Tobacco product reporting requirements

About the requirements

The tobacco reporting requirements are set out in the:

• Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Act 2023
• Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Regulations 2024.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you are complying with the legislation. To help you understand the requirements, the department has produced guidance material.

Why the requirements are important

The tobacco product reporting requirements aim to improve public health in Australia by:

• increasing the transparency of tobacco industry practices
• supporting policy development for tobacco control measures.

They do this by:

• providing information on sales volumes and pricing for specific brands and products. This improves the targeting of tobacco control policies, and measurement and evaluation of policy impacts
• providing information on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship activities and expenditure. This helps to track trends and ensure comprehensive advertising prohibitions
• providing information on tobacco product ingredients. This informs government policy development and raises public awareness of the adverse health consequences of tobacco use and the benefits of stopping
• meeting certain obligations Australia has as a party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

How to meet the requirements

All manufacturers and importers of tobacco products should ensure they understand their reporting obligations under legislation.

Chapter 5 of the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Act 2023 requires certain manufacturers and importers of tobacco products to give to provide the following reports each financial year to the Secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing:

1. a report identifying the ingredients used in manufacturing tobacco products
2. a report providing information about the volume of tobacco products imported into, sold or supplied in Australia 
3. a report providing information about marketing and promotional expenditure.

The required contents of the reports are set out in detail in the Act and Regulations.

Reports are due by 30 July each year and cover information that relates to the previous financial year. For example, a report for financial year 2025-26 is due on 30 July 2026, a report for financial year 2026–27 is due on 30 July 2027 and so forth.

You must provide a report if you are: 

• a tobacco manufacturer, or 
• a business that imports tobacco products for sale or supply in Australia (including external territories), even if no products were imported during the financial year,  

and during the relevant financial year, one or more of the following apply:   

• You sold or supplied tobacco products or offered tobacco products for sale or supply in Australia.  
• You undertook any of the following activities:   

a) marketing, promotion and sponsorship (such as corporate hospitality functions)  

b) corporate social responsibility activities

c) developing and designing retail packaging for tobacco products  

d) contributions of a kind mentioned in subsection 40(1) of the Act  

e) lobbying 

f) services or funding provided to any industry group or organisation that seeks to influence the development of public policy relating to tobacco control  

g) philanthropy  

h) rebates and reward systems offered to distributors and retailers of tobacco products  

i) arrangements entered into with social media influencers.  

How to report

The manner and form in which reports must be provided to the Secretary has been prescribed. This means reports must made using the following templates:

• Tobacco product ingredients report
• Tobacco product volumes report
• Tobacco product marketing and promotional expenditure report
• Tobacco product consolidated report.

Details on how to complete the templates are in the introduction tab of each template.

For consistent reporting, reporting templates include inbuilt data validation checks.

Reporting templates must be submitted in.xlsx file type. Other file types (such as pdf) will be rejected.

If your reports include data validation errors, or an invalid file type is submitted, you will be notified by email that your submission was unsuccessful and what data validation errors must be addressed.

Rectify any errors as soon as possible and resubmit your report. If further time is needed to address errors, seek at extension. Failure to submit a report by the required time may otherwise constitute an offence under the Act.

Submitting reports

From 2025–26 you must submit reports via the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing Health Business Services (HBS) portal. 

The portal has been established as the front door to health business services across the department.

Once you have registered with HBS you link to the Tobacco Reporting service. This is where you can create and manage an account for your organisation, and submit reports directly to the department.

Please refer to the portal help guidance below.

Invitations to report

For the 2025–26 reporting year, potential reporting entities that may need to provide reports will receive an invitation to register for HBS and join the Tobacco Reporting service.

If you have not received correspondence about reporting and believe you should have, contact tobaccoreporting@health.gov.au

Requesting an extension

You may apply in writing for an extension to the period in which to give a report using the application form for extension requests.

Applications for extensions must be submitted by emailing tobaccoreporting@health.gov.au.

See the application form for extension requests.

Please ensure that you seek the extension of time prior to the date advised for extensions. Failure to do so may result in your application being refused.

Portal help

A range of guides are available to help you use the HBS portal and submit reports via the Tobacco Reporting service. 

• If you need help registering for or using Health Business Services portal, including linking to Tobacco Reporting or actioning invitations, the How To pages include instructions for common portal tasks.
• If you need help using the Tobacco Reporting service, including creating or managing your organisation account and submitting your report, refer to the Tobacco Reporting service Help page. 
• If you need help completing the reporting template, contact us at tobaccoreporting@health.gov.au.

Privacy

Please refer to the Privacy Collection Statement for details on privacy and how personal information will be handled. Do not provide any personal information other than the personal information required within the reporting templates.

Publication of reports

The Minister must publish each report required by the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) legislation unless the Minister is satisfied that it is not appropriate to do so. The Minister may also decide to publish information about a reporting entity's non-compliance with reporting requirements.

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