Business Loans New South Wales

New South Wales runs the original East Coast payment regime, the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW). It lets a person who carries out construction work serve a payment claim; the respondent replies with a payment schedule; and a disputed claim can be referred to an adjudicator for a binding interim determination. The point is to keep money moving down the chain while any argument about the final figure is resolved separately.

NSW also runs a retention money trust schemefor head contractors. Under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Regulation 2020, a head contractor on a project valued at $20 million or more must hold subcontractors' retention money in a trust account with an authorised deposit-taking institution, rather than mixing it into its own working capital. That protects retention if the head contractor becomes insolvent — but it also means the money is, by design, locked away until the contract entitles its release. Verify the current $20 million threshold on the Regulation before relying on it, as it has been the subject of review.

NSW payroll tax is payable once Australian taxable wages exceed $1.2 million a year, at a rate of 5.45% on wages above the threshold. These are the 2025-26 figures published by Revenue NSW, verified 10 July 2026. NSW sits at a lower threshold than Victoria on wages but a higher one than most — the practical effect is that a mid-sized Sydney employer crosses into payroll tax sooner than the headline rate suggests. Confirm the current figure before acting on it.

The NSW-specific insight is about retention. On large projects, retention money is now protected in trust — which is good news if a head contractor above you fails, but it does nothing for your cash flow in the meantime. Five per cent of every progress claim can sit in someone else's trust account for months after you have finished the work, while you are funding the next job's wages and materials.

That is the gap a working-capital facility is built to bridge: it lets a NSW subcontractor keep moving between jobs without waiting for retention to be released, rather than treating locked-up retention as dead money. For plant and vehicles, asset finance keeps the machine off your general cash position entirely. The right mix depends on how much of your revenue is tied up in retention and progress claims at any one time — model it against your pipeline, and use finance to smooth the timing rather than to plug a hole.