Proposed changes to the .au Licensing Rules and implementation plan

auDA has opened public consultation on proposed amendments to the .au Licensing Rules and a proposed implementation plan.

The draft changes are informed by recommendations made by the external Policy Advisory Panel, which undertook the 2025 .au Licensing Rules Review.

auDA seeks feedback on how the proposed changes and implementation plan give effect to the recommendations of the Review.

Public consultation will close at 5.00pm Friday 15 January 2027 AEDT.

auDA seeks feedback on:

1. A redlined version of proposed amendments to the .au Licensing Rules, which sets out the draft changes that give effect to the Panel’s recommendations
2. A proposed implementation plan, which includes the scope of the transition and two options for implementing the proposed rule changes.

auDA has published an explanatory statement to support the consultation.

Please note that all submissions will be published on our website unless you ask us to keep your submission private.

auDA reserves the right to redact or decline to publish a submission where it includes inappropriate content such as potentially defamatory material (see auDA’s Engagement Charter). We will advise you if such a decision is made.

In September 2025, the auDA Board appointed an external Policy Advisory Panel to undertake a multi-stakeholder review of the .au Licensing Rules over 2025-2026. The Terms of Reference for the Review were developed taking into account problems or issues that have been raised from a range of sources, including stakeholder feedback, compliance data, and government or advisory body reports.

The Terms of Reference required the Panel to examine issues relating to the effective and fair operation of the .au Licensing Rules, including:

1. Allocation rules for the com.au and net.au namespaces.
2. Domain name monetisation in the com.au and net.au namespaces (currently prohibited in the org.au, asn.au, id.au, edu.au and the State and Territory Namespaces).
3. Contested .au direct domain names (auDA will provide the Panel with the outcome of a survey of contested .au direct domain name holders for consideration as a submission to the review).
4. Fraudulent and bad faith registrations and reserved names.
5. Complaint process for domain name audits.
6. Alignment of selected rules in .au with equivalent rules in generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) (such as .com).

Following two public consultation periods, including consultation on the Panel’s Draft Report, the Panel concluded its Review and provided its Final Report to the auDA Board. At its August 2026 meeting, the auDA Board resolved to approve the Panel’s Recommendations in the Final Report in-principle and directed auDA Management to prepare an Implementation Plan that considers the impact of the Recommendations.

.au Licensing Rules changes are made in accordance with the Process for the Development and Review of auDA Published Policies. In line with this Process, auDA is required to administer and manage .au in the public interest. The auDA Board will adopt the policy option that provides the greatest net benefit to the Australian community. The net benefit may be intangible, such as increased consumer confidence in transacting with entities using a .au domain name. 

Additional information:

• .au Licensing Rules Review 2025 webpage, including FAQs
• Policy Advisory Panel’s Final Report
• Policy Advisory Panel’s Final Report (summary of recommendations).