BAS Due Dates 2026-27: Every Lodgment Date for Your Business

When is your next BAS due?

If you lodge a quarterly Business Activity Statement, your next deadline is 28 October 2026 for the July–September 2026 quarter (Q1 of the 2026-27 financial year). Lodge that quarter online and the ATO automatically pushes the due date out two weeks to 11 November 2026. Quarterly lodgers have four BAS deadlines across a financial year; monthly lodgers have twelve. This guide lists every 2026-27 date, the concessions that move them, and what a late lodgment costs.

Your reporting cycle depends on GST turnover. The ATO puts you on monthly reporting if your GST turnover is $20 million or more, quarterly if it is under $20 million (the default for most small businesses), and annually only if you registered for GST voluntarily and your turnover is under $75,000 ($150,000 for not-for-profits).

Quarterly BAS due dates for 2026-27

Quarterly activity statements are due on the 28th of the month after the quarter ends. The one exception is Q2 (October–December), which the ATO gives an extra month because its standard date would land in early January. If you lodge and pay online, or through a registered tax or BAS agent, you get an extra two weeks on quarters 1, 3 and 4. Q2 gets no further extension because it already carries the one-month buffer.

*Q2's due date is technically 28 February 2027, but that falls on a Sunday. When a due date lands on a weekend or public holiday, the ATO lets you lodge and pay on the next business day, which is Monday 1 March 2027.

You do not apply for the two-week concession. If you qualify, the ATO updates the due date shown on your activity statement automatically. If your PAYG instalments are reported quarterly, they sit on the same activity statement, so those payments follow the same dates.

Monthly and annual BAS due dates

Monthly lodgers report on a tighter cycle: each activity statement is due on the 21st of the following month. The July 2026 statement is due 21 August 2026, the August statement 21 September, and so on. There is no two-week online concession for monthly statements.

The one monthly exception is December. Eligible small businesses get until 21 February to lodge the December activity statement, so the pre-Christmas period does not collide with a 21 January deadline. Businesses registered for deferred GST do not get this concession.

If you report GST annually, there is a single deadline. The annual GST return is due on 31 October 2026 when you are also required to lodge an income tax return, since the two align. If you are not required to lodge a tax return, the annual GST return is due 28 February 2027.

What happens if you miss a BAS deadline

Two separate charges apply to a late BAS, and they stack: a failure to lodge on time (FTL) penalty for lodging late, and a general interest charge (GIC) for paying late.

The FTL penalty is one penalty unit for each 28 days (or part of 28 days) that the statement is overdue, capped at five units. From 1 July 2026 a penalty unit is $364, up from $330. For a small business that means up to 5 × $364 = $1,820 on a single late statement. A medium entity (GST turnover of $1 million to $20 million) has the penalty multiplied by two, so its cap is $3,640.

Paying late triggers the general interest charge, reset each quarter and compounded daily. For the July–September 2026 quarter the ATO set the annual rate at 11.43%, which is a daily rate of 0.03131507%. Left unpaid for 30 days, a $10,000 BAS liability accrues roughly $94 in interest. Since 1 July 2025 the GIC is no longer tax deductible, so the real cost of carrying an ATO debt is higher than the headline rate suggests.

If you cannot pay in full by the due date, lodge the BAS on time anyway and set up a payment plan. Lodging on time avoids the FTL penalty entirely, and the ATO can remit interest or penalties where you have a reasonable explanation, though remission is a request, not a right.

How to have each BAS ready before it's due

A BAS is only stressful when the records for the quarter are scattered across a car glovebox, three email inboxes, and a bank feed no one has reconciled since June. The figures the ATO asks for, GST on sales (1A) and GST on purchases (1B), are just running totals of documents you already have. The work is in keeping them tidy as they arrive, not reconstructing them the week before 28 October.

That is the gap SparkReceipt is built to close. Snap or forward a receipt and the AI reads the supplier, date, total and GST, then sorts it into a tax category with the Australian GST rule applied. Connect Gmail or Outlook and it captures the digital receipts (software subscriptions, flights, online suppliers) without you forwarding each one. When the quarter closes, an expense report gives you category and GST totals in one export, and the categorised expenses publish straight to QuickBooks Online or Xero where you prepare and lodge the statement. SparkReceipt does not lodge the BAS for you; it makes each quarter's records a lookup instead of a scramble, which is also the difference between claiming every GST credit and leaving some on the table.

For the underlying record-keeping rules, the ATO's five-year retention requirement and what counts as a valid tax invoice, see our guide to ATO record-keeping requirements. If vehicle costs feed into your BAS, the cents per kilometre method covers how those are tracked. Start free and connect your accounting software from the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

Do I still lodge a BAS if I had no sales this quarter?

Yes. A quarter with no activity still needs a "nil" BAS lodged by the due date. Lodging nil online takes a minute and avoids the FTL penalty. Skipping it because the numbers are all zero is one of the most common ways small businesses trigger a penalty.

Does lodging through a registered agent change my due dates?

It can. Registered tax and BAS agents lodge under the ATO's lodgment program, which grants concessional due dates for eligible clients whose previous statement was lodged electronically. The two-week online concession described above is the version available to you when you self-lodge; an agent's program dates can differ, so confirm them with your agent.

What is the difference between the lodgment date and the payment date?

For a standard BAS they are the same day: you lodge and pay by the due date. The two-week online concession moves both together. If you lodge on time but cannot pay, the FTL penalty does not apply, but the general interest charge runs on the unpaid amount from the due date until it is cleared.

Can I change how often I lodge my BAS?

If your GST turnover is under $20 million you can ask to report quarterly instead of monthly, and some small businesses can move to annual reporting if they registered voluntarily. Changes generally take effect from the start of a quarter, so the switch is not retroactive to the statement you are working on now.

When does the two-week concession not apply?

It does not apply to Q2 (October–December), which already carries a one-month extension to late February, nor to monthly statements at all. It covers quarters 1, 3 and 4 when you lodge and pay online or through an agent.

Key takeaways

• Quarterly BAS for 2026-27 is due 28 Oct 2026, 1 Mar 2027 (Q2, shifted off the 28 Feb weekend), 28 Apr 2027, and 28 Jul 2027; lodging online adds two weeks to every quarter except Q2.
• Monthly lodgers report by the 21st of the following month, with a concession to 21 February for the December statement.
• The annual GST return is due 31 October 2026 (or 28 February 2027 if you do not lodge a tax return).
• Lodging late costs up to $1,820 in FTL penalties for a small business ($364 per penalty unit from 1 July 2026), and paying late adds general interest at 11.43% a year, no longer tax deductible.
• Lodge on time even if you cannot pay: it removes the FTL penalty and leaves only the interest to manage through a payment plan.
• Keep GST-coded records as receipts arrive so each BAS is a report you export, not a quarter you reconstruct.