Play fair: Unfair trading practices ban coming in 2026

What you need to know

• The Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments have agreed to proceed with an economy wide ban on unfair trading practices.
• Draft legislation will be released for consultation in early 2026.
• The legislation will include a general prohibition on "practices that manipulate consumer decision making and cause harm", with specific focus on "subscription traps" and "drip pricing".
• The protections will apply to consumers and may also extend to small businesses.

What you need to do

• Identify your risk areas: do you offer rolling subscriptions free trial periods, or charge additional mandatory processing or transaction fees? How do you communicate these to customers?
• Review your subscriptions practices: Do you permit online subscriptions, but require customers to call to cancel? Do you get customer complaints about your subscription cancellation process? Is the cancellation process as easy as the sign up process? What steps would you need to take to make the cancellation process as easy as the sign-up process?
• Review your pricing practices: Do your customers have clarity upfront about the total price payable? What changes could you make to increase transparency for customers?
• Start thinking about the practicalities of complying with an unfair trading practices ban. Will this give rise to practical challenges you want to make known during the consultation period? Would the expansion to small businesses be unworkable?

The Commonwealth Government will progress its ban of unfair trading practices in early 2026, after receiving support from all State and Territory Governments to amend the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

Announcing the development on 23 November 2025, Assistant Minister Dr Andrew Leigh MP described the reforms as "delivering on our commitment to take on dodgy business tactics head-on" and ensuring that "businesses will have to play fair".

The new laws will introduce "a general prohibition against practices that manipulate consumer decision making and cause harm, while targeting specific problems like subscription traps and hidden fees". It appears that the Government is proceeding with both a general prohibition and specific prohibitions. The new prohibition(s) will sit alongside existing prohibitions on misleading or deceptive conduct (s18), making false and misleading representations (s29), unconscionable conduct (s21), and unfair contract terms (s23), as well as the consumer guarantees regime (which will also be bolstered next year). The new prohibition(s) will attract the significant maximum penalties available under the ACL (up to $50 million per breach), and will be enforceable by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), fair trading bodies of any State or Territory, and private litigants.

The Commonwealth Government is specifically focused on preventing "subscription traps" and "drip pricing". Subscription traps are administrative or cost hurdles that prevent consumers from readily cancelling services. Drip pricing is where additional costs are added to the price as part of the purchase process (eg "delivery fees" that are not part of the upfront price for online tickets).

Based on Assistant Minister Leigh's media release and press conference, businesses can expect:

1. Mandatory information requirements for subscription models: Businesses will need to provide consumers with specific information before finalising a subscription, notify customers before the end of a free trial, and ensure there are not unreasonable barriers to cancel the subscription.
2. Stronger information requirements to thwart drip pricing: Businesses will need to show mandatory transaction fees prominently and upfront when displaying prices to consumers. Drip pricing already raises risks under the ACL, and the ACCC has a successful track record of pursuing businesses for problematic drip pricing practices. Misleading surcharging practices and other add on costs has been one of the ACCC's compliance and enforcement priorities for 2025-26, and earlier this year, it pursued Dendy Cinemas and Webjet for alleged drip pricing practices that misled consumers.
3. The unfair trading practices protections may extend to small businesses: The Commonwealth Government will consult on extending the unfair trading practices protections to small businesses (currently those employing 100 or fewer employees or with annual turnover less than or equal to $10 million) and businesses covered by the Franchising Code of Conduct. This extension appears likely, given the Commonwealth Government's approach to including small businesses in ACL amendments (like the unfair contract terms prohibition introduced in 2023).
4. Changes to the consumer guarantees and supplier indemnification frameworks: Amendments will be introduced to ensure consumers can receive refunds, repairs or replacements for faulty products, with tough civil penalties to apply to businesses that do not comply with these requirements. The ACL already contains a non-excludable consumer guarantee regime, but there are currently no specific consumer guarantee prohibitions for which penalties can be imposed.

These changes will create new information requirements and the need to change existing subscription and pricing practices for many businesses, and in particular those offering subscription products and selling online. A general prohibition on unfair trading practices will likely implicate many other business as usual practices. While we're still waiting on the details, it is worthwhile beginning to think about where your business might have vulnerabilities, how the amendments might impact your subscriptions processes and customer interfaces, and what changes you might need to make to comply with the new requirements.

Consultation in 2026

The Commonwealth Government will prioritise legislation to introduce an unfair trading practices prohibition, with consultation on the draft legislation to occur in early 2026. If you are interested in engaging with the consultation process, you can begin gathering relevant information now to build out a persuasive and evidence-based submission in response to the Commonwealth Government's consultation when it opens.

Legislating an unfair trading practices prohibition was an October 2024 election promise by the Commonwealth Government. Commonwealth Treasury has also previously consulted on unfair trading practices:

1. A consultation that addressed the question of whether Australia actually "needed" a prohibition on unfair practices (released on 31 August 2023 and closed on 29 November 2023)
2. A supplementary consultation to the above on the design of proposed general and specific provisions (released on 15 November 2024 and closed on 13 December 2024)

Other author: Venthan Brabaakaran, Expertise Lawyer

Want to know more?

• Australian government moves to ban unfair trading practices (18 November 2024)