How to start a home bakery in Australia: registration, ABN, GST and your first month

To start a home bakery in Australia you need four things before your first sale: an ABN (free), a registration or notification with your local council (or the state body your council points you to), a kitchen that passes the council's check, and allergen information for everything you sell. Add a registered business name ($47 for one year or $108 for three) if you trade under anything other than your own name, a certified Food Safety Supervisor if you make unpackaged, ready-to-eat food that needs refrigeration, and GST registration once your turnover reaches A$75,000. The council step sets your timeline, so start it first and ask how long approval takes.

The steps below are in the order to do them. For what each state calls its registration and which foods it restricts, use the state table in home baking laws by state and country; for the five questions to ask your council, see do I need a license to sell cakes from home. Rules change and councils differ, so check with your local council before you rely on any step here.

Step 1: decide your menu before you call anyone

Your menu decides your category, and your category decides almost everything else. Write down every product you plan to sell in the first six months, with its fillings and finishes, and sort it into two lists:

• Shelf-stable: bread, sourdough, cookies, biscuits, brownies, slices, buttercream or ganache cakes, fondant cakes, gingerbread, macarons with shelf-stable fillings.
• Needs refrigeration: cheesecake, fresh cream, custard or curd fillings, cream cheese frosting, fresh fruit tarts.

The first list is what councils approve in home kitchens with the least friction. The second list moves you up a class in Victoria, is excluded outright in the ACT, and triggers the Food Safety Supervisor rules below in most states. If you can launch with the first list only, do, and add the second once you know your council's view.

Step 2: get an ABN (free, usually instant)

Apply on the Australian Business Register. It is free, and if every detail checks out you get the number as soon as you finish the online application; if it needs manual review, allow up to 20 business days. You need to be running a business to be entitled to one, which a home bakery taking orders is. You can register a business name and GST in the same application.

Step 3: register a business name, if you need one

If you sell as "Jane Smith", you do not need to register anything extra. If you sell as "Jane's Sourdough" or "Little Crumb Cakes", register the name with ASIC: $47 for one year or $108 for three. Check the name is free before you print labels or build a website around it.

Step 4: talk to your council and register or notify

This is the step that sets your timeline. Ring your council's environmental health team with your menu from Step 1 and ask:

1. What registration, licence or notification do I need, and what does it cost?
2. Will you inspect before I start trading, or after?
3. Do I need planning approval to run a food business from home?
4. Do I need a Food Safety Supervisor?

What happens next depends on your state. In NSW you notify your council if you sell direct to customers, and the NSW Food Authority if you sell to cafes for resale. Victoria classes shelf-stable cakes as Class 3 and cream or custard cakes as Class 2. Queensland treats making cakes as manufacturing, so most home bakers need a council food business licence. The ACT wants food safety supervisor training started before you apply. The full table:

Fees are set by each council and published on its website or fee schedule, so ask for the registration fee and the annual renewal or inspection fee separately. Budget for both.

Step 5: get the kitchen ready for inspection

FSANZ's home-based business guidance sets the baseline every council works from: wash and dry hands with warm running water, soap and single-use towels; keep food away from pets, children, visitors, waste, chemicals and pests; keep benches, utensils and containers clean and sanitised; and hold potentially hazardous food at 5°C or colder. Queensland's home-based page spells out what inspectors there look for, and it is a good checklist anywhere:

• surfaces that can be easily and effectively cleaned
• a dedicated hand wash basin in the food preparation area
• business ingredients stored separately from household food
• enough refrigerated storage
• a probe thermometer accurate to plus or minus 1°C

The two things that most often hold up a first inspection are the hand basin and the storage split. Sort them before you book the visit.

Step 6: food safety training and the Food Safety Supervisor

Since December 2023, FSANZ Standard 3.2.2A has applied to businesses that handle unpackaged, ready-to-eat, potentially hazardous food, and FSANZ says it may apply to home-based businesses too.

• Food handler training for everyone who handles the food, covering safe handling, contamination, cleaning and sanitising, and personal hygiene. FSANZ lists I'm Alert and DoFoodSafely as free online options.
• A Food Safety Supervisor with recognised certification obtained in the last five years. Queensland also requires licensed home-based businesses to nominate one. Certification is a paid course through a registered training provider; your state food authority lists the approved ones.
• Records (category one businesses only): evidence that you control temperatures, cleaning and the other prescribed steps.

If your menu is shelf-stable bread, biscuits and buttercream cakes, your council may tell you the standard does not apply. Get that answer in writing. Do the free food handler course either way; it costs an afternoon and inspectors notice.

Step 7: labels and allergens

Plain English allergen labelling (PEAL) applies to packaged food from 25 February 2024, and the transition ended on 25 February 2026, so every packaged product you sell now needs it:

• allergens named in the ingredient list in bold, using the required names (wheat, milk, egg, soy, sesame, peanut, almond, and so on)
• a separate summary statement starting with "Contains"
• "gluten" in that statement where wheat, barley, oats or rye are present

For unpackaged food, such as a custom cake handed over in a box, allergen information must be displayed with the food or available on request. For a home baker that means a written allergen list for every product, kept current whenever you change a supplier or recipe.

Step 8: GST and income tax

You do not charge GST until you are registered, and you must register once your GST turnover reaches A$75,000 in the current or projected 12 months. Cakes, pastries, biscuits and sweet-iced bread are taxable at 10 percent once you are registered; plain bread is GST-free. The detail, including the 21-day deadline, is in do I charge GST on cakes in Australia.

Below the threshold you still declare your bakery profit in your individual tax return. Keep every receipt for ingredients, packaging and equipment from day one, because they reduce that profit.

Step 9: insurance

Whatever your council requires, in practice you will need:

• Public and product liability: markets, venues, wedding planners and wholesale customers usually ask for a certificate before they will deal with you. Product liability is the part that covers someone falling ill from what you sold.
• Home and contents: tell your insurer you run a business from home. Many home policies exclude business activity, and a kitchen fire during a bake can fall outside cover.
• Workers compensation: check your state scheme's rules before you employ anyone.

Get at least two quotes from a broker who knows food businesses. Prices vary too much by state, turnover and product mix to quote a typical figure.

Step 10: price your first products

Price from your real costs before you take an order, not from what the bakery down the road charges. Cost the ingredients at what you paid, add packaging, add your hours at a wage you would accept, then add margin. Worked examples:

• cakes: cake pricing calculator and cake prices by country
• cookies: how to price cookies for a cookie business
• bread: how to price sourdough bread
• selling to cafes: wholesale bread pricing for cafes

If you expect to cross A$75,000, price so that adding 10 percent GST later does not wreck your margins or your customers' expectations.

Step 11: take orders and deposits properly

Decide your order rules before the first enquiry arrives: lead time, minimum order, deposit, balance due date and cancellation terms. For custom cakes, 50 percent at booking with the balance 7 to 14 days before the event is the common structure; see how much deposit for a custom cake and the copyable cake order terms. For bread and cookies sold weekly, take payment in full at order. Australian Consumer Law limits what you can keep on cancellation to your real loss, so write your terms around that.

Your first-month checklist

Where ibakepro fits

ibakepro is bakery management software for Australian bakeries, from a first home kitchen to bakeries with staff, wholesale accounts and more than one site. The allergen list your council asks to see is built from the ingredients in each recipe, so it is there before the first inspection, and every product is costed from what you paid for those ingredients. Deposits and balances are taken in Australian dollars, GST is added at 10 percent once you register, and Australian accounts keep their data in Sydney. Growth and Business add the temperature, cleaning and corrective action records a council officer checks. Essentials is A$26 a month, Growth A$33 and Business A$89, with a 14-day free trial. See orders and quotes, recipe costing and allergen management.