Taxes, royalties and export controls on minerals and petroleum

The Australian Government and state and territory governments own Australia’s mineral and petroleum resources on behalf of the community.

Taxes and royalties ensures the community receives an adequate return on the use of Australia’s non-renewable resources. 

The Australian Government and state and territory governments share responsibility for taxing resources projects.

The Australian Government:

• administers the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) (external link), a profits-based tax levied on all petroleum, oil and gas projects in Australian Commonwealth waters
• collects taxes and charges on the recovery of oil, gas and condensate (external link) from projects in Australian Commonwealth waters.

The Minister for Resources is responsible for issuing combination certificates for petroleum projects under the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 (external link).

We work with the Western Australia Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (external link) to collect petroleum royalties (external link) from the North West Shelf project. The project is a joint venture between 6 major international companies and is one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas producers.

We also collect royalties for the Commonwealth from:

• the Barrow Island (resource rent royalty) (external link)
• some onshore production in Western Australia from pre-1979 leases.

The state and territory governments collect royalties for both onshore and offshore mineral and petroleum projects in their coastal waters. There is no common royalty regime in place across all states and territories.