You have twelve months.
From 1 July 2027, companies must give ASIC the director identification number of every director – through the channels you already use, being the annual review and any notification of a change to a director’s details. In practice, that means every company will have reported by 30 June 2028.
This looks like housekeeping. It is not. It is the moment ASIC’s company register gets reconciled against the director ID register – two databases that have never spoken to each other. A great deal of untidiness will surface at once, and untidiness at ASIC has a price.
Late lodgement fees currently run a little over $100 if you are up to a month late, and over $400 beyond that. They apply per form, per company. If you discover in mid-2027 that three of your companies show an old registered office, that is three late lodgements, plus whatever else turns up.
Worse is the director with no director ID at all. Failing to hold one is a strict liability offence with a penalty approaching $20,000, and ASIC can now disqualify a person from managing corporations for up to three years for failing to apply when directed. Right now nobody is systematically checking. From 1 July 2027, the system checks itself.
Two Steps, Starting Now
- Search yourself. Run a person search on the ASIC register under your own name. Do not assume you know what is there. You might even find that ASIC has two versions of you – both with the same details but not connected to each other. Usually it is a middle name, a maiden name or an old address.
- Then search every company. One at a time. Registered office, principal place of business, every officeholder’s address, the share structure. People update one company after moving house and forget the other four.
The point is the sequencing. Correcting a record now, in your own time, costs a form and a few minutes. Correcting it in the fortnight before your 2027 annual review, when it is holding up a lodgement you are legally required to make, costs a late fee on every entity.
If we act as your ASIC agent, we will be working through this for you over the coming year. If we do not, run the searches yourself – or ask us to run them.