Export cost recovery reform for sustainable trade funding

Australia’s agricultural success depends on strong, secure and sustainable trade.

Our work enables trade and innovation through modern digital systems, supports exporters to meet global requirements, and ensures our climate-smart, sustainable food and fibre reach international markets.

Australia’s agricultural industry exports around 80% of what it produces, with close to $85 billion forecast to be exported by Australia’s agriculture, fisheries, and forestry industries for 2025–26. We export these products to over 160 overseas markets.

The department has a key role in supporting industry to realise the economic potential of trade by delivering export regulatory services, negotiating technical rules and standards, and engaging internationally to advance the interests of Australian agriculture. 

Australian agricultural exports have enjoyed increasingly strong export results in recent years, benefiting from the work on new and improved market access secured by the Australian Government. In 2024–25, the department recorded a total of 79 technical market access achievements. These included 17 actions to maintain and 8 actions to restore existing markets, supporting trade worth an estimated $4 billion. They also included opening 10 new markets and 44 improvements to existing market access.

We administer the Export Control Act (2020) to ensure goods exported from Australia meet relevant importing country requirements. Our staff complete audits, inspections, document issuance, system assurance and incident management to ensure our products can be exported.

As the regulator, we have an obligation under the Australian Government Charging Framework to recover the minimum necessary cost for providing effective regulatory services.

The gap between what it costs to deliver these services and the revenue raised from export cost recovery has existed for 16 of the last 20 years and has been exacerbated by trading partners’ increasing complexity and requirements for goods entering those markets, inflationary pressures, amongst other things.

New Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS) will be introduced for export regulatory functions from 1 July 2026 to ensure vital export regulatory services are sustainably funded and continue to meet industry needs.

For more information on how the department applies fees and charges, please read the Fees and charges page.

Arrangements from 1 July 2026

The government has decided to defer the phased transition to full cost recovery of the export arrangements for 12 months, until 1 July 2027.

This decision comes as recognition of the current impacts being experienced by Australia’s farmers and producers from conflict in the Middle East.

Export arrangements have received $138.4 million in supplementation measures from government since 2023–24 and will receive $57 million in supplementation from government through the transition to full cost recovery in 2029–30, including an additional $8.2 million in supplementation for 2026–27.

The Government is also committing $21 million to implement reforms to establish appropriate export regulatory and cost recovery arrangements for non-prescribed goods (such as honey, wool, skins and hides) that are worth an estimated $11 billion in exports. This reform will ensure we can continue to provide assurances into the future.

The Government is also committing $7.5 million over 3 years to implement regulatory improvements for live animal exports, which will align with a new regulatory framework to support ongoing sustainability of the industry after the phase out of live sheep exports by sea. The package also moves certain regulatory activities currently undertaken into Cost Recovery, including some activities allowing DAFF to regulate agricultural exports to China (China’s CIFER listing process).

The government decided as part of the 2025–26 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) to fund certain activities that are considered community obligations. Activities include the Australian Standard for the Export of Livestock (ASEL), additional departmental reporting requirements to parliament, staff costs around governance, review and implementation of the Inspector General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports recommendations, and Independent Observer program costs.

Sustainable Trade Funding Taskforce

We established a Sustainable Trade Funding Taskforce to develop a new sustainable funding model for export regulatory services.

The Taskforce led public consultation on the draft export CRIS documents 2026–27 for 7 weeks, from late January to mid-March. This included 11 virtual meetings and 7 in-person sessions in a number of locations across the country. Feedback was also received through the department’s Have Your Say platform, including 49 submissions and 61 Have Your Say survey responses.

Feedback was reviewed and considered to help finalise the export CRIS and ensure Australia continues to meet export demands into the future. Revised legislative instruments will be tabled in Parliament prior to the implementation of revised fees and charges from 1 July 2026. 

If you have any questions, you can contact CostRecovery@aff.gov.au.