Registered Business Names are administered through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). There are fees associated with having a registered business name, at the time of writing, the fees are $36 for one year registration or $84 for three years registration.
It is a fairly simple process to renew a business name yourself either via the ASIC connect website (which requires you to register) or via the ASIC website www.asic.gov.au
Companies that offer a service to renew your business name are doing so through the above mentioned websites, they however charge upwards of $200 for a three year registration.
We have seen some cases where a third party scours the ASIC website for upcoming renewals and sends the business owner a letter inviting them to renew their business name, before ASIC have actually sent out the renewal notice. While this is not illegal, we think it is unethical to do so as some business owners think they need to pay this and are not aware that they can do this through ASIC. We have also seen some scams around where the ‘company’ offering to do this service do not actually renew the business name and instead pockets the funds.
We advise all our clients to make note of their business name renewal date and pay their renewal either through their ASIC connect account or via the ASIC website. If our clients do not want to deal with the administrative side of things when renewing a business name, we would advise them to engage us rather than one of these companies.
