Treasurer Jim Chalmers has confirmed that Australians will be guaranteed the right to pay with cash for essential items from January 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
The new regulations will require fuel and grocery retailers to accept cash as a method of payment between 7am and 9pm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that people can use cash for essentials when they want to and when they need to,\u201d Mr Chalmers to Sky News Sunday Agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so the cash mandate is all about making sure supermarkets and servos have to accept cash between seven o’clock in the morning and nine o’clock at night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Chalmers added that small businesses will have a carve-out, but for most retailers, the mandate will create a legal obligation to accept cash.<\/p>\n
The regulations, which have now been finalised, require in-person transactions of $500 or less to be accepted in cash at fuel and grocery outlets.<\/p>\n
Small businesses with annual turnover under $10 million have been exempted, although those sharing a trademark with a larger retailer will still be covered.<\/p>\n
The move comes amid a decade-long decline in cash use, with cash accounting for just 13 per cent of payments in 2022, down from about 70 per cent in 2007.<\/p>\n
Despite this, approximately 1.5 million Australians continue to use cash for 80 per cent of their in-person spending.<\/p>\n
Australians also have options to pay bills, including utilities, phone bills, and council rates, in cash at local Australia Post outlets through Post Billpay.<\/p>\n
The cash mandate will be reviewed after three years to ensure it is functioning as intended.<\/p>\n
The government has also announced it will crack down on price gouging by the major supermarkets.<\/p>\n
Under the new regulations, very large\u00a0retailers will be banned from charging prices that are excessive when compared to the cost of the supply plus a reasonable margin.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Treasurer Jim Chalmers has confirmed that Australians will be guaranteed the right to pay with cash for essential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[16169,64,8931,63,36974,99,5612,191849,191847,164,191846,191848,42086,3329,37652],"class_list":["post-347339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-albanese-government","tag-au","tag-auspol","tag-australia","tag-australian-politics","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-cash-mandate","tag-cash-mandate-for-essential-purchases-starting-january-2026","tag-economy","tag-essential-items","tag-fuel-and-grocery-retailers","tag-jim-chalmers","tag-small-businesses","tag-treasurer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}