Pricing, Billing & GST for Cross-Border Sellers into ANZ

Australia and New Zealand both apply Goods and Services Tax to cross-border digital and physical sales — and both countries have expanded their regimes specifically to capture non-resident sellers. For a foreign company considering ANZ expansion, GST is not a back-office afterthought: it affects pricing strategy, billing-system architecture, and the timing of your market-entry finances.

Australia's GST rate is 10%. New Zealand's is 15%. The two systems share a common philosophy — broad-base, low-rate — but operate under separate legislation, separate thresholds, and separate registration pathways. A business selling SaaS subscriptions, digital content, or physical goods below A$1,000 in value will almost certainly trigger obligations in one or both markets. Understanding these rules before you make your first sale prevents retrospective liabilities that can accumulate quickly at scale.

This guide covers every layer of the ANZ cross-border tax stack that a foreign seller needs to understand: registration thresholds, digital-service and low-value-goods obligations, simplified registration, Peppol eInvoicing for government channels, the new card-surcharging regime, and New Zealand's parallel GST system.

Australia's GST is calculated as 1/11th of the GST-inclusive price charged for sales connected with Australia. For a non-resident, a "sale connected with Australia" is broadly any supply made to an Australian consumer — whether that is a software licence, a streamed video, a consulting engagement, or a physical product shipped to an Australian address. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is the collecting authority, and once your turnover from Australian sales meets the threshold, registration and quarterly lodgement become mandatory.

The practical implication for pricing is straightforward: if you are required to register, you must either absorb the 10% tax in your displayed price (reducing your margin) or add it on top (which affects your price competitiveness relative to domestic Australian competitors who already include GST). Most foreign SaaS vendors choose GST-inclusive pricing — "A$99 per seat/month, GST included" — to match the consumer expectations set by domestic providers.

The registration trigger is straightforward: a non-resident business must register for Australian GST when its GST turnover from sales connected with Australia reaches A$75,000 (or A$150,000 for non-profit organisations) in any rolling 12-month period — current or projected. ATO guidance makes clear that "projected" means you must register as soon as you reasonably expect to cross the threshold in the next 12 months — not only after you have already exceeded it.

Voluntary registration below A$75,000 is permitted, but it comes with a 12-month minimum commitment: once you register voluntarily, you must remain registered for at least 12 months before you can cancel. Most early-stage foreign entrants selling to Australian consumers — particularly those in digital services — will cross A$75,000 within one to two years of launch, so planning for registration from the outset is prudent.

This is one of the most commercially important nuances in the Australian GST framework. B2B sales to GST-registered Australian businesses are excluded from a foreign seller's GST turnover calculation — provided the buyer supplies their ABN and a declaration that they are GST-registered. According to ATO published guidance, a pure B2B SaaS provider selling exclusively to ABN-holding, GST-registered Australian businesses may therefore remain well below A$75,000 in counted turnover and not be required to register at all.

The practical implication: if your initial ANZ go-to-market targets enterprise or mid-market Australian businesses (which will almost universally be GST-registered), you can defer registration until your sales mix shifts towards consumers or smaller, unregistered buyers. Build your CRM and billing system to capture ABN and GST-registration status for every Australian customer from day one, as this data is your evidence base if the ATO ever queries your threshold position.

Once registered (whether under simplified or standard registration), a foreign business must lodge Business Activity Statements (BAS) with the ATO on a quarterly basis and remit the GST collected. Under simplified registration, the process is streamlined: there is no requirement to issue tax invoices, and the BAS can be lodged online via the ATO's portal without an Australian tax agent. Standard GST registration requires more detailed reporting and is typically managed through a registered tax agent in Australia.

Foreign businesses should also be aware that the ATO has information-sharing arrangements with major digital payment platforms and card networks operating in Australia. Non-compliance — particularly from large overseas platforms — is an enforcement priority. Registering before you hit the threshold, rather than retrospectively, avoids penalties and interest on unremitted amounts.

Australia's GST extension to imported digital products and services — colloquially known as the "Netflix tax" — has applied since 1 July 2017. It captures all inbound intangible consumer supplies sold by overseas businesses directly to Australian consumers. The scope is broad. According to ATO guidance on imported services and digital products, covered supplies include:

• Digital content: e-books, movies, music, games, and streaming subscriptions
• Apps and software (including SaaS and cloud-based software)
• Webinars and distance-learning courses
• Online dating services
• Professional services delivered digitally: accounting, legal, and consulting engagements
• Membership fees for digital platforms

If your product or service can be consumed or accessed digitally by an Australian consumer, it is almost certainly within scope. The B2B exclusion discussed in Section 2 applies here equally: sales to GST-registered Australian businesses are carved out.

An electronic distribution platform (EDP) — such as an app store, digital marketplace, or subscription billing platform — that facilitates the supply of digital products or services is treated as the supplier for Australian GST purposes, not the underlying merchant. This means that if you sell your software through Apple's App Store, Google Play, or a comparable EDP, the platform operator collects and remits the GST on your behalf. Your own GST obligations for those sales are effectively discharged.

However, if you sell directly — through your own website, via direct invoice, or through a reseller arrangement that does not qualify as an EDP — you are the supplier and must handle GST yourself. Many foreign SaaS vendors that sell through both channels (direct and marketplace) need to ensure they are not double-counting or double-remitting GST on the same sale. Billing systems should track channel of sale explicitly.

A small number of categories remain outside the GST net for non-resident suppliers. Financial supplies (such as the provision of financial instruments, insurance, and certain payment services) are generally input-taxed rather than standard-rated, meaning no GST is charged on the supply. Educational supplies that meet specific criteria as an approved course may also be GST-free. However, these exceptions are narrow and technical — they do not apply to general SaaS, productivity tools, content platforms, or professional-services software.

The safest approach for any foreign business launching a digital product into Australia is to assume GST applies and to seek a specific ATO ruling or Australian tax-law advice if you believe an exemption may apply. The cost of a professional opinion is materially less than the cost of a retrospective liability plus penalties.

From 1 July 2018, Australia extended GST to cover low-value imported goods — physical products with a customs value of A$1,000 or less sold to Australian consumers. Before this date, imported goods below A$1,000 entered Australia duty- and GST-free, creating a structural advantage for overseas online retailers over domestic ones. The extension closed that gap. Under ATO guidance on low-value imported goods, three types of entity may be responsible for collecting and remitting GST:

• Non-resident sellers selling directly to Australian consumers
• Electronic distribution platform (EDP) operators who facilitate the sale (e.g., online marketplaces)
• Redeliverers — freight-forwarding or consolidation services that buy and reship goods on behalf of Australian consumers

Only one of these entities is responsible per transaction; the rules establish a priority order to prevent double-collection. The A$75,000 registration threshold applies to the GST turnover from these low-value goods sales.

Where a single consignment's total customs value exceeds A$1,000, the goods are taxed at the Australian border through the standard import duties and taxes regime — not collected at point of sale by the seller. This creates a practical dividing line: goods valued above A$1,000 per consignment clear customs under the traditional import model, while goods at or below A$1,000 require the seller (or platform or redeliverer) to have already collected and remitted GST.

Some sellers have explored splitting orders into multiple lower-value consignments to try to stay below the threshold. The ATO's rules look at the total customs value of the consignment as presented at the border — not individual item values — and aggregation rules apply where goods are shipped together. Tax structuring around the threshold boundary is an area where professional customs and tax advice is essential before scaling your fulfilment operations into Australia.

The ATO offers a simplified GST registration pathway — using an ARN (Australian Registration Number) rather than an ABN — specifically designed for non-resident businesses that do not have, and do not need, an Australian Business Number. According to ATO guidance, simplified registration is available where all three conditions are met:

• The business does not hold an ABN (or need one for other Australian tax purposes)
• Sales are limited to imported services, digital products, or low-value imported goods supplied to Australian consumers
• The business does not need to claim GST input tax credits (i.e., it has no Australian-sourced business expenses on which it wants to recover GST)

For a pure-play foreign SaaS or digital-content business with no Australian entity, no staff, and no local procurement, simplified registration is almost always the right choice. It is faster to obtain, requires less ongoing compliance, and does not require a registered Australian tax agent — the quarterly BAS can be lodged directly through the ATO's online portal.

Standard GST registration is required if your business holds or needs an ABN — which is the case if you have established an Australian entity, have Australian-sourced income beyond consumer digital sales (e.g., government contracts, B2B supply agreements with tax-invoice obligations), or want to claim input tax credits on Australian expenses. Standard registration also requires you to issue compliant tax invoices for B2B sales where the buyer needs to claim their own input tax credits.

A common trigger for moving from simplified to standard registration is hiring an Australian employee or contractor, entering a lease for Australian office space, or winning a significant government contract. Each of these creates Australian tax exposure that requires ABN registration, which in turn brings you into the standard GST regime. Plan your entity structure before you establish any physical Australian presence — the shift from simplified to standard registration has compliance implications for your billing system, your invoice templates, and your BAS reporting cadence.

Peppol is an international electronic invoicing network that enables structured, machine-readable invoices to be transmitted directly between business systems — no PDFs, no email attachments, no manual data entry. The ATO acts as the Australian Peppol Authority (APA) and has been driving adoption across the public sector. Since a 2022 mandate, all Non-corporate Commonwealth Entities (NCEs) must be capable of receiving Peppol eInvoices. According to ATO eInvoicing for government guidance, the Australian Government has set a target of 30% of invoices received via Peppol by 1 July 2026, with automated processing capability to follow by December 2026.

As of the time of writing, over 400,000 businesses are on the Peppol network in Australia. For a foreign tech company seeking to sell software, SaaS, or digital services to Australian federal agencies, the practical message is clear: if you cannot send a Peppol eInvoice, you create unnecessary friction in your accounts-receivable cycle with government buyers. Peppol capability is increasingly a procurement expectation, not merely a nice-to-have.

A business connects to the Peppol network through an accredited Access Point Provider — a certified intermediary that routes your invoices to recipients via the network. The ATO maintains a register of accredited Australian Access Point Providers. Most modern cloud-accounting platforms (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks) and enterprise ERP systems (SAP, NetSuite, Oracle) already offer native Peppol connectivity or through an integration partner.

For a foreign company with no Australian entity, the practical route is to configure your billing platform to generate Peppol-compliant invoices (in the Australian Peppol BIS Billing format) and route them via an accredited Australian Access Point. This does not require you to have an ABN or Australian entity — you register your Peppol participant identifier through your Access Point provider. The total cost of setup is modest; the ongoing per-invoice transmission cost is typically sub-cent. The return on investment for any business targeting the Australian government channel is rapid.

Australia has long permitted merchants to apply card surcharges to recover their cost of acceptance — a model that differs from many international markets where surcharging is prohibited entirely. Under the current framework (valid until 30 September 2026), merchants may surcharge card transactions on eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa networks, but the surcharge must not exceed the merchant's own cost of card acceptance for that network. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), excessive surcharging is banned and the ACCC has enforcement powers. Acquirers must provide merchants with an annual statement of their average cost of acceptance per card system to enable compliance.

From 1 October 2026, the landscape changes materially. The Payments System Board has decided to remove surcharging entirely on debit, prepaid, and credit cards across eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa networks. Interchange caps for domestic cards will also be lowered on the same date. Per the RBA media release of 31 March 2026, further changes to interchange caps on foreign cards and payment cost transparency rules follow on 1 April 2027. These changes do not require legislation — they are implemented directly by the Payments System Board under existing powers.

For a foreign company building its ANZ billing and payments stack, the October 2026 surcharging ban has several practical implications. First, if you are building a checkout or subscription-billing flow that currently adds a card surcharge line item, that capability must be disabled for Australian transactions from 1 October 2026. Second, the cost of card acceptance — which was previously passable to consumers — must now be absorbed in your pricing or merchant-fee negotiations with your acquirer.

The upside is that the RBA's simultaneous lowering of interchange caps for domestic debit and credit cards is expected to reduce merchant acceptance costs. Foreign issuers' interchange caps follow in April 2027. For companies entering Australia at or after 2026, the net effect is a simpler, flatter payment-cost model that is easier to build pricing models around. Work with your Australian acquiring bank or global payment provider to model the post-October 2026 cost structure into your unit economics before you finalise your ANZ pricing.

New Zealand's GST rate is 15%, confirmed by Inland Revenue (IRD). Overseas (non-resident) businesses supplying remote services to New Zealand tax-resident customers must register for NZ GST when total supplies to NZ customers reach NZ$60,000 or more in the last 12 months or are expected to reach NZ$60,000 in the next 12 months. This regime — mirroring Australia's "Netflix tax" — has applied to remote services since 2016, with the extension to low-value imported goods following from 1 December 2019.

According to IRD guidance on supplying remote services into New Zealand, covered remote services include digital content (e-books, streaming, music), apps and software, offshore gambling, website design, and professional services (legal, accounting, and consulting). As in Australia, a B2B exemption applies: if an overseas supplier provides remote services exclusively to NZ businesses that are GST-registered and use the services for business purposes, registration is not required.

There are four types of GST registration available to non-resident businesses in New Zealand depending on their circumstances, including a specific registration pathway for suppliers of remote services. From 1 April 2024, overseas-based online marketplace operators facilitating "listed services" (including accommodation) must register for, collect, and return GST regardless of whether the underlying seller is GST-registered — a rule change documented by IRD's overseas businesses GST guidance.

For most foreign SaaS or digital-content businesses, the relevant pathway is the remote-services registration — a simplified non-resident registration that does not require a NZ entity, NZ bank account, or NZ tax agent for lodgement. NZ GST returns are filed on a six-monthly basis (compared to Australia's quarterly BAS), which reduces compliance overhead for smaller operators. The IRD's myIR portal supports overseas registrations in English and is straightforward to navigate.

The 5-percentage-point gap between Australian GST (10%) and New Zealand GST (15%) has direct implications for pricing strategy. A company that publishes a single global USD price and applies local tax on top will naturally show a higher NZD consumer price relative to the AUD equivalent, net of exchange rates. This can create customer-perception issues in markets where consumers compare prices across the Tasman.

The practical options are: (1) maintain separate AUD and NZD price lists with different base rates that produce comparable consumer-facing prices after GST; (2) price in round GST-inclusive amounts for both markets (e.g., A$99 incl. GST, NZ$109 incl. GST) and accept the different net revenue per market; or (3) price in a common "ANZ" figure and absorb the GST differential in margin. Option 2 is the most common approach for subscription SaaS products entering both markets simultaneously. Whichever approach you choose, ensure your billing platform can apply the correct tax rate by customer jurisdiction — misapplying a flat 10% to NZ customers creates a GST shortfall that becomes an IRD liability.

Use this checklist before your first ANZ sale.

• ☐ Determine your initial ANZ customer mix (B2B vs B2C) and model whether Australian B2B-only sales exclude you from the A$75,000 threshold
• ☐ Confirm whether your product is a digital service, low-value physical good, or both — each has different GST mechanics
• ☐ Decide between simplified GST registration (ARN, no ABN needed) and standard GST registration (ABN required) based on your entity structure
• ☐ Register with the ATO before you project crossing A$75,000 in Australian consumer sales — not after
• ☐ Update your billing platform to collect customer ABN and GST-registration status for all Australian business customers
• ☐ Configure invoice templates for GST-inclusive pricing (Australia 10%, New Zealand 15%) with jurisdiction logic
• ☐ Assess whether you sell through an EDP (app store, marketplace) — if so, confirm the EDP is handling GST collection on your behalf
• ☐ Register with IRD for NZ GST remote-services registration when NZ supplies approach NZ$60,000 (or earlier voluntarily)
• ☐ For any Australian government sales: verify your billing platform can generate a Peppol-compliant eInvoice via an accredited Australian Access Point Provider
• ☐ Audit any existing Australian checkout/payment flow for surcharge line items — remove for Australian transactions from 1 October 2026
• ☐ Model post-October 2026 card-acceptance costs (lower interchange caps) into your ANZ unit economics
• ☐ Engage an Australian-qualified tax adviser for any unusual digital-supply category, marketplace arrangement, or import-logistics structure before going live

Q: I sell B2B SaaS exclusively to Australian businesses. Do I need to register for GST?
A: Not necessarily. ATO guidance confirms that B2B sales to GST-registered Australian businesses (verified by ABN) are excluded from the threshold calculation. If your entire Australian revenue comes from registered business customers, you may remain below A$75,000 in counted turnover and not be required to register. Capture ABN and GST-registration declarations from all customers to substantiate this position.

Q: My software is sold through the Apple App Store and Google Play in Australia. Do I have to register for GST?
A: In most cases, no — for those channel sales. When an EDP (App Store, Google Play) facilitates the supply, the EDP is treated as the supplier for Australian GST purposes and handles collection and remittance. For any direct-channel sales you make outside those marketplaces, you remain responsible. Verify the EDP's GST obligations in their platform terms.

Q: Can I charge Australian customers in USD and still comply with Australian GST?
A: Yes. GST applies to the value of the supply in Australian dollars, converted at the applicable exchange rate. You can invoice in any currency, but must calculate and remit GST in AUD. Ensure your billing system records the AUD equivalent at the time of supply for each transaction.

Q: What is the penalty for not registering for Australian GST when required?
A: The ATO can apply a failure to register penalty and require back-payment of all GST that should have been collected, plus interest. The ATO also has information-sharing arrangements with card networks and digital platforms, making detection of non-compliant overseas sellers increasingly straightforward. Registering proactively is significantly less expensive than a retrospective audit.

Q: Is NZ GST registration administratively similar to Australia?
A: Both are online, English-language processes that can be completed without a local entity. New Zealand's remote-services registration is six-monthly rather than quarterly, which slightly reduces compliance burden. The IRD's remote-services guidance walks through the process. Many foreign companies register in both countries simultaneously when they launch ANZ operations.

Q: What happens with card surcharging on NZD transactions — is New Zealand banning surcharging too?
A: The RBA's surcharging ban from 1 October 2026 applies to Australian (AUD) transactions only. New Zealand operates its own payments regulation under the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Commerce Commission. As of the time of writing, New Zealand has not announced an equivalent blanket surcharging ban. Check with your NZD acquiring bank for current NZ surcharging rules applicable to your business.