When to cancel your GST registration

GST Dates

JAN 15

Your GST return and payment is due for the taxable period ending 30 November.
JAN 28

Your GST return and payment is due for the taxable period ending 31 December.
FEB 28

Your GST return and payment is due for the taxable period ending 31 January.

You can cancel your GST registration if things change in your business or organisation. In some situations you must cancel your registration.

If you are in a GST group

There are different criteria and processes to cancel a GST group’s registration.

Cancelling a GST group

If you are not in a GST group

If your taxable activity is stopping or slowing down, you can cancel your GST registration.

If you stop your taxable activity you must cancel your registration. Cancelling your GST registration will not close your business or organisation.

If you continue your taxable activity you may choose to cancel your registration. If you cancel, keep in mind that:

you no longer charge GST on your sales
you can no longer claim GST on your expenses.

Should I cancel my GST registration?

If you're thinking of cancelling your GST registration, you'll need to know the situations where you must cancel or have a choice in cancelling.

When you must cancel

You must cancel your GST registration within 21 days if both these apply:

you stop your taxable activity
you don't intend to start a new activity within the next 12 months.

When you might want to cancel

You should think about cancelling your GST registration if one of these applies:

your turnover for the next 12 months will be under $60,000
you've been filing nil returns for more than 12 months.

When you cannot cancel

You cannot cancel your GST registration if GST is included in your prices, even if your annual turnover is under $60,000.

Businesses with separate branches or divisions

If you are the parent body of a business with separately registered branches or divisions you can cancel any of those registrations at any time. You will need to take over the GST responsibilities of any of the branches or divisions which are no longer registered for GST.

If a parent body cancels its own GST registration, all the separate registrations of its branches or divisions are automatically cancelled.