Pay my rates

We expect to issue rates notices in early February 2025. Payment terms are 30 days after the issue date. 

Rates are not our only source of income – they contribute around one fifth of our funding. Other sources of income for Local Land Services can include grants and other contributions from state and federal government and the sale of goods and services. 

Where landholders are experiencing hardship, they are encouraged to contact their nearest Local Land Services office to discuss available options, which could include setting up a payment plan. 

As each property has a separate account number you will need to pay each notice separately. Please use the reference number on each notice to make a payment. This will ensure your payments are allocated to your accounts correctly. 

Rates are calculated based on several variables and will look different for each property. These variables include:

• General base and variable rate which includes a standard base amount per rateable holding plus a variable component based on the notional carrying capacity applied to your holding.
• Animal health base and variable rate which includes a standard base amount if you hold stock and a variable component (based on minimum stock numbers being declared in your Annual Land and Stock Return) multiplied by the notional carrying capacity applied to your holding. These charges will also apply for non or late lodgement of the annual return. The Local Land Services Regulation 2014 states 50 stock units are the minimum after which the animal health component will be included. The Regulation defines a stock unit as a 40 kilogram wether sheep of any breed – a 400 kilogram steer of any breed represents 10 stock units. The Regulation also provides equivalents for other types of stock.
• Meat industry levy which is charged on behalf of and passed onto the Food Authority on the same basis as the animal health rate. The levy has a base charge of $5.00 and is capped at a maximum of $130.00.
• Special purpose pest management rate which supports statewide plague locust and pest animal control as a priority, while investing a portion in the management of state and regional pest priorities.

As there are large differences in the size, carrying capacity and use of properties across NSW, rates vary accordingly. Your previous rates notice is a good indication of what your 2025 notice may be.

The animal health rate and meat industry levy are included on rates notices where your annual land and stock return declared stock numbers exceeding the minimum numbers prescribed by the Local Land Services regulation.

These components are also charged where an annual return is not lodged or is lodged after the 31 August in the previous year. 

While horticultural industry bodies provide extension and advisory services, Local Land Services still provides a wide range of support to growers. While it may not always seem visible, our support can extend to you in times of emergency, natural disaster and biosecurity threats. Your contribution through rates payments supports the industry and Australia’s horticultural sustainability.

We encourage and support landholders to be sustainable and follow best practice when it comes to the management of land, pastures, produce, native vegetation and natural resources. We manage biosecurity at a landscape scale, which includes ensuring all land managers maintain good practices (on-farm hygiene for example) and we contribute to regional disease surveillance to protect your industry by providing early detection of any potential pests in the landscape.

We coordinate wide-scale pest animal control programs and can provide advice on how to manage both invertebrate and plant pests on your farms. Our staff can also provide advice on how to manage native vegetation on your property and can explain how the land management code works, and approval pathways available to help you.  

There are no pensioner or other discounts. Where landholders are experiencing hardship, they are encouraged to contact their nearest Local Land Services office to discuss what options may be available to them, which could include setting up a payment plan.

This year, we will be distributing account statements (where applicable) with the rates notice mail out. This will clearly outline to the landholder if their account has a credit or arrears.

If you believe there is a credit on your account, customer service staff can check your balance. If the account is in credit, customer service staff can step through the refund process to refund the amount back to you.

Any account with a large credit (>$1,000) should receive a call from relevant regional staff and be proactively managed as a matter of urgency. A central resource will be allocated within the DPHI Accounts Receivable Team to manage any smaller amounts. Account statements (similar to monthly statements) will also be issued for any landholder with credits on accounts.  

Landholders are charged animal health and meat industry levies on their rates notices for one of 2 reasons.

1. You submitted an Annual Land and Stock Return last year where you indicated that you had 50 or more Dry Sheep Equivalent (DSE) on your holding on 30 June 2024.
2. Your Annual Land and Stock Return was not received by the deadline of 31 August 2024. 

If you fail to lodge your return, the Animal Health and Meat Industry Levy will automatically apply on your rates notice the following year.

The Notional Carrying Capacity (NCC) is an estimate which is worked out by the local region for the number of livestock a property could carry per hectare during an average year using farming practices deemed suitable by Local Land Services in the area.

When you are looking at your rates notice the “Stock Units/hectare: XX.XXX” shown is referring to the amount of stock that can be held on each hectare. The estimated total carrying capacity for your land is worked out by multiplying the area of land x stock units per hectare – this amount can be seen beside the Base Charge for your general rates.  

While we have started collecting information from landholders who would like to receive their rates via email, we are aiming to finalise the systems to support this ahead of the 2026 rates. 

If you would like more information, please call our team on 1300 795 299.