The long awaited National Business Registration System now has a start date.

From 28 May 2012, the individual States' responsibility for the registration and administration of business names will be referred to ASIC.

This means:

  1. Business names already registered under a State system will be automatically migrated to the new national system.
  2. If someone else has the same business name registered in a different State, ASIC will differentiate the businesses by adding a suffix to the end of the name (such as "NSW" or "QLD").
  3. If your business name is due for renewal, make sure it is renewed before 28 May 2012, as it may not be possible to renew after this date if the same business name from another State has been rolled over into the national system.
  4. If you want to register a business name, you must now have an ABN. Also, there will now only be one registration fee.

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