A 171% Licence Fee Rise,
Overnight.

The 2026–27 ACT Budget lifted a range of firearms fees. The headline change is the adult licence; the acquisition and registration fees each rose by half.

An occupational (employment) firearms licence is $487 for a two-year term. Acquiring and registering one firearm now costs $60 in total ($30 permit + $30 registration).

The adult licence runs five years, so $487 works out to about $97.40 a year. That is more than every eastern state and the Northern Territory. Two jurisdictions — Western Australia and South Australia — charge more again; but in a single step the ACT has moved from the middle of the pack to the upper tier of firearms licensing costs in the country.

Occupational licence holders fare worse still: an annualised ACT fee of about $243.50, against $50 a year in New South Wales.

Western Australia and South Australia charge more per year than the ACT and are not shown above; their fee structures are not directly comparable. Figures are representative individual-licence fees — category structures and terms differ between jurisdictions (the Victorian figure is a Category B longarm licence; Category A is lower).

The Government has stated a purpose. The ACT Policing fee page says the new licence fee “will support the delivery of a new digital ACT Firearms Registry, improving services for licence holders, dealers and law enforcement.” A modern registry is welcome — the ACT’s paper-based system has long needed one, and SSAA ACT has said so. But a stated purpose is not the justification a cost-recovery fee requires. A fee of this kind is meant to be tied to the demonstrated efficient cost of the service and set transparently — with the costing model published and those who pay it consulted. A single sentence of purpose, unaccompanied by the review, the cost model or the interstate comparisons, asserts a reason without justifying the amount.

Two further concerns. First, transparency: the fee review, the interstate comparisons the Government says it relied on, and any cost-recovery modelling have not been released, nor shown to the Firearms Advisory Committee — so stakeholders cannot see how the figure of $487 was reached. Second, Commonwealth funding: the ACT has already received significant Commonwealth funding toward implementation of the National Firearms Register, which makes the scale of cost-recovery from individual licence holders harder to understand.

None of this is an argument against fair fees, or against cost recovery, which is a legitimate and common basis for a regulatory fee. It is an argument about proportion and process. The same Budget raised residential rates by an average of about 5 per cent and lifted the Police, Fire and Emergency Services and Safer Families levies by single-digit amounts; a 171 per cent rise on one group of licence holders is of a different order. The very framework that permits cost recovery also requires the amount to be justified by the cost of the service and set transparently. The Government has not shown that the $487 fee meets that test, nor pointed to any comparable ACT licence or service whose fee rose as steeply in the same Budget. A gradual, staged increase would have been the more equitable path if additional revenue was genuinely required.

If you are applying or renewing on or after 1 July 2026, the new fees apply now. SSAA ACT is pressing for the review to be released and for a fairer, staged approach, and will keep members informed of the Government’s response. If the fees are causing you particular hardship, let the Association know — it helps us put the real-world impact to the Minister.