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Terms of Use and Policy
For existing Centrepay businesses, the new Centrepay Terms of Use and Policy for businesses starts from 3 November 2025. All businesses should make themselves aware of the changes and what they mean for their business.
Letting you know about the changes
We’ll contact all businesses regarding the changes to Centrepay.
We’re giving businesses and customers time to adjust to the changes with a transition period.
How this applies to your business
We start the transition period on 3 November 2025.
There will be changes to service reasons.
Businesses no longer eligible
If your business no longer meets the eligibility for Centrepay under the new Centrepay Terms of Use we will support you to move off the program.
Your business will have a 12-month transition period to move off the program starting on 3 November 2025.
From 3 November you can’t set up new deductions or increase existing deductions. This includes restarting deductions that have finished or been cancelled.
During the transition period, your business needs to:
- contact customers to discuss alternative payment arrangements
- at the customer’s request, return any credit held with your business.
The transition period ends on 1 November 2026. From this date, your business’s access to Centrepay and all remaining deductions will cease.
Businesses continuing to remain eligible
If your business stays eligible for Centrepay from 3 November 2025, you need to know about the following changes.
Summary of changes
The range of changes are:
- introduction of mandatory deduction conditions including target amounts or end dates
- if applicable, all new deductions must include these conditions
- a mandatory Deduction Authority form must be used
- a standardised business transaction fee of $0.99 per Centrepay transaction
- an improved complaints handling process
- a strengthened compliance strategy.
Deductions in place prior to 3 November 2025 need to have the conditions added by 4 May 2026. You won’t need to obtain new consent from customers to do this.
Accepting the new Centrepay Terms of Use and Policy for businesses
If your business continues to use Centrepay from 3 November 2025, we consider this to be acceptance of the new Centrepay Terms of Use and Policy for businesses. This is in line with ‘continued use of Centrepay’ as defined in the Clause 7 (Variation) in the existing Centrepay Policy and Terms (Version 3.0).
Withdrawing from Centrepay
Your Authorised Officer can request to withdraw from Centrepay before 3 November 2025 if you:
- don’t agree with the new contract
- don’t want to transition to the new contract
- can’t comply with the new terms of use or policy for businesses.
To do this you can email us before 3 November 2025 at centrelink.business.support@servicesaustralia.gov.au.
Mandatory conditions
Mandatory conditions will now be required for most Service reasons.
The specific mandatory conditions for each Service reason are set out in Schedule 1 of the new Centrepay Terms of Use. You should familiarise yourself with the specific conditions for each Service reason and consider how it will affect your business’s use of Centrepay.
Conditions will include:
- mandatory target amounts - the total amount payable to your business for each deduction authority
- mandatory end dates - the final date a deduction will be made to your business for each deduction authority
- deduction limits - the maximum amount of each fortnightly deduction.
Once a mandatory target amount or end date is reached, the deduction will automatically stop.
If a customer wants to continue getting goods and services, the customer will need to provide a new deduction authority to start a new deduction and apply the appropriate mandatory condition.
New term for overpayment
The new term for overpayment is incorrect payment.
You can read more about this in the new Terms of Use.