Today, I published the January 2026 edition of the Regulator’s update on our website.
With the Australian Government’s reforms to the Payment Times Reporting Scheme now largely implemented, this update reflects on:
- the key insights from the latest reported data
- our recent regulatory activity
- broader achievements over the past year towards influencing payment behaviours.
Importantly, the January edition sets out my priority focus areas for 2026. These are to raise the profile of the Scheme and promote responsible payment practices.
Improving payment performance across the economy
The Scheme plays a critical role in promoting fairness in business dealings and supporting the financial health of Australia’s small businesses. Large businesses and Commonwealth entities are expected to play a leadership role by demonstrating faster and fairer payment practices with their small business suppliers.
Our analysis of the most recent data for the reporting period 1 January to 30 June 2025 showed strong payment performances in some industry sectors. It revealed significant room for improvements in others.
The average number of days it takes a large business to pay 95 per cent of its small business invoices reflects its typical payment behaviour. This gives small businesses a better idea of when they can expect to be paid.
This measure worsened significantly this cycle. It rose to 64 days from the previous 58 days. While average payment times remained relatively stable, it indicates the slowest payments are getting even slower. This disproportionately affects cash flow for small businesses.
The 95th percentile payment time is the key metric we use to identify both fast small business payers and slow small business payers. These are 2 of the payment improvement incentives introduced by the Australian Government’s payment times reforms.
The Fast Small Business Payer List is now publicly available on the interactive Payment Times Reports Register and updates daily. Congratulations to our first fast small business payers on the list. You are leading by example in making faster and fairer payment practices with small businesses the new standard.
Strengthening transparency and compliance
Compliance continues to be a focus area and this update reports on the actions we took in line with my 2025–26 Compliance and enforcement priorities.
We took decisive action and contacted 1,334 suspected non‑reporters. After this, 293 entities submitted missing reports. Additionally, 202 warning letters were sent about late reports.
I wrote to over 650 entities:
- advising them they had been identified as slow small business payer
- outlining the consequences of inaction
- strongly urging them to immediately review their payment practices and take concrete steps to reduce their payment times to small business.
I also issued infringement notices under the Regulatory Powers Act where I believed on reasonable grounds that an entity had contravened a civil penalty provision of the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020.
Our actions demonstrate our escalating approach to compliance and enforcement, reinforcing our expectations that reporting entities meet their legal obligations.
More engagement opportunities for our stakeholders
I invite you to register online to attend the Regulator’s next online Stakeholder Liaison Forum on 12 March 2026.
In this session, you’ll hear more on the latest insights from the Regulator’s January 2026 update and the new fast and slow small business payer incentives.
There’s an opportunity to ask questions and you can stay informed about our regulatory work in the year ahead.