INSIGHT · RISK & FINANCIAL VISIBILITY

A payment time is a record:
who reported it, for which six months, on which measure.

28 September 2026

Under the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020, an entity whose consolidated revenue for the previous financial year is more than $100 million, and which meets the Act's other criteria, reports every six months on how it pays small business suppliers. The reports go on a public register. For Reporting Cycle 10 (1 July to 31 December 2025), the Payment Times Reporting Regulator's August 2026 update lists 297 construction reporting entities, an average 95th percentile payment time of 62 days, and an average 57.4% of invoices paid within 30 days.

A calculator resting on printed financial charts beside a pen and a keyboard

Analysed 28 September 2026 · Regulator's update August 2026 (announced 24 August 2026) and January 2026 (media release 2 February 2026) · Payment Times Reporting Act 2020, compilation No. 5 (compilation date 21 February 2025) · Guidance materials version 1.1, 7 March 2025 · all pages read 28 September 2026.

Key takeaways

The threshold is revenue, and the unit is a group: The Act makes an entity a reporting entity when its consolidated revenue for the previous financial year is more than $100 million and it is not controlled by another reporting entity. A controlling entity gives one consolidated report for itself and the entities it controls. Reports cover two six-month periods per financial year and are due within 3 months after each period ends.
A figure is a triple, not a number: Every published payment time belongs to one reporting entity, one reporting period and one defined measure: the most common payment term, the average, the median, the 80th or 95th percentile, the share paid within terms, or the share paid in 0 to 30, 31 to 60 or over 60 days. Drop any one of the three and the figure cannot be compared with anything.
Construction is published, as an industry average: The August 2026 update reports that the 297 construction reporting entities offered an average common payment term of 33 days in Reporting Cycle 10, with an average payment time of 30.9 days, a 95th percentile of 62 days and 57.4% of invoices paid within 30 days. Industry is self-assessed by each entity, and the Construction division is not limited to residential work.
A closed period can change between releases: For Reporting Cycle 9 (1 January to 30 June 2025), the January 2026 update gives an all-industry 95th percentile payment time of 64 days. The August 2026 update gives 62 days for the same cycle. The regulator states that historic data may change as late or revised reports arrive.
We would store the register figure beside the contract, not instead of it: For a trade or supplier working for large head contractors, we would record what the counterparty's group reported, for which period, on which measure, and when it was read, next to the payment terms in the subcontract or supply agreement. A system-design recommendation, not a rating of any counterparty and not a prediction of how any invoice will be paid.

What the scheme asks of a large business

The regulator describes the scheme in one sentence: it "requires reporting entities, mostly large businesses and some government enterprises, to report on their payment terms and practices for their small business suppliers." It commenced on 1 January 2021 and is administered by the Payment Times Reporting Regulator under the Act and the Payment Times Reporting Rules 2024. The regulator is also explicit about what the scheme does not do: it "doesn't set any payment terms or mandate payment times for large businesses."

One wording difference, noted rather than resolved by us: the regulator's July 2024 information sheet describes reporting entities as those with consolidated revenue of "$100 million or more". The Act as compiled, and the March 2025 guidance, say "more than $100 million". We quote the Act.

Who reports: Section 7 of the Act: a constitutionally covered entity becomes a reporting entity at the start of a financial year if it has a connection to Australia, its consolidated revenue for the previous financial year is more than $100 million, it is not controlled by another reporting entity, and it is not a registered charity. The regulator adds that it is "an entity's responsibility to determine if they have reporting obligations under the scheme."
When: Two reports per year, each covering six months of the entity's own financial year. For a 30 June year end, the periods are 1 July to 31 December and 1 January to 30 June; for a 30 September year end, 1 October to 31 March and 1 April to 30 September. Each report is due within 3 months after its period ends.
Where it goes: Reports are given through the Payment Times Reporting Portal and, in the regulator's words, "once submitted, reports are automatically published to the Register". Anyone can search the register without an account.
What changed, and when: The Payment Times Reporting Amendment Act 2024 received Royal Assent on 9 July 2024 and its provisions commenced on 7 September 2024. The Rules 2024 apply to reporting periods starting on or after 1 July 2024. On the Federal Register of Legislation, the latest compilation of the Act has a compilation date of 21 February 2025 and of the Rules a start date of 25 February 2025. We found no amending Act or Rules instrument made after 1 July 2025 in the register's list of Payment Times titles; the 2025 and 2026 entries there are delegation and designation instruments.

What one report actually contains

The March 2025 guidance sets out each field a report carries and how it is calculated from the entity's small business trade credit payments. Payment times are counted in calendar days, from the invoice issue date or the invoice receipt date, whichever gives the shorter period, to the payment date. For a recipient-created tax invoice, the count starts at the RCTI issue date.

The regulator states that "all reports include aggregate data and do not report on individual small businesses or individual invoices."

Field in the report	How the regulator defines it
Most common payment term	The statistical mode of payment terms, in days. A group with controlled entities also reports the range of modes across them.
Estimated payment term for the next reporting period	The entity's own estimate of its mode payment term for the next period, "based on any anticipated changes in payment practices".
Average and median payment time	The arithmetic mean and the statistical median of payment times, in days.
80th and 95th percentile payment time	"The number of days it took to make 80% and 95% of the payments" to small business suppliers, taken as an actual value in the dataset, "without averaging or interpolation".
Percentage paid within terms	Payments where payment time is less than or equal to the payment term, as a share of all small business payments.
Percentage of invoices paid within 0 to 30, 31 to 60 and over 60 days	Three shares that must sum to 100%, with a 2% allowance for rounding.
Legal or voluntary obligations on payment times	Yes or no, with details, for obligations "e.g. industry codes or security of payment laws".

What the regulator publishes for construction

The regulator does publish construction figures: the Construction division of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) appears in the industry tables of each Regulator's update. The two most recent editions give the following, each for its own reporting cycle and each as at its own data cutoff.

The regulator's commentary describes Construction as showing "very high small business exposure", at 43.5 per cent of procurement value in Cycle 10, and lists it among the strongest improvements in the share of invoices paid within 30 days (+3.2 points).

Construction, as published	Cycle 9: 1 Jan to 30 Jun 2025 (January 2026 update)	Cycle 10: 1 Jul to 31 Dec 2025 (August 2026 update)
Reporting entities	266 (8.6%)	297 (9.1%)
Average common payment term	34 days	33 days
Average payment time	33.5 days	30.9 days
80th percentile payment time	47 days	43 days
95th percentile payment time	68 days	62 days
Average percentage paid on time	64.8%	67.8%
Average percentage paid within 30 days	54.7%	57.4%
Share of procurement value with small businesses	43.3%	43.5%

An average of entities, not a pool of invoices: The January 2026 update labels the all-industry figure "Average 95th percentile payment time", and its media release describes the measure as the "average number of days it takes a large business to pay 95 per cent of its small business invoices". An industry figure is an average across entities' own reported values; it is not the 95th percentile of every construction invoice.
Industry is self-assessed, and wider than housing: The August 2026 update states that industry insights are "based on the ANZSIC subdivision given by each reporting entity" and reflect "the reporting entity's self-assessed primary business activity". In the ABS classification, Division E Construction spans Building Construction (with separate residential and non-residential groups), Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction, and Construction Services. The updates we read publish the division as a whole, with no residential subset.
Two cutoffs: The January 2026 tables reflect reports received on or before 31 December 2025; the August 2026 tables, reports received on or before 30 June 2026.

The same closed period,
two published numbers.

Reporting Cycle 9 ended on 30 June 2025. Its figures were first published in the January 2026 update and appeared again, as the comparison column, in the August 2026 update. They are not the same.

A figure copied from a Regulator's update without its edition and data cutoff cannot be re-checked later, because the regulator itself may have moved it.

Cycle 9 measure (all industries)	January 2026 update	August 2026 update
95th percentile payment time	64 days	62 days
80th percentile payment time	39 days	38 days
Invoices paid within 30 days	68.2%	68.0%
Paid on time (within terms)	66.5%	66.7%
Number of reports	3,104	3,246

The regulator says why: The August 2026 methodology states: "Historic data may change when entities submit reports for previous reporting cycles, revise reports or when reports are withheld by the Regulator." It also states that insights "are subject to change as additional or revised reports are submitted and published after this date."
Even the counting unit changed: The August 2026 update counts controlled entities by reported business names, and notes that the January 2026 update counted Australian Business Numbers. The Construction controlled-entity counts in the two editions (2,012 and 3,517) are therefore not a like-for-like change.

One source, two insolvency numbers: The same pattern in ASIC's insolvency statistics: one publisher, two figures, both correct for their own definition and date.

Why the register figure sits beside
the contract, not in place of it.

A trade or supplier dealing with a large head contractor has two different statements about payment in front of it. One is the payment clause in its own subcontract or supply agreement, read together with whatever security of payment legislation applies in that state. The other is what the head contractor's group reported to a Commonwealth regulator: an aggregate over six months of payments to every small business supplier it had, measured from invoice dates, in calendar days. The contract says what was agreed for this job. The report says how a whole group paid a population of suppliers in a past period. Neither predicts when a particular claim will be paid, and neither is a finding about any contractor. Four details in the regulator's own material decide whether the two can even be put side by side.

The entity on your subcontract may not be the entity that reports: An entity "controlled by another reporting entity" is excluded from the reporting entity definition, and the controlling entity gives "a single consolidated report that combines its own transactions and the transactions of the entities it controls." Where work is contracted through project or operating subsidiaries, the name on the subcontract and the name on the register can differ, and one register figure can blend many operating entities. The register's entity search works by business name, ABN, ACN or registered business name, and a Structure tab shows "the subsidiary entities the entity controls".
The report follows the legal obligation to pay: The guidance states that a payment to a small business supplier "must be reported by the entity that has the legal obligation with the small business supplier to pay", even where another entity makes the payment under an administrative arrangement. Nominee and subsidiary reporting structures can change which report covers which entity.
Your invoices may not be in the population: Only payments to suppliers identified as small businesses by the Small Business Identification (SBI) Tool enter the payment times figures. The regulator's information sheet states that the tool lists as not small, among others, entities with revenue of A$10 million or more in a single financial year, entities in groups at that level, and small businesses that have opted out.
The units are not the same until someone converts them: In the guidance, "end of month" counts as 31 calendar days and "end of next month" as 62, and where a contract and an invoice state different terms, the contract terms are used. A subcontract clause of "30 days end of month" and a reported common payment term of 33 days are not on one basis until one is converted and the method written down.

What we would put in a system

For each large counterparty a trade or supplier invoices, we would test for five fields.

Where agents help here is narrow. A finance and cash-flow agent can read a subcontract or supply agreement, extract the payment clause and draft a record that pairs it with the counterparty group's reported figures, carrying the period, measure and read date - and a person confirms it. No agent rates a counterparty, predicts whether or when an invoice will be paid, sets credit terms, or determines whether any entity is a reporting entity or has complied. Those decisions stay with the business and its advisers.

Field	Why it is load-bearing
Contracting entity and reporting entity	The ABN on the subcontract, the reporting entity whose consolidated report covers it, and how that link was established (for example, the register's Structure tab, as read on a date).
Reporting period	Start and end dates of the six-month period, taken from the counterparty's own financial year. Two groups' "latest" reports can cover different months.
Measure and value	The regulator's field name, the unit (days or per cent) and the value exactly as published. A 95th percentile and an average are different facts about the same payments.
Source and read date	The register entry or the Regulator's update edition and its data cutoff, and the date it was read. The regulator states its figures are at a point in time.
The contract's own payment terms	Stored beside the reported figure, with the clause reference and, where converted to calendar days, the conversion used. The contract governs the job; the report is context.

Questions worth asking
of your own records

For a trade subcontractor: for each large builder you invoice, do you know which reporting entity's report covers the company named on your subcontract?

If the answer is a name in someone's head, the register figure you look up may belong to a different entity, or to a group that includes many operating companies. The link is worth recording once, with the date you established it.

For a supplier or distributor: when you note a customer's reported payment time, do you also record the period and the measure?

"62 days" means little on its own. The 95th percentile for 1 July to 31 December 2025, read on a named date from a named source, is something a colleague can re-check next year.

For a builder or construction group that is itself a reporting entity: does your own report reflect payments made by every controlled entity, including project entities?

The guidance states that a controlling entity reports for the group, and that a payment is reported by the entity with the legal obligation to pay. Whether your structure is captured correctly is a question for the regulator's guidance and your advisers; the practical point is that the source data sits in each entity's ledger.

For group finance: if a regulator figure you stored last quarter has since been restated, would your records show it?

The January and August 2026 updates publish different numbers for the same closed period. A record that holds only the value cannot show a restatement; a record that holds the edition and the read date can.

For anyone comparing a reported figure with a contract: have you converted both to the same unit?

The regulator counts in calendar days from the invoice date, and counts "end of month" as 31 days. A contract clause, a reported mode payment term and a percentile are three different quantities until they are put on one basis, with the method written down.

What this analysis
does and does not show.

Evidence note

What it shows: That the Commonwealth Payment Times Reporting Scheme publishes payment terms and times as aggregates per reporting entity, per six-month reporting period, per defined measure; that the regulator publishes construction industry figures in its six-monthly updates; and that published figures for a closed period change between editions. Read on 28 September 2026 from the regulator's website, the January 2026 and August 2026 Regulator's updates, the March 2025 guidance materials and the Federal Register of Legislation.
Key facts quoted: Reporting entity threshold: consolidated revenue for the previous financial year more than $100 million (Act, s 7). Two six-month reporting periods per financial year, reports due within 3 months. Construction, Cycle 10 (1 July to 31 December 2025): 297 reporting entities, average common payment term 33 days, average payment time 30.9 days, 95th percentile 62 days, 57.4% paid within 30 days, 67.8% paid on time. All industries, Cycle 9: 95th percentile 64 days in the January 2026 update and 62 days in the August 2026 update.

We did not query the interactive Payment Times Reports Register or download the register data set, and we quote no figure for any individual entity.
Industry figures are averages across entities that self-assessed their primary activity as Construction. In the ABS classification that division spans residential and non-residential building, heavy and civil engineering, and construction services; the updates we read publish no residential subset.
Figures are at a point in time: Cycle 10 reflects reports received on or before 30 June 2026 and the regulator states they are subject to revision.
We read the Act's compilation No. 5 for the reporting entity and reporting period definitions only. We did not read the content of the 2025 instruments that produced the latest compilations of the Act and the Rules, and do not characterise them.
This is a Commonwealth scheme. It sits alongside, and does not describe, state and territory security of payment legislation, which varies by jurisdiction.
Nothing here is legal or financial advice. It does not determine whether any entity is a reporting entity, whether any report complies, or how any counterparty will pay, and it is not a rating of any business.

What to watch next

The regulator has published one near date and a publication cadence, but no date for its next statistical release.

30 September 2026: The regulator's August 2026 newsletter states that reports for the reporting period ended 30 June 2026 are "due by 30 September 2026", and that extension of time applications can only be made before the reporting window closes on that date. For entities with a 30 June year end, those reports cover 1 January to 30 June 2026 (Reporting Cycle 11).
The next Regulator's update: The regulator states that it "publishes an update every 6 months". It has not published a date for the next edition.

Bring us one head contract and its register entry.

Send us a subcontract or supply agreement with a large builder, and the counterparty's page on the Payment Times Reports Register. We will show you what a record pairing the two would hold, and which of its fields you can already fill.

General information about a published Commonwealth reporting scheme and its published statistics. It is not legal or financial advice, it does not determine whether any entity is a reporting entity or has complied, and it does not rate or predict the payment behaviour of any business. Australia (Commonwealth) only; state security of payment laws are separate. All figures and quotations are as read on 28 September 2026 from the sources listed.

Send us the contract · Suppliers & distributors

Sources

Suggested citation: Payment Times Reporting Regulator, Regulator's update January 2026 and August 2026, guidance materials March 2025 and scheme pages; Payment Times Reporting Act 2020 (Cth), compilation No. 5; all as read 28 September 2026.

A payment time is a record: who reported it, for which six months, on which measure.