Becoming an RTO

General information, not legal advice. The official places to check are ASQA’s pages for providers and the law itself on the Federal Register of Legislation.

Who applies to ASQA

ASQA, the national regulator for the VET sector, registers RTOs under the Act, and that registration lets an RTO deliver VET courses to domestic students, a term ASQA explains as “Australian citizens, permanent residents and temporary visitors who are not on student visas”. ASQA says to apply to it for initial registration when seeking to deliver to domestic students in the ACT, NSW, the NT, Queensland, South Australia or Tasmania. A provider training only in Victoria or only in Western Australia goes to that state’s regulator, set out in file 05.

Teaching overseas students on a student visa is a second registration, under the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, and a provider needs both to deliver VET courses to them. ASQA’s page adds a date: “From 5 December 2025, applicants can only be accepted for ESOS registration from RTOs that have been delivering VET to domestic students in Australia for at least two years.”

The application

Section 16(3) of the Act says an application “must be in a form approved by the National VET Regulator and must be accompanied by: (a) any information or documents that the Regulator requires; and (b) the application fee determined by the Minister, by legislative instrument, under section 232.”

ASQA lists what must accompany every initial RTO application:

• “a completed initial RTO application form”
• “a signed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) statutory declaration”
• fit and proper person declaration forms for all governing persons: the CEO, executive officers, high managerial agents, and “any person/s who exercises a degree of control or influence over the management or direction of the registered training organisation”
• “a Financial Viability Risk Assessment”
• “comprehensive evidence to demonstrate commitment and capability to become a quality provider.”

Two fees apply. On ASQA’s page as last updated 30 June 2026, the initial registration application fee is $2,350, invoiced after the application is submitted, and processing waits until it is paid; the initial registration assessment fee is $5,000, invoiced once ASQA confirms the assessment is due to start, and paid before the assessment.

The course list is hard to change at first. ASQA asks an applicant to include every training product it intends to deliver in its first 2 years, because “Newly registered RTOs are not permitted to apply to add training products to their approved scope until they have been registered for a period of 24 months or more.”

What the Regulator weighs

Section 17(2): “In deciding whether to grant an application, the National VET Regulator must consider whether the applicant is complying, or will comply, with: (a) the VET Quality Framework; and (b) the applicable conditions of registration set out in Subdivision B of this Division.”

The Outcome Standards instrument says the same from its side: the Regulator “must consider whether an applicant is complying, or will comply, with Schedule 1 when determining whether to grant an application”. Those standards are file 02. Once registered, the duties become conditions of registration, set out in sections 22 to 28. Among them, an RTO “must comply with the Standards for NVR Registered Training Organisations” (s 22(1)) and “must satisfy the Fit and Proper Person Requirements” (s 23), and the Act’s note to section 21 says a failure to comply with a condition “is a contravention of a civil penalty provision”.

The fit and proper person test

Schedule 1 of F2025L00355 holds the Fit and Proper Person Requirements. The Regulator must have regard to the matters in it that it considers relevant when deciding whether any of these is, or would be, a fit and proper person:

• “an NVR registered training organisation;”
• “a governing person of an NVR registered training organisation;”
• “a person applying to become an NVR registered training organisation; or”
• “a governing person of a person applying to become an NVR registered training organisation,”

A governing person “means any person responsible for overseeing, directing, or exercising a degree of control or influence over the management or operation of an NVR registered training organisation, including executive officers and high managerial agents.” The Schedule’s matters fall under six headings: compliance with law, management history, financial record, provision of information, previous conduct and involvements, and additional considerations. Among the matters the Regulator may have regard to: having been found guilty of an offence, “Regardless of whether a conviction has been recorded”; having been insolvent or bankrupt, or having outstanding debts to the Commonwealth; having given a VET Regulator false or misleading information where it is reasonable to assume the person knew it was; and “whether the public is unlikely to have confidence in the person’s suitability”. A note keeps the spent convictions scheme in Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 untouched.

Training before registration

Under section 116(1), a person who is not an NVR registered training organisation commits an offence by providing, or offering to provide, any part of a VET course in a referring State or a Territory. The penalty is 1,500 penalty units. Subsection (1A) carves out a person who does so “on behalf of an NVR registered training organisation in accordance with a written agreement” with it, which is the doorway to third-party arrangements.

The decision

Within 30 days of deciding, the Regulator must notify the applicant in writing of the decision; if it rejects the application, the reasons; and if it grants it, the applicant’s scope of registration, the period of registration, any conditions imposed under section 29(1), the annual registration charge payable for the current financial year, and the amount of each instalment if the charge is payable in instalments (s 18).