You cancel an Australian Business Number through ABR online services at abr.gov.au, using your myID. It is free, it takes a few minutes, and the cancellation takes effect immediately. You must cancel if your business has closed, has been sold, or is no longer making supplies connected with Australia. Finish your final activity statements and tax return first, because cancelling does not clear what you already owe.
When do you have to cancel an ABN?
The Australian Business Register lists three grounds. Cancel your ABN if the business:
- Has closed down. You have stopped trading and you are not intending to start again.
- Has been sold. The buyer uses their own ABN. Yours does not transfer with the business.
- Is no longer operating in Australia, or no longer making supplies connected with Australia.
The underlying test is entitlement. An ABN is for someone carrying on an enterprise, so once you are not, you are no longer entitled to hold one. Notify the register within 28 days of becoming aware of the change, which is the same deadline that applies to keeping your ABN details current.
Leaving an unused ABN open is not a neutral choice. The register reviews ABNs that show no signs of business activity and cancels them, so an ABN you abandoned can be cancelled without you noticing, and you find out when a client's accounts payable system rejects your invoice.
When not to cancel
A quiet patch is not a closure. If you are between clients, on parental leave, or trading seasonally, keep the ABN. There is no minimum income and no requirement to invoice every quarter. Cancelling and reactivating around a slow winter creates paperwork and achieves nothing.
Changing structure is also not a cancellation in the ordinary sense. If you are moving from sole trader to company, the company is a different legal entity and needs its own ABN, and you cancel the sole trader ABN once the changeover is done. Do them in that order, because the new entity has to exist before you can invoice through it.
What to finish before you cancel
Cancelling an ABN closes a door; it does not settle anything behind it. The register asks you to meet your lodgment, reporting and payment obligations with every government agency you deal with first. In practice, for a sole trader:
- Lodge every outstanding activity statement, including the final one for the period in which you stopped trading. An unlodged BAS does not disappear with the ABN.
- Cancel PAYG withholding first, as a separate step. This is the one ordering rule that catches people out. If you had employees, the withholding registration must be cancelled before the ABN, not after, because cancelling the ABN removes your ability to do it.
- Pay what you owe, or arrange a payment plan. A cancelled ABN does not extinguish a debt to the ATO.
- Finalise Single Touch Payroll if you employed anyone, and pay any outstanding super guarantee.
- Lodge your final tax return, marking it as final. This usually happens after the ABN is cancelled, at the normal time, so diarise it.
- Deal with your business name separately. A registered business name lives with ASIC and is attached to your ABN. If the ABN is cancelled, the business name cannot stay registered against it.
What else gets cancelled at the same time
Cancelling an ABN is not a single switch. The register cancels several things attached to it in the same action, and it does not ask you to confirm each one:
| Goes with the ABN | What that means for you |
|---|---|
| GST registration | Cancelled with the ABN. You stop charging GST from the cancellation date, and you cannot claim GST credits after it. |
| Fuel tax credits | Cancelled automatically. Claim anything owing on the final activity statement. |
| Luxury car tax and wine equalisation tax | Both cancelled with the ABN. Rarely relevant to a sole trader, but they go the same way. |
| myID authorisations | Every authorised relationship between the ABN and your myID is cut, so you lose portal access for that business. |
| PAYG withholding | Not automatic in the way the others are. Cancel it as a separate step before the ABN, or you lose the access you need to do it. |
The myID authorisations are the quiet one. Once the ABN is cancelled, the links between it and your myID are cut, so you can no longer log in to act for that business. Anything you still need out of the ATO or ABR portals, including copies of past statements, is easier to retrieve before you cancel than after.
How to cancel an ABN online
The online route is the fastest and it is free. You need a myID and a Relationship Authorisation Manager link to the business, which you will already have if you have ever lodged online.
- Go to abr.gov.au and open ABR online services.
- Select Continue with Digital ID and log in with your myID.
- Select Cancel ABN.
- Answer the prompts confirming the business has ceased trading or has been sold.
- Set the cancellation date. It should be the date you actually stopped, which can be in the past, not the date you happen to be filling in the form.
- Submit the request.
Changes made online take effect immediately. Check ABN Lookup afterwards to confirm the status reads cancelled and the date is the one you intended.
If you cannot get in online
Two fallbacks, both free. You can contact the ABR directly and cancel over the phone, having your ABN and identity details ready. Or you can lodge the paper form by mail, which is slower but works when the identity check will not. A registered tax agent can also do it for you as part of closing the business off.
What you should not do is pay a commercial service to press the button. Sites offering to cancel your ABN for a flat fee rank well on this search precisely because the free government service does not advertise against them. They are not scams, and they are not necessary, which is the same advice that applies when you apply for an ABN in the first place.
What happens to your records?
Cancelling the ABN does not end your record-keeping obligation. You must keep your business records for five years from the date you lodged the return they support, and the ATO can ask for them in that window whether or not the business still exists.
That means invoices, receipts, bank statements and your books need somewhere to live after the business stops. Export anything held in software you are about to stop paying for, and keep it somewhere you will still be able to open in four years. This is the point at which people lose records: the subscription lapses and the data goes with it.
Can you get the same ABN back?
Usually yes. If you start trading again in the same structure, you re-apply and the register generally reissues the same number rather than giving you a new one. There is no fee for that either.
So cancelling is not irreversible, and it is not a reason to leave an ABN open "just in case". The full process, including why there is nothing called an ABN renewal, is in how to reactivate a cancelled ABN.
Related reading
- How to reactivate a cancelled ABN: starting again, and the renewal myth
- How to update your ABN details: the 28-day rule, and what you cannot change online
- How to get an ABN: entitlement, and why it is free
- BAS due dates: getting the final statement in on time
- Do I need to register for GST?: the registration that goes with the ABN
- Sole trader, partnership, company or trust?: when the change is a structure change
Frequently asked questions
Nothing. Cancelling through ABR online services at abr.gov.au is free, and so is cancelling by phone or by posting the paper form. Commercial sites that offer to cancel an ABN for a flat fee are charging for something the government does at no cost.
Yes, if you have genuinely stopped carrying on an enterprise. You are expected to notify the Australian Business Register within 28 days of the change. A temporary quiet patch is different: there is no minimum turnover and no need to cancel because you have not invoiced for a few months.
The Australian Business Register reviews ABNs showing no signs of business activity and cancels them itself. You are unlikely to be contacted first, so the usual way people find out is that a client cannot verify the ABN on an invoice. You also stay on the hook for any activity statements the ATO still expects.
Yes. Cancelling an ABN also cancels GST, luxury car tax, wine equalisation tax and fuel tax credit registrations, plus any authorisations linking the ABN to your myID. PAYG withholding is the exception: cancel that one separately, and do it before you cancel the ABN.
You can cancel it, but the debt does not go with it. Cancelling an ABN settles nothing. Lodge every outstanding activity statement and your final tax return, and pay what you owe or arrange a payment plan, because the ATO will still pursue it after the ABN is closed.
Five years from the date you lodge the return the records support. Export anything held in software you are about to stop paying for, because a lapsed subscription is the most common way these records are lost.
Sources
The grounds for cancellation, the online steps, the PAYG withholding ordering rule and the list of registrations cancelled alongside an ABN come from the Australian Business Register and the Australian Taxation Office. Procedures change, so confirm the current position at abr.gov.au or ato.gov.au, or with a registered tax agent. Balaana is bookkeeping software, not a tax agent. This article is general information, not personal tax advice.