctly work out the amount of excise duty you need to pay. This is in addition to the general obligations for all excise licence holders.

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 ABNExternal Link 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 will be restricted. If you hold an entity-level licence, we may suspend your licence in relation to 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 premises from your licence.

Licence cancellation

In addition to the above, we may also cancel your excise 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 premises from your licence.

For more information, see section 4 of the Excise guidelines for the alcohol 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 Permission to move excisable alcohol products and Permits to receive concessional spirits.