TPAR 2026: Do You Need To Lodge By 28 August?
- G&A Editorial Team
- Aug 13
- 4 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
If your business pays contractors, the Taxable Payments Annual Report (TPAR) might be a compliance obligation you haven't thought about since last August and the ATO is counting on that. This year there's an added twist: for the first time, TPAR data flows directly into contractors' individual tax returns, so getting it right matters more than ever.
What Is The TPAR?
The TPAR is an annual report that tells the ATO how much your business paid contractors during the financial year, including their ABN, name, address, and the total amount paid (including GST). The ATO uses this data to cross-check what contractors report as income on their own tax returns.
Who Needs to Lodge a TPAR in 2026?
You may need to lodge a TPAR if your business operates in:
Building and construction
Cleaning services
Courier and road freight
Information technology (IT)
Security, investigation, and surveillance
If your business is a mixed business offering cleaning, courier/road freight, IT, or security services alongside other activities, you're caught if 10% or more of your income comes from one of these services. Building and construction businesses use a different test - you're considered a construction business (and must lodge) if 50% or more of your income or business activity relates to construction, in either the current or prior financial year.
TPAR Due Date 2026
Reporting period: 1 July 2025 - 30 June 2026
Due date: 28 August 2026
Lodgment method: Electronic only - paper TPAR lodgment was phased out in August 2025. Lodge through the ATO's online services, your registered tax agent, or accounting software like Xero, MYOB, or QuickBooks.
How To Prepare Your TPAR: A Step-by-Step Checklist
Most TPAR problems come from messy records, not the lodgment itself. Work through these steps before the deadline:
Pull your list of contractor payments for the full financial year (1 July 2025 - 30 June 2026) from your accounting software or bank records.
Confirm each contractor's ABN, name, and address using ABN Lookup - details change more often than you'd think.
Check what's actually reportable. If a contractor's invoice includes both labour and materials, report the full amount not just the labour portion.
Exclude what doesn't belong. You don't need to report payments to employees (these go through STP), payments to workers engaged under a labour hire arrangement, or PAYG withholding payments.
Report on a cash basis. Only include payments actually made during the year - an invoice raised in June but paid in July belongs in next year's TPAR, not this one.
Reconcile total payments per contractor against your bookkeeping records and bank statements before finalising figures.
Lodge through your accounting software (many can generate the TPAR file directly) or via the ATO's Online Services for Business.
Common TPAR Mistakes To Avoid
Reporting invoices instead of payments. TPAR is cash-basis - what mattered was when the money left your account, not when the invoice was issued.
Missing an ABN check. An outdated or mistyped ABN can flow straight through to your TPAR and, this year, into the contractor's own tax return.
Confusing employees with contractors. Employee payments belong in Single Touch Payroll, not TPAR. Getting this wrong carries risk beyond TPAR too, a misclassified worker can trigger unpaid superannuation and penalties. Read more on the superannuation risks of worker misclassification.
Splitting labour and materials incorrectly. A bundled invoice covering both labour and materials generally needs to be reported in full - don't assume the materials portion can be carved out.
Assuming a "nil" year means doing nothing. If your business no longer needs to lodge, submit a non-lodgment advice rather than letting it go quiet.
TPAR Penalty: What Happens If You Miss the Deadline
Late lodgment attracts a penalty of one penalty unit ($364 from 1 July 2026) for every 28 days overdue, capped at five penalty units up to $1,820 for smaller entities, and double that for businesses with turnover over $1 million.
Beyond the fine, a missed TPAR is a visible compliance flag that can draw closer ATO attention to your other lodgments.
TPAR Pre-Fill 2026: What's Changed for Contractors
Here's what's changed this year and it affects both payers and the contractors they pay.
For the first time, the ATO is using TPAR data to pre-fill contractor income directly into individual tax returns. Once your business lodges its TPAR, the amounts you report against each contractor's ABN will automatically appear as assessable income in that contractor's own tax return.
What this means for your business (the payer):
Accuracy matters more than ever - an incorrect, ABN or payment amount now flows straight into someone else's tax return.
Contractors may come back to you if a reported figure doesn't match their own records, so clean, reconciled data before lodging saves headaches later.
What this means if you're a contractor being paid:
Don't rely on pre-fill alone. Not every payer has a TPAR reporting obligation, some data may arrive later than expected, and pre-fill only covers income reported through TPAR - cash jobs, private clients, and non-TPAR income still need to be added manually. You're still responsible for declaring all assessable income yourself.
Most TPAR data won't appear in pre-fill until after 28 August. Lodging your own tax return before then risks missing income and needing to amend later.
If a pre-filled amount looks wrong, you can update it in myTax but you'll need to select a reason code explaining why.
The takeaway: If you lodge TPAR as a business, get your contractor records clean and lodge on time - your data now has a direct downstream effect. If you're a contractor, hold off lodging your own return until after 28 August so the pre-fill has time to catch up but don't rely on it alone. Reconcile pre-fill against your own records before you lodge.
Not Sure If You Need To Lodge?
If you're unsure whether TPAR applies to your business, work out your obligation first, check the industry list above, or speak with a tax agent to confirm. If you've determined you don't need to lodge - for example, you previously lodged but no longer pay contractors - submit a non-lodgment advice so the ATO stops expecting a report from you.
Get It Right the First Time
TPAR doesn't need to be stressful if your contractor payments have been tracked properly all year. At Gordon QC Du & Associates, we help Perth businesses reconcile contractor records, verify ABNs, and lodge TPAR accurately and on time.
Disclaimer: This post contains general information only and does not constitute specific tax or financial advice. Please consult a registered tax agent regarding your specific circumstances.
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