Do You Need an ABN to Sell Online? (2026 Update)

Whether you need an ABN to sell online comes down to one question: are you running a business or just having a clear-out? If you sell online as a business, meaning you want to make a profit and you sell in a regular, organised way, you need an ABN. It doesn’t matter whether you make $500 or $500,000.

Here’s where people trip up. They assume the $75,000 figure decides it. It doesn’t. That number is the GST registration threshold, not the ABN test. Plenty of online sellers need an ABN long before they get anywhere near $75,000, and the cost of getting this wrong lands at tax time, not now.

Do you need an ABN to sell online?

Selling online as a business? Then yes. The ATO and the Australian Business Register don’t care about your turnover when deciding this. They care about whether you’re “carrying on an enterprise”, which is a fancy way of asking: are you doing this in a business-like way, with the intention of making a profit?

Run a regular store, advertise it, reinvest your earnings, chase repeat sales, and you’re carrying on an enterprise. At that point you need an ABN to sell online, full stop. The number on your bank statement is irrelevant to this question.

So where does $75,000 come from? It’s the point at which you must register for GST, and the ABR confirms an ABN is judged on the enterprise test, not a dollar figure. Two separate things. A founder selling $30,000 of handmade candles a year is well under the GST threshold but is clearly running a business, so they need an ABN. The threshold tells them when GST kicks in later, not whether they’re a business now.

Hobby or business? The test that actually decides it

This is the line that matters, so it’s worth getting right. A hobby is something you do for pleasure, with no real plan to profit. A business is organised, repeated, and aimed at making money. Sell as a hobby and you don’t need an ABN. Sell as a business and you do.

ATO assessors look at the whole picture, not one factor. Here’s how the two stack up.

Signs you’re a hobby	Signs you’re a business
One-off or occasional sales, like clearing out your wardrobe	Regular, repeated sales over time
No real intention to profit	You’re selling to make money
No store, brand, or paid promotion	You’ve set up a shop, brand, or run ads
You don’t keep business records	You track income, expenses, and stock
Selling personal items, often below what you paid	Buying or making to resell at a margin

Two quick examples make the difference obvious.

Jay, the sneaker seller (a business). Jay sets up a Shopify store reselling rare sneakers, promotes it on Instagram, then starts sourcing and flipping rare caps too. He buys low, sells high, and keeps doing it. Jay is running a business from his first sale, so he needs an ABN. Once his sales pass $75,000, he also has to register for GST. Two obligations, triggered at two different points.

Sally, the wardrobe clear-out (a hobby). Sally lists clothes she no longer wears on a marketplace app. Some sell for more than she paid, most for less. She makes about $1,800, then stops. No store, no brand, no plan to keep going. Sally is selling as a hobby, so she doesn’t need an ABN.

The grey zone is the hobby that quietly turns into a business. That’s the moment to act, and it’s the moment most people miss.

What happens if you sell online without an ABN?

More than people expect. Skipping the ABN when you actually need one isn’t a victimless shortcut. It bites in a few specific ways.

You can lose 47% of a payment. When a business pays you and you can’t quote a valid ABN, the law requires them to withhold 47% and hand it to the ATO. That’s the no-ABN withholding rule, and it’s the single most expensive reason to sort this out before you invoice anyone.

You can’t register for GST or claim credits. No ABN means no GST registration, which means no claiming back the GST on your stock, packaging, or software. For a new online store with real setup costs, that’s money left on the table.

You can’t get a .com.au domain or issue proper tax invoices. Most Australian domains need an ABN. So do valid tax invoices, which your business customers need to claim their own credits. Without one, you quietly lose B2B buyers.

And “they’ll never know” isn’t a plan. Under the ATO’s Sharing Economy Reporting Regime, platforms for ride-share, short-stay, task work, and food delivery now report seller income straight to the ATO. Selling physical goods isn’t caught by that regime, but the ATO still receives data from banks, payment processors, and marketplaces, and your income is taxable either way.

Do you need an ABN to sell on Etsy, eBay, Facebook or Amazon?

Same test, every platform. Etsy, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Amazon don’t make you hold an ABN to open an account or list a few items. The marketplace isn’t the decider. What you’re doing is.

List a couple of old things to clear space? Hobby. Run an organised shop with regular sales and a profit motive? Business, which means you need an ABN to sell online through that platform, the same as you would through your own website. Etsy reaches millions of buyers and Facebook Marketplace moves millions of listings a day, which is exactly why a casual side hustle there can cross into a business faster than you’d think.

The mistake we see most is treating “it’s just Etsy” as a reason the rules don’t apply. They do. The platform is just the shopfront.

Do you need to register your online business in Australia?

People lump four separate jobs into one scary word, “registration”, and then freeze. Pulling them apart makes the whole thing manageable. Here’s what registering an online business in Australia actually involves.

• Your business structure. Sole trader, partnership, company, or trust. Most online sellers start as a sole trader because it’s the simplest and cheapest, then move to a company as risk and revenue grow. This choice shapes everything else, so it goes first. Read more on choosing a business structure.
• Your ABN. Once you’ve picked a structure, you register the ABN against it. A sole trader uses one ABN; a company gets its own.
• Your business name. Only needed if you trade under something other than your own legal name. You’ll need your ABN first to register a business name with ASIC.
• GST. Optional until your turnover hits $75,000, then compulsory within 21 days. You can register early if you want to claim credits on setup costs.

One trap worth flagging now. If you start as a sole trader and later set up a company, you don’t “upgrade” your ABN. A company is a separate legal entity with its own ABN and TFN, and you transfer the business across to it. Plan for that early and the switch is painless.

Do you need a business licence to sell online?

An ABN is not a licence, and the two get confused constantly. For most everyday products such as clothing, homewares, accessories, or digital goods, there’s no special licence to sell online in Australia beyond having your ABN and tax registrations sorted.

Some products are different. Sell food, alcohol, cosmetics or skincare with health claims, therapeutic goods, or certain secondhand items, and you may need a specific permit or to meet labelling and safety rules. The product decides this, not the fact that you’re online. If you sell anything ingestible or applied to skin, check the rules before you list.

What we see in Lawpath consultations

This is the part the ATO website won’t tell you. Across hundreds of consultations with online sellers, the same handful of issues come up again and again.

“Hobby” stops protecting you the moment you hold an ABN. Our accountants regularly meet sellers who registered an ABN, kept treating the income as a hobby, and never lodged. Once you have an ABN, that activity is reportable, and we’ve seen people discover a tax return is already a year overdue. If you register, you report. There’s no halfway.

The ATO cancels ABNs that look dormant. A common shock is an email saying your ABN has been cancelled because the ATO believes you’ve stopped trading, usually after a stretch of nil income. Reactivating it is straightforward and tends to take a couple of business days, but it always seems to happen the week someone needs to invoice. If you’re still trading, keep the ABN live and your lodgements current.

Founders assume a company keeps the same ABN. It doesn’t. When sellers move from sole trader to company, they expect to carry their ABN across. A company is a brand-new entity with a brand-new ABN and TFN, and the business has to be transferred into it. Knowing that before you incorporate saves a messy, expensive cleanup later.

The ABN is the five-minute job. The legal docs are the real gap. Sellers fixate on the ABN and launch without website terms, a refund policy, or a privacy policy. Our lawyers flag missing terms and refund policies as the most common compliance hole for new online stores, and Australian Consumer Law applies whether or not you’ve written your own. Sort the legal essentials for an online store alongside the ABN, not six months after a customer complains.

How to apply for an ABN to sell online

Here’s the good news after all that: getting an ABN to sell online is quick, and it’s free if you do it yourself. You can apply directly through the Australian Business Register, and most applications are approved instantly. Here’s the run of it.

1. Pick your structure. Sole trader is the usual starting point for online sellers.
2. Have your details ready. Your tax file number, your business activity, your contact and address details, and the date you want the ABN active. That date has to be within six months of applying.
3. Apply. Lodge it free through the ABR, or use a verified provider like Lawpath if you’d rather have it checked and done in one short form.
4. Add a business name if you need one. Trading under anything other than your own name means registering that name with ASIC, using your ABN.
5. Register for GST when you have to. Once turnover hits $75,000, you’ve got 21 days. Earlier is an option if claiming credits helps your cash flow.

Doing it yourself through the ABR costs nothing. The reason people use Lawpath instead is speed and certainty: the application is checked, the details are right the first time, and you’re not left guessing what each question means. If you’d rather get it done and get back to your store, you can see the full ABN application steps here.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need an ABN to sell online in Australia?

Yes, if you’re selling online as a business. The test is whether you’re carrying on an enterprise, meaning you sell regularly and aim to profit. How much you earn doesn’t change the answer. If you’re only making one-off personal sales, that’s a hobby and you don’t need one.

Do I need an ABN as a sole trader?

If you’re running a business as a sole trader, yes. A sole trader operating an online store needs an ABN regardless of turnover. You use your personal name unless you register a separate business name, and your ABN stays active until you cancel it with the ABR.

Do you need an ABN to sell on Etsy, eBay or Facebook?

The platform won’t force you to have one to open an account. Whether you need an ABN depends on the same business-versus-hobby test. Run an organised, profit-driven shop on Etsy, eBay or Facebook and you need an ABN. Sell a few personal items casually and you don’t.

Does an ABN cost money?

No. Applying through the Australian Business Register is free, and there are no ongoing fees to hold an ABN. Some providers charge for an assisted application that checks your details and submits it for you, but the ABN itself never costs anything.

Do I need an ABN if I earn under $75,000?

Possibly yes. The $75,000 figure is the GST threshold, not the ABN test. If you’re running a business, you need an ABN from day one even at a few thousand dollars. The $75,000 mark only tells you when you also have to register for GST.

Do I need a business licence to sell online?

An ABN isn’t a licence, and most everyday goods don’t need one. Certain products do, including food, alcohol, skincare with health claims, and therapeutic goods. The product decides it, not the website. Check the specific rules before listing anything ingestible or applied to skin.

What happens if I sell online without an ABN?

If you’re operating as a business, you risk real consequences. Business customers must withhold 47% of payments to you without a valid ABN, you can’t register for GST or claim credits, and you can’t issue proper tax invoices or get a .com.au domain. Your income is still taxable.

Do I need to register my online business in Australia?

Registering covers four separate things: your structure, your ABN, your business name, and GST. A sole trader running an online store needs an ABN, a business name only if trading under something other than their own name, and GST once turnover reaches $75,000.

If you’ve read this far, you’re already ahead of most people, who put this off until a tax bill forces the issue. You’re not behind. Sorting your ABN is the normal first step for anyone selling online, and it takes about as long as making a coffee.

Get it done in one place, properly, and get back to your store: register your ABN with Lawpath today.