Small Business Accounting Statistics 2026 (Australia)

How many businesses need accounting help
Tax agents, BAS agents and the profession
The accountant shortage
The small business tax gap
Lodgment, payment and tax debt
Cloud accounting and small business conditions
The compliance burden
What people are actually asking
How to use these figures
Sources
Frequently asked questions

How many businesses need accounting help

2,814,778 businesses were actively trading in Australia at 30 June 2026, up 85,130 (3.1%) in a year. (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, June 2026)
460,461 businesses started and 375,331 closed in 2025-26, an entry rate of 16.9% and an exit rate of 13.8%. (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, June 2026)
1,271,197 are companies (up 5.2%), 848,300 sole proprietors (up 3.1%) and 196,015 partnerships (down 4.2%). (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, June 2026)
1.82 million businesses have no employees. Of the 996,203 that do, 689,600 employ 1 to 4 people, 232,912 employ 5 to 19 and 68,325 employ 20 to 199. (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, June 2026)
91.6% of businesses turn over less than $2 million a year and 24.2% less than $50,000. (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, 2023-24 edition)
97.3% of GST registered businesses are small (0 to 19 employees): 2,656,469 of 2,729,648 at June 2025, and 64% have no employees at all. (ASBFEO, Number of small businesses in Australia, August 2025)
5.17 million people work for small businesses, 39% of the private sector workforce, and small business produces 32% of GDP ($596 billion of value added). (ASBFEO, contribution to employment and GDP, 2023-24)
More than 4.7 million entities sit in the ATO's small business population (turnover under $10 million), which is why the ATO counts 5.91 million small business taxpayers in its tax gap work. (ATO speech to IPA National Congress 2024; ATO small business income tax gap)

Tax agents, BAS agents and the profession

The Tax Practitioners Board registers every tax agent and BAS agent in the country.

63,865 registered tax practitioners at 30 June 2025: 46,900 tax agents and 16,965 BAS agents. 4,373 new registrations were granted in 2024-25. (TPB Annual Report 2024-25, page 6)
45,333 to 46,900 is how tax agent numbers moved between June 2022 and June 2025, while BAS agents held between 16,899 and 17,007. The profession is not shrinking, it is ageing. (TPB Annual Reports 2021-22, 2023-24 and 2024-25)
58% and 65% of individual tax agents and BAS agents respectively are over 50. Just 1% of each are under 30. (TPB data reported by Accounting Times, June 2025)
95% of business (non-individual) income tax returns for 2023-24 were lodged by a registered agent, against 61% of individual returns. (TPB Annual Report 2024-25, citing the ATO)
60.0% of activity statements in 2024-25 were lodged by a tax agent or intermediary, and 95.3% were lodged electronically. (ATO GST administration annual performance report 2024-25)
Over 13,000 complaints and referrals were handled by the TPB in 2024-25, leading to around 275 serious sanctions. (TPB media release, November 2025)
140,590 members belong to Chartered Accountants ANZ and over 174,000 to CPA Australia (across all countries). (CA ANZ Annual Report 2025; CPA Australia)
$33.3 billion is the revenue of the Australian accounting services industry across 36,717 businesses and about 154,000 employees, growing 1.2% a year since 2020. (IBISWorld, Accounting Services in Australia, 2025)

The accountant shortage

3 years running tax accountants have been on the national Occupation Shortage List, and external auditors for 5 years. (CA ANZ citing Jobs and Skills Australia, October 2025)
Halved is what has happened to accounting degree enrolments since 2018, with a projected shortfall of about 6,000 accountants by 2030. (CA ANZ, October 2025)
55% of tax accountant vacancies were filled in 2025 (general accountants 49%, auditors 49%), well under the 67% that marks a shortage. Average time to fill a tax accountant role was 77 days. (CA ANZ member survey reported by Accountants Daily, April 2026)
$95,000 is the median accountant base salary in Australia in 2026 ($62,000 junior, $114,000 senior, $107,000 in Sydney). (Employment Hero salary guide, October 2026)

The small business tax gap

The tax gap is the ATO's estimate of the difference between what should be paid and what is paid.

$27.2 billion (17.4%) is the net small business income tax gap for 2022-23. The gross gap before ATO compliance activity was $28.1 billion (18.0%). (ATO small business income tax gap, latest estimate)
12.6% to 17.4% is how the small business gap has moved from 2017-18 ($12.4 billion) to 2022-23 ($27.2 billion). (ATO small business income tax gap, Table 1)
$17.1 billion of the gross gap comes from the shadow economy. Omitted income is 67% of the gap and over-claimed deductions 21%. (ATO small business income tax gap)
About 47% of Australia's entire $58.2 billion net tax gap is the small business gap. Small business tax performance is 82.6% against 90.9% for the whole system. (ATO tax gap program summary findings; performance of the tax system)
9.4% ($8.7 billion) was the net GST gap in 2023-24, with net GST collections of $90.2 billion in 2024-25. (ATO GST administration annual performance report 2024-25)

Lodgment, payment and tax debt

77.3% of activity statements were lodged on time in 2024-25 (target 78%), up from 72.6% in 2022-23. 82.6% of income tax returns were on time (target 83%). (Department of Finance audit of the ATO 2024-25 performance statements)
About 7.5 million BAS were lodged on time in 2024-25, up more than 280,000 on the year before. (ATO GST administration annual performance report 2024-25)
71.1% of GST payments were made on time by number (88.8% by value), and collectable GST debt stood at $13.5 billion. (ATO GST administration annual performance report 2024-25)
3.51 million GST registrants (3.42 million active) with 447,000 new registrations and 332,000 cancellations in the year; 2.69 million of them are small businesses. (ATO GST administration annual performance report 2024-25)
$35.9 billion of collectable tax debt was owed by small businesses at 30 June 2025, 66.1% of the total, across 1,338,387 businesses averaging $26,797 each. It has grown 118% since 2018-19. (ANAO Auditor-General Report No. 45 of 2025-26)
Over 8.0 million individual returns had been lodged by 24 September 2026: over 3.7 million through tax agents and over 4.2 million self-prepared. (ATO tax time lodgment statistics, 2026)
100 industries are covered by the ATO's 2025 small business benchmarks, drawn from the returns of over 2 million small businesses. (ATO benchmarks reported by Accounting Times, March 2025)

Cloud accounting and small business conditions

2.8 million Xero subscribers in Australia and New Zealand at March 2026 (1.94 million in Australia a year earlier), with ANZ revenue up 18%. (Xero FY26 market release; Xero FY25 investor deck)
Number one is where Australian small businesses rank accountants as a source of business advice, and accounting software was their top technology investment of 2025. (CPA Australia Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey 2025-26, Australia summary)
45.9% of Australian small businesses grew in 2025 and 52.8% expect to grow in 2026. 29.8% needed external finance and 39.2% found it easy to get. (CPA Australia Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey 2025-26)
15% of Australian small businesses named AI as their top technology investment, against a 32% Asia-Pacific average. 54% of owners are over 50. (CPA Australia media release, April 2026)
22.9 days is the average time an Australian small business waited to be paid in the June quarter 2026, 6.0 days late on average. Sales grew 6.5% and jobs 3.0% in the year. (Xero Small Business Insights, Australia update, July 2026)
$15,257 a year is what late payments cost the average small business in lost revenue, time and financing, over $1.1 billion a year in total. (Xero late payments research 2026; Xero submission to Treasury 2024)
69.2% of large business payments to small suppliers were made within 30 days, on average terms of 35.2 days. (Payment Times Reporting Regulator, reported by Accounting Times)

The compliance burden

39% of small businesses spend more than 6 hours a week on red tape and 42% say compliance hurts their operations. (ACCI data cited by ASBFEO, February 2026)
$160 billion (almost 6% of GDP) is the estimated annual cost of Commonwealth regulatory compliance across the economy, up from $65 billion in 2013. (AICD research cited by ASBFEO, February 2026)
21% of small businesses spend $5,001 to $20,000 a year on compliance and 11% up to $5,000. Just over 49% say red tape significantly affects their business. (ACCI Small Business Conditions Survey 2024, cited by ASBFEO)
82% of small businesses say red tape has a major or moderate impact, and 50% were spending more time and money on it than a year earlier. (ACCI survey reported by Accounting Times, July 2024)

What people are actually asking

The people who come to this site are rarely looking for a routine tax return. They are behind: BAS and tax returns overdue since 2022 after a mix up with a previous accountant, years of MYOB records that need cleaning up, a new ABN where the owner tried Xero themselves and knows the numbers are wrong. They are changing accountants after their old practice was sold and do not know how to transfer the authority. They are setting up a company and want it done properly from the start, or asking what a sole trader can claim on a vehicle, or what a non-resident company has to lodge each quarter.

The searches behind those enquiries are payroll services for small business, virtual and outsourced CFO, MYOB bookkeeper, management reporting, BAS agent near me, bookkeeper near me, business advisory accountant and Xero accountant. Put that next to the figures above: 1.34 million small businesses with a tax debt, a 17.4% tax gap, activity statements still missing the on-time target, and a profession where more than half of practitioners are over 50. The demand for catch up work and ongoing bookkeeping is growing faster than the supply of people to do it.

How to use these figures

Every number on this page is taken from the named public source and dated to the period that source covers. You are free to quote or reproduce them with attribution to this page and a link. We refresh the page once a year and correct it sooner when a source is revised. If a figure looks wrong, use the form on this page and tell us which one.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

How many small businesses are there in Australia?

2,814,778 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2026 according to the ABS, and 97.3% of them are small with fewer than 20 employees. About 64% have no employees at all.

How many tax agents and BAS agents are registered in Australia?

46,900 tax agents and 16,965 BAS agents at 30 June 2025, a total of 63,865 registered practitioners, according to the Tax Practitioners Board.

Is there an accountant shortage in Australia?

Yes. Tax accountants have been on the national Occupation Shortage List for three consecutive years, only 55% of tax accountant vacancies were filled in 2025, and accounting degree enrolments have halved since 2018.

What is the small business tax gap?

$27.2 billion, or 17.4% of the tax that should have been paid, for 2022-23 according to the ATO. It was 12.6% in 2017-18.

How often is this page updated?

Once a year after the ATO, TPB and ABS release their annual figures, or sooner when a source revises its numbers.

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Small business accounting statistics 2026: the Australian numbers behind tax, BAS, bookkeeping and the accountant shortage

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