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The guide

Streaming Services.com.au

Thursday 8 October 2026

Ch 6 · Local stories

The Australian content rule for streaming services

Under a law passed in November 2025 and now in effect, streaming services with at least one million Australian subscribers must put at least 10% of what they spend on programs for Australia, or 7.5% of the revenue they earn here, into new Australian drama, children’s, documentary, arts and educational programs. The Australian Communications and Media Authority administers the rule, and the first annual compliance reports, for 2026, are due on 15 February 2027.

A summary of the rules for readers, not legal advice. The ACMA’s fact pages are the official guidance, and the ACMA says its own pages are not legal advice either.

7.00Feature

How it arrived

  • 27 November 2025Parliament passes the Communications Legislation Amendment Bill that sets an Australian content requirement for subscription video on demand (streaming) services. The government describes it as delivering a commitment in its National Cultural Policy, Revive.
  • 1 January 2026A service that met the notification criteria on this date had to lodge its first annual notification with the ACMA. Each SVOD reporting year runs from 1 January to 31 December.
  • 2 March 2026The due date for those first notifications, and the due date in each later year the criteria apply.
  • 2026–27 onwardAlongside the law, the ABC receives $50 million over three years from 2026–27 for new Australian children’s and drama content.
  • 15 February 2027Annual compliance reports are due within 45 days of the year’s end; for the 2026 reporting year, that is Monday 15 February 2027.

7.30Current affairs

Which services it covers

The law calls a streaming service a subscription video on demand service, or SVOD. A service is one when it delivers content to the public in Australia over the internet, has paying subscribers in Australia, offers them a catalogue of audiovisual content on demand, and providing that content is a primary or significant purpose of the service.

One million or more

A major SVOD has at least one million paying subscribers in Australia and must meet the expenditure requirement and report to the ACMA each year. Once it qualifies, it keeps reporting until its requirement is met, even if it later drops below one million.

250,000 to one million

A service with 250,000 to one million paying subscribers has no spending requirement, but it must tell the ACMA it exists and give it information about the service.

Some services are excluded altogether, such as one that mainly offers user-generated video, or one with limited appeal because it targets specific interest groups, covers a special event or serves only particular venues.

Who counts as a subscriber

For the ACMA, a paying subscriber includes anyone who pays a subscription fee, and anyone who activates the service as part of a paid bundle, as a free promotion with another product, or during a free trial. Free trials have their own traps for viewers: see Ch 1.

8.00Drama

What counts as an Australian program

The money has to go into eligible programs, which are drama, children’s programs (made for children 15 and younger), documentaries, arts programs and education programs. The program must also be Australian, a New Zealand or Australian/New Zealand program, or an official co-production.

The test for an Australian program comes from the standards already used for commercial free-to-air and subscription television, and it turns on creative control by Australians:

  • A producer of the program is Australian and has creative responsibility for it.
  • The director or the writer is Australian.
  • At least half of the leading actors, including voice actors and on-screen presenters, are Australian.
  • It is produced and post-produced in Australia or New Zealand, wherever it is filmed.
  • For drama, at least 75% of the major supporting cast are Australian.

For these roles an Australian means a citizen or permanent resident, and New Zealand citizens and permanent residents can fill them too.

8.30Sport

What does not count

Spending on these programs cannot be used to meet the requirement: news, sport (including live coverage and sports panel shows), advertising, reality programs, magazine and variety programs, and infotainment and light entertainment such as quiz shows.

9.00Documentary

How the spending is measured

The expenditure method

The default. The requirement is worked out from the service’s total program expenditure for Australia, at 10%.

The revenue method

A service can elect to use it for a period of three years, at 7.5% of its Australian revenue. It cannot choose it while it has an overdue shortfall.

Production budgets rise and fall, so the law works over a three-year cycle. A shortfall in one year can be made up in the following two years, and spending above the requirement can be carried forward for up to two years. A service breaches the Act if a shortfall is still not acquitted two or more years later.

Only spending before a program is made available to the public in Australia counts as qualifying expenditure.

9.30Help

Where to read the rule itself

The ACMA says more guidance will come during 2026 on how services prepare to report and meet their obligations.