Not yet. As of October 2026, auDA's board has approved in principle a recommendation to remove the goods, services, events, activities and premises route to a .com.au or .net.au name, but the licensing rules have not changed and draft rules are still to go to public consultation.
auDA appointed an external Policy Advisory Panel in September 2025 to review the .au Licensing Rules. It took submissions and held town halls and workshops, published a draft report, and ran a second round of feedback in June and July 2026. At its August 2026 meeting the board approved the final recommendations in principle and directed management to prepare an Implementation Plan.
That wording matters. An in principle approval is a direction to draft, not a new rule. auDA says it will publish draft Licensing Rules and an explanatory guide for public consultation before the board approves the final rules. IT Brief Australia reported on 25 September 2026 that the Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a domain industry body, opposes the decision.
Today, under the Licensing Rules, a .com.au or .net.au applicant must be a commercial entity, and the domain must either match or abbreviate its own name (or a related body corporate's name), or match a synonym of goods or services it currently provides. That last route is the one that lets a plumber hold something like emergencyplumbing.com.au without trading under that exact name.
Recommendation 2 of the panel's report removes the option to qualify through a service, goods, event, activity or premises name. What would remain, as auDA describes it: a match or acronym of a registered name, an Australian trade mark, or a related body corporate's name. A match means the same words in the same order with no extra words. Check auDA's review page for how the panel treats non-commercial holders and former businesses.
Nobody can say yet, and this is the honest centre of the issue. auDA's review page states that no timeframes are finalised and that it publishes no grandfathering rules. The Implementation Plan is meant to consider how many registrations are affected and what transition arrangements are appropriate. The same page says current .com.au and .net.au holders need take no action yet.
As IT Brief reports it, the ICA argues that if the change goes ahead it should apply only to new registrations, with existing compliant names permanently protected, including the right to renew and transfer. That is the ICA's position, not an auDA commitment. The same report says four of the seven panel members voted to delete the rule, two voted to keep it and one abstained. Treat all of it as a live argument rather than a settled outcome.
If your domain is your registered company or business name, or an obvious abbreviation of it, the proposed rule does not threaten you. Exposure sits with descriptive and generic names that qualify only because they describe what you sell or where you trade, and with names held by people who have since closed the business.
Some holders may need to register a matching business name with ASIC. auDA's page quotes ASIC business name fees of A$47 for one year or A$108 for three, as of October 2026, so check ASIC for current fees. A trade mark is the other route, but it is slow: IP Australia says registration takes at least seven months and costs a minimum of A$250, and the domain would have to be an exact match of the mark.
Nothing drastic, and certainly no panic sale. Do the housekeeping that helps under any outcome.
Then watch auDA's consultation page for the draft rules. For the wider picture of country domains and who can hold them, see our guide to country-code domains. This is general information only. Confirm details with auDA or your registrar, and take legal advice if a name is central to your business.
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