A guide to growing a business in New South Wales, published by Dotto
Sydney business coach: the NSW rules a growing business meets
A plan for growth counts sales, staff and years. New South Wales counts some of the same things, and at set points its rules begin: a wages bill passes a figure, a premium passes another, a worker reaches a number of years. This guide marks five of those points, one guide to each, with the figure and the date its source gives.
General information, not tax, legal or employment advice. Each guide names the official place to check, and every source is listed at the foot of its page.
Five marks on the gauge
Read the list from the bottom of a tide gauge upward: the first mark is met by a business with almost no wages bill, the last by one paying more than a million dollars a year in wages.
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Workers compensation insurance
Wages for the financial year above $7,500
The Workers Compensation Act 1987, in the version current from 1 October 2026, lets an employer go without a policy only while it has reasonable grounds to believe its wages for the financial year will be not more than the exemption limit: $7,500, or another amount the Workers Compensation Market Practice and Premiums Guidelines fix for that year. An employer that is a member of a group constituted under Division 2A of the Act, or that employs a person under a training contract, is never exempt.
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Portable long service
The first employee in contract cleaning or community services
In these two industries the mark is a headcount of one. A contract cleaning employer registers with the Long Service Corporation within one month of employing one or more people doing cleaning work, and a business employing one or more people to do community service work must register for that industry’s scheme, which started on 1 July 2025.
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Long service leave
5, 10 and 15 years with one employer
Under the Long Service Leave Act 1955, in the version current from 1 July 2025, a worker earns 2 months’ paid leave on completing 10 years’ continuous service and a further month for each 5 years after that. Some endings of employment bring a pro rata payment from 5 years.
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Return-to-work co-ordinator
A basic tariff premium above $50,000
An employer whose basic tariff premium would exceed $50,000 for a 12-month period of insurance is a category 1 employer under the Workers Compensation Regulation 2016, in the version current from 1 October 2026, and must employ or engage a return-to-work co-ordinator, unless clause 21 of the Regulation exempts it.
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Payroll tax
Australian wages above $1,200,000 in 2026-27
Revenue NSW gives the tax-free threshold for 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027 as $1,200,000, with tax at 5.45% of wages above it. Registration comes first: once total Australian wages pass the monthly threshold in any month.
Four kinds of measure
The five marks are not on one scale. Two count wages, one counts an insurance premium, one counts years of service with one employer, and one counts the first employee in an industry. A business can pass one mark long before another.
Wages
Payroll tax counts total Australian wages, and for a group of related businesses, the group’s wages together. The workers compensation exemption counts the wages an employer expects to pay its workers in the financial year.
Premium and service
The return-to-work line is set by premium, which icare’s pages call the average performance premium and the regulator calls the basic tariff premium. Long service counts years with one employer, or, in the portable schemes, service across an industry.
Where each rule is kept
| Mark | Official guidance | The law |
|---|---|---|
| Workers compensation | icare’s employer pages | Workers Compensation Act 1987, sections 155 and 155AA |
| Portable long service | The Long Service Corporation, which administers the schemes | Community Services Sector (Portable Long Service Leave) Act 2024; Building and Construction Industry Long Service Payments Act 1986; Contract Cleaning Industry (Portable Long Service Leave Scheme) Act 2010 |
| Long service leave | NSW Industrial Relations, the regulator for workers covered by the 1955 Act | Long Service Leave Act 1955, section 4 |
| Return to work | icare’s return to work pages | Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998, section 52; Workers Compensation Regulation 2016, clauses 11 to 21 |
| Payroll tax | Revenue NSW, which collects payroll tax | Payroll Tax Act 2007, sections 86 and 87 and Schedule 1 |
Each guide sets out one mark: the rule in its source’s words where the law states it, the date the figure applies from, and what a business does once it reaches the mark.