Knowledge · Finance
Security of payment,
state by state.
There is no national security of payment law. There are eight, one per state and territory, and they differ exactly where it hurts: the response windows, whether a homeowner contract is covered, and where an adjudication application goes. This is the lookup page, the reference the process guide and the adjudication node both defer to. Every legislative detail on it is jurisdiction-specific, changes over time, and carries the same instruction: confirm against the current Act. General information, not legal advice.
01 / Overview
What this page is, and is not
Security of payment is the family of state and territory laws that give a party who carries out construction work a statutory right to progress payments and a fast route to enforce it. The mechanism, how a claim becomes a schedule becomes an adjudication, is covered as a process in the security of payment guide, and the escalation itself is covered in the adjudication reference. This page is the third leg: the state-by-state lookup, because the single most common and most expensive mistake in the whole regime is applying one state's rules in another state.
Three things genuinely differ between the eight schemes, and they are the three that decide outcomes. The response windows, which decide who wins by default. The owner-occupier treatment, which decides whether the scheme reaches a residential head contract at all. And the adjudication route, which decides where an application must go inside a window that does not forgive. This page states each of them per jurisdiction, with the caveat that governs everything on it: these are Acts, they are amended regularly, and the current Act for the state where the work is performed is the only authority. Where a specific number is stated below, it was verified against current legislation or official guidance at the time of writing and still requires confirmation before use. Nothing here is legal advice.
02 / The shared machinery
Three concepts that recur in every scheme
Under different section numbers and slightly different names, seven of the eight schemes run on the same three-part machine. The Northern Territory runs on a different design, covered below.
The payment claim
The statutory claim for a progress payment, served by the party owed money. In every scheme it is the document that starts the clock, and in most schemes it must meet the form the Act requires before any of the deadline protections apply. On most jobs it is the progress claim, made compliant.
The payment schedule
The respondent’s statutory reply, stating what will be paid and every reason for paying less. Due inside a fixed window that differs by jurisdiction. In most schemes a respondent who misses the window can become liable for the full claimed amount, and a reason left out of the schedule is generally lost for good.
Adjudication
The fast, interim determination of how much is payable when the claim and the schedule disagree, or when no schedule arrives. The mechanism is covered in the adjudication reference; what changes state to state is the trigger windows, the lodgement channel and who can use it. The determination binds now, and the merits can be argued elsewhere later.
The schemes historically fell into two families. The East Coast model, which began in New South Wales in 1999, builds the claim, schedule and adjudication machine into the legislation itself. The West Coast model implies payment terms into contracts that lack them and adjudicates payment disputes when they arise, without the claim-and-schedule sequence. Western Australia moved from the West Coast model to an East Coast style scheme in 2022, which leaves the Northern Territory as the last West Coast style regime in the country. Knowing which family a job's Act belongs to tells you most of the shape before you read a section of it.
03 / The lookup
The regime in each state and territory
Each entry below states the Act, the response window as verified against current legislation or official guidance at the time of writing, the owner-occupier position, and the adjudication route. Every one of them is legislation, every one differs in detail from its neighbours, and every one carries the same instruction: confirm against the current Act for the jurisdiction before relying on it. Contracts can shorten some windows but generally cannot extend them.
New South Wales
Legislation. The Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), the original East Coast scheme. A respondent who receives a payment claim has up to 10 business days to serve a payment schedule, or a shorter period if the contract provides one; miss it and the full claimed amount can become payable. NSW is also the jurisdiction that changed the owner-occupier answer: the exemption for owner-occupier construction contracts was repealed with effect from March 2021, so the scheme now reaches contracts made directly with a resident homeowner. Adjudication applications run through authorised nominating authorities. NSW Fair Trading publishes the scheme guidance. Confirm all of it against the current NSW Act.
Victoria
Legislation. The Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002 (Vic). The payment schedule window is 10 business days from the claim, or shorter if the contract says so. Domestic building work for a resident owner is generally outside the scheme unless the owner is in the business of building residences, so in Victorian residential work the Act operates mainly down the chain. Victoria was long the odd one out for its excluded amounts regime, which kept certain claims (including many variation and delay amounts) out of the statutory process; that regime was removed by amendments that commenced in April 2026, a recent and material change. Applications run through authorised nominating authorities, with guidance published by the state building regulator. Because the regime has just been amended, confirming the current Victorian position matters even more than usual.
Queensland
Legislation. The Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld), which folded security of payment into the same statute as project bank account and licensing reforms. The payment schedule window is 15 business days from the claim, or shorter if the contract provides. The progress payment chapter generally does not apply to a contract for domestic building work made with a resident owner, so against a Queensland homeowner the statutory route is generally unavailable, while down the chain it applies with force. Queensland is also distinctive in its channel: adjudication applications go to the adjudication registrar within the QBCC rather than to private nominating authorities. Confirm against the current BIF Act.
Western Australia
Legislation. The Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2021 (WA), which commenced in stages from August 2022 and replaced the West Coast model Construction Contracts Act 2004 (WA) for new contracts. The payment schedule window is 15 business days from the claim, or shorter if the contract provides. Home building contracts with an owner-occupier below a contract-value threshold (a threshold of $500,000 has applied) are excluded, so the scheme reaches large residential head contracts and everything down the chain. Contracts entered before commencement can still run under the old Act, so on older WA jobs the first question is which Act governs. Confirm the current thresholds and transition position under the WA Act.
South Australia
Legislation. The Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2009 (SA), an East Coast scheme. The payment schedule window is 15 business days from the claim, or shorter if the contract provides. Domestic building contracts made directly with a resident homeowner are generally excluded, so the scheme operates mainly between builders, subcontractors and suppliers. Applications run through authorised nominating authorities, with guidance from the SA Small Business Commissioner, who has functions under the scheme. Confirm against the current SA Act.
Tasmania
Legislation. The Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2009 (Tas), an East Coast scheme with the country's most distinctive residential answer: residential work is covered, and where the claim is a residential claim against a homeowner the Act applies longer windows, official guidance describing 20 business days in place of the standard 10. A Tasmanian builder can therefore use the scheme against an owner, on a slower clock, which no mainland state offers in that form. Consumer, Building and Occupational Services (CBOS) publishes the guidance. Confirm the current residential-claim provisions against the Tasmanian Act.
Australian Capital Territory
Legislation. The Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2009 (ACT), an East Coast scheme. The payment schedule window is 10 business days from the claim, or shorter if the contract provides. Residential building work where a resident owner is a party generally sits outside the adjudication process, with exceptions around owner-builder arrangements, so against a Canberra homeowner the statutory route is generally unavailable while the chain below is covered. The ACT planning and building regulator publishes the scheme information. Confirm against the current ACT Act.
Northern Territory
Legislation. The Construction Contracts (Security of Payments) Act 2004 (NT), the last West Coast model scheme. There is no payment claim and payment schedule sequence; instead the Act implies payment provisions into contracts that do not make their own, prohibits certain terms, and gives either party a right to rapid adjudication once a payment dispute arises, through prescribed appointers under the oversight of the Construction Contracts Registrar. The application window runs from the dispute arising and has been amended over the Act's life, so this page states no number for it: confirm the current window against the NT Act before relying on it. The owner-occupier carve-outs of the east coast schemes have no direct equivalent here, and how the Act reaches a particular residential contract is likewise one to confirm.
04 / The owner-occupier question
Whether the scheme reaches a homeowner contract, in one pass
The least uniform question in the regime, and the one residential builders most need answered per state. Eight jurisdictions, several different answers, every one of them legislative and subject to change.
New South Wales
The former owner-occupier exemption was repealed with effect from March 2021, so contracts made directly with a resident homeowner now fall within the NSW scheme. Builders and owners on NSW residential head contracts both hold and face statutory payment rights. Confirm the current position under the NSW Act.
Victoria
Domestic building work for an owner who lives in or intends to live in the home is generally outside the Victorian scheme, unless the owner is in the business of building residences. Down the chain, builder to subcontractor, the scheme applies as usual. Confirm against the current Victorian Act.
Queensland
The progress payment chapter of the BIF Act generally does not apply to a construction contract for domestic building work made with a resident owner, so the statutory route is mainly a chain tool in Queensland residential work. Confirm the current scope provisions of the BIF Act.
Western Australia
Home building contracts with an owner-occupier below a monetary threshold (a contract value of $500,000 has applied) are excluded from the WA Act, while contracts at or above the threshold, and everything down the chain, are covered. Confirm the current threshold and scope under the WA Act.
South Australia
Domestic building contracts made directly with a resident homeowner are generally excluded from the SA scheme, which therefore operates mainly between builders, subcontractors and suppliers. Confirm against the current SA Act.
Tasmania
Tasmania takes the opposite approach: residential work is inside the scheme, and where the respondent is a homeowner the Act applies longer windows to residential claims than to commercial ones. A builder can claim against an owner, on a slower clock. Confirm the current residential-claim provisions.
Australian Capital Territory
Residential building work where a resident owner is a party to the contract generally sits outside the ACT adjudication process, with exceptions around owner-builder arrangements. Down the chain the scheme applies as usual. Confirm against the current ACT Act.
Northern Territory
The NT Act is built differently (a payment-dispute model rather than a claim-and-schedule model) and does not carry the same owner-occupier carve-out structure as the east coast schemes. How it reaches a particular residential contract is one to confirm against the current NT Act.
Two things follow from this spread. First, a residential builder's statutory position against the client is a function of the state the job is in, and any national assumption is wrong somewhere. Second, the position down the chain is far more uniform: between a builder and its subcontractors and suppliers the schemes apply in every jurisdiction, which means a residential builder who cannot claim against the owner can still be claimed against from below, on the same short clocks. The one-way version of that exposure is worth having clearly in view before a downturn tests it, which is the territory of the downturn guide.
05 / Common mistakes
Where the state differences actually bite
Every one of these is a jurisdiction error rather than a merits error. The regime does not reward being right about the work; it rewards being right about the Act.
Assuming your home state’s rules travel
The Act that governs is the Act where the construction work is performed, not where the builder is based. A builder who crosses a border with the home state’s deadlines in the diary is running the wrong clock on every claim on that job.
One response window in the diary
The payment schedule window is not one number nationally. It differs between jurisdictions and can be shortened by the contract. An office that runs a single national deadline either responds late in the faster states or gives away time in the slower ones, and late is the one that costs the full claimed amount.
Assuming the owner-occupier position is uniform
Whether a builder can use the scheme against a resident homeowner is one of the least uniform questions in the whole regime. NSW now says broadly yes, several states say no, Tasmania says yes on a slower clock. Assuming any one answer nationally is wrong in most of the country.
Running on stale numbers
These Acts are amended more often than most construction legislation. NSW repealed its owner-occupier exemption in 2021, WA replaced its entire scheme in 2022, and Victoria’s amendments commenced in 2026. A summary read two years ago, including this one unrefreshed, is a liability.
Lodging through the wrong channel
Where an adjudication application goes differs by scheme: authorised nominating authorities in several states, the regulator’s adjudication registrar in Queensland, the registrar and prescribed appointers in the NT. An application lodged through the wrong channel inside a short statutory window is time lost that cannot be recovered.
Treating a lookup as advice
This page is a map, and the caveats on it are not decoration. The windows, forms, exclusions and channels are set by each Act, differ in the detail, and change. The move a reference page cannot make for you, applying the current Act to a live claim, is the one that decides the money.
06 / Best practice
How experienced builders run eight regimes
The operator's observation is that the builders who handle this well do the jurisdiction work once per job, at contract setup, instead of once per crisis. A one-page note on the job file: which Act applies, the payment schedule window for claims received, the claim windows for claims sent, whether the owner contract is inside the scheme, and where an application would be lodged. Five lines, written when nobody is in dispute, read in the one week when everybody is. The office that keeps that note never has to research legislation inside a ten-day window, which is the situation every one of these Acts is designed to punish.
The second habit is to run the diary to the strictest plausible deadline rather than the most generous one. Contracts can shorten statutory windows, amendments can move them, and a schedule served early is never a problem. The discipline that makes any of this workable is the same one that decides adjudications: the claims go out clean and dated, the schedules go back inside the window, and the records are kept as the job runs. In VIABUILD the progress claim is built from the job with its evidence attached and its dates on the record, which does not make a claim compliant with any particular Act, but means the timeline is never the thing in dispute.
07 / FAQ
Common questions.
The Act of the state or territory where the construction work is performed, regardless of where the builder, the head contractor or the client is based. Every state and territory has its own Act: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory each run their own scheme with their own windows, forms and exclusions. A builder working across a border works under the other jurisdiction’s Act for that job, including its response windows and its owner-occupier rules. This is general information, not legal advice; confirm the current Act for where the work is performed.
No, and this is the single most practical difference between the schemes. Each Act sets its own maximum window for serving a payment schedule after a payment claim is received, commonly expressed in business days, and most schemes let the contract shorten but not lengthen it. The windows verified against current guidance at the time this page was written are set out per state above, but every one of them carries the same caveat: they are set by legislation that is amended regularly, so confirm the current window under the Act where the work is performed before relying on it. The safe office discipline is to diarise the specific window for the specific job at contract setup.
It depends entirely on the state, and the positions genuinely diverge. In New South Wales, yes in general terms, since the owner-occupier exemption was repealed with effect from March 2021. In Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and the ACT, contracts made directly with a resident owner are generally outside the scheme or outside its adjudication process, so the statutory route is mainly a tool between builders, subcontractors and suppliers. In Western Australia the answer turns on a contract-value threshold. In Tasmania residential work is covered, with longer response windows where the respondent is a homeowner. Every one of those positions is legislative, state-specific and subject to amendment, so confirm the current Act before planning around any of them.
The two design families the Australian schemes historically fell into. The East Coast model, which began with the NSW Act of 1999, creates a statutory entitlement to progress payments enforced through the payment claim, payment schedule and adjudication sequence. The West Coast model, used by Western Australia until 2022 and still used by the Northern Territory, takes a lighter touch: it implies payment provisions into contracts that lack them, prohibits certain unfair terms, and provides rapid adjudication of payment disputes, without the claim-and-schedule machinery. Since Western Australia adopted an East Coast style scheme in 2022, the NT is the last West Coast style regime, which is why an NT job runs on genuinely different mechanics from everywhere else.
It differs by scheme, and the channel is part of what must be confirmed for the jurisdiction. In several states, including New South Wales and Victoria, applications are made through an authorised nominating authority, a body authorised under the Act to receive applications and appoint adjudicators. In Queensland, applications go to the adjudication registrar within the QBCC. In the Northern Territory the process runs through prescribed appointers and the Construction Contracts Registrar. In Western Australia the 2021 Act provides for applications through authorised bodies under its own appointment machinery. Lodging through the wrong channel wastes days inside windows that do not forgive, so the channel belongs in the same job-setup note as the deadlines.
Western Australia replaced the Construction Contracts Act 2004 (WA), a West Coast model scheme, with the Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2021 (WA), which commenced in stages from August 2022 and brought WA broadly into line with the East Coast design: payment claims, payment schedules on a statutory window, and adjudication of the difference. Contracts entered before the changeover can still be governed by the old Act’s regime, which matters for long-running jobs and for disputes arising out of older contracts. Which regime applies to a given WA contract turns on when the contract was made, so on any older WA job, confirm which Act governs before relying on either set of rules.
08 / Terms
Glossary for this topic
Security of payment (the family of state and territory Acts creating statutory progress payment rights), payment claim (the statutory claim that starts the clock), payment schedule (the statutory reply stating what will be paid and why), business day (as defined by each Act, typically excluding weekends and public holidays and sometimes industry shutdown periods), East Coast model (the claim, schedule and adjudication design), West Coast model (the implied-provisions and payment-dispute design, now NT only), authorised nominating authority (a body that receives applications and appoints adjudicators under several schemes), adjudication registrar (the QBCC officer who performs that role in Queensland), resident owner or owner-occupier (the homeowner whose contracts several schemes treat differently), reference date and available amendments vary by scheme. The wider vocabulary lives in the construction glossary.
The natural next reads are the adjudication reference for what happens when a claim is disputed, and the security of payment guide for running the process well on a live job.
09 / Keep reading
Related knowledge, guides and features
10 / Further reading
Primary sources
- The current security of payment Act for the state or territory where the work is performed: NSW (1999), Victoria (2002, as amended in 2026), Queensland (the BIF Act 2017), Western Australia (2021), South Australia (2009), Tasmania (2009), the ACT (2009) and the Northern Territory (the Construction Contracts (Security of Payments) Act 2004). The Act itself, on the jurisdiction's legislation website, is the only authoritative statement of the windows, forms and exclusions.
- The scheme regulator's guidance for the relevant jurisdiction: NSW Fair Trading, the Victorian building regulator, the QBCC, the WA Building Commission, the SA Small Business Commissioner, CBOS in Tasmania, the ACT planning and building regulator, and the NT Construction Contracts Registrar.
- A construction lawyer for any live or anticipated payment dispute. The windows are short, the channels differ, and the cost of a jurisdiction error is usually the whole claim.
Eight regimes, one discipline.
VIABUILD builds every progress claim from the job with its dates and evidence on the record, so whichever state the work is in, the timeline is never the thing you lose on.