How to apply for an ABN without it getting held up

When an ABN application gets held up, it is nearly always for the same reason: the ATO cannot match the applicant to its own records. Get your details right before the application goes in and you avoid most of the waiting.

An Australian Business Number is the 11-digit number that identifies your business. It goes on your invoices, you quote it when you register for GST, and other businesses look it up to check you are real. You can apply if you are carrying on an enterprise in Australia, or starting one. Selling your own car once is not an enterprise. A plumber who also sells parts on the side is carrying on an enterprise for both.

Sole traders and companies come at it from different directions. A sole trader applies in their own name, because the business is them. A company is a separate legal entity, so it has to exist first, with its Australian Company Number (ACN), before it can have an ABN. If you are setting up a company, the ABN comes after the company registration, not alongside it. Which structure suits you is a question for your accountant, and this is general information only.

What to have ready

• your full name exactly as the ATO has it, middle names included
• your date of birth
• your residential address, and a business address if it is different
• your tax file number, which helps the ATO match your identity
• a short, plain description of what the business does
• the date you started trading, or will start

A company also needs its ACN and the details of the people involved.

The identity match is where things go wrong. The details on your application are checked against the ATO's records, and if they do not line up, the application can be held for review or refused. The cause is usually tiny. A middle name left off. Kate instead of Katherine. A married surname the ATO was never told about. Day and month swapped in the date of birth. Use your name and details exactly as the ATO already has them.

The business description is the other common sticking point. "Consulting" or "online" invites follow-up questions. "Residential house painting" or "selling handmade candles online" does not.

Your ABN goes on the public register, and you can find your entry on ABN Lookup. Then there is GST. For most businesses it becomes required once annual turnover reaches $75,000, and your accountant can tell you if registering earlier makes sense for you.

Put the ABN on your invoices straight away. A business that pays you may have to withhold tax from the payment if you do not quote one. And if you trade under a name that is not your own, that name needs to be registered as a business name, which is a separate registration from the ABN.

Applying through us

We apply for ABNs for sole traders and for companies. On our ABN registration page you enter the details from the list above, describe the business, pay, and we put the application in for you. Have everything in front of you before you start, and copy your name and date of birth exactly as the ATO has them, since a mismatch there is what holds applications up.

If you are setting up a company with us, you do not need a separate trip. The ABN application can be added to the company registration order, and the company's ABN follows on from its ACN. And once you have an ABN, you can register a business name with us too: you search the name on our site to see if it is available, give the holder's details, pay, and we lodge it with ASIC for a one or three year term.

Our team is on 1300 070 000, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Melbourne time, if anything on the form is unclear.