More questions transport owners ask

No, not to a different legal entity. The NHVAS Business Rules and Standards state at section 4(3) that an accreditation cannot be transferred between individuals or legal entities. Accreditation attaches to the accredited entity, not to the business, the fleet or the vehicles.

The consequence depends on structure. In a share sale the accredited legal entity is unchanged, so the accreditation survives the transaction and the notification obligations continue to apply. In an asset sale the buying entity is a different legal person, so nothing carries across by itself.

In an asset sale there are two paths. Where the buyer already holds Mass or Maintenance accreditation, the NHVAS Business Rules provide for the buyer’s existing accreditation to be amended to include the acquired vehicles, citing section 466 of the Heavy Vehicle National Law. Where the buyer holds no accreditation, the buyer must seek accreditation in its own right, which means an audit.

Time is the real cost. While the buyer is unaccredited, the mass, maintenance and fatigue concessions do not run, so concessional mass limits and flexible work and rest hours are unavailable on the acquired fleet. Confirm the current section number and the buyer’s position with your solicitor, because the amended HVNL commenced on 1 August 2026 and section numbering has not been checked against the new reprint on this page.

The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator states that the amended HVNL commenced on 1 August 2026. It was made by the Heavy Vehicle National Law Amendment Act 2025 (Qld), Act No. 26 of 2025, passed by the Queensland Parliament on 18 November 2025.

The changes that matter to a sale are accreditation, safety systems and fatigue. NHVAS is replaced by the Heavy Vehicle Accreditation scheme, Safety Management Systems are embedded in the accreditation model, and there are fatigue and work diary changes. Mass, dimension and loading rules were updated, including for Euro VI vehicles, and the unfit to drive provisions were expanded.

One expansion catches vehicles that were previously outside the fatigue regime. A broader duty not to drive while unfit to drive now applies to all heavy vehicle drivers over 4.5 tonnes, where it was previously limited to fatigue-regulated vehicles over 12 tonnes. Work diaries were not extended to heavy vehicles under 12 tonnes.

The Queensland reprint of the HVNL effective 1 August 2026 was published on 31 July 2026 and consolidates amendments through 2025 No. 26. If you are selling in the second half of 2026, a buyer will ask which transition option you took, so have the answer documented before diligence starts.

In transport the answer is not only a tax question, it is an operating question. A share sale preserves the accredited legal entity, so accreditation, customer contracts, registrations and finance stay in place. An asset sale breaks accreditation, because the buying entity is a different legal person.

An asset sale has three further consequences specific to this sector. The Queensland Certificate of Inspection exemption on maintenance-accredited vehicles is lost on sale unless the buyer adds the vehicle to its own maintenance module. Vehicle registration duty applies on the transfer of each vehicle. Registration must be transferred into the buyer’s name within 14 days.

A share sale carries your regulatory history across to the buyer. That includes any Chain of Responsibility exposure, any fatigue record gaps and any unresolved compliance history sitting inside the entity. A buyer that takes the entity will price that risk, or ask for warranties and an indemnity, or both.

Take advice from your accountant and your solicitor on your specific facts. The Queensland Revenue Office pages dealing with business asset duty could not be read in the research behind this page. Whether the goodwill of a Queensland transport business is a dutiable business asset is a question to put to your adviser rather than to assume.

Chain of Responsibility makes ten parties responsible for heavy vehicle safety, not just the driver. The parties are employer, prime contractor, operator, scheduler, consignor, consignee, packer, loading manager, loader and unloader. Each is a function, so one business commonly occupies several of them.

The primary duty, cited as section 26C in NHVR guidance, requires each party to ensure the safety of its transport activities so far as is reasonably practicable. Parties must eliminate or minimise public risks, and must not cause or encourage a driver or another person to break the law.

Executive due diligence, cited as section 26D, is a personal duty on an executive of a legal entity. It follows the individual, not the company. In a share sale a departing owner-director does not automatically shed exposure for conduct during their tenure, and an incoming director assumes the duty from day one.

That is why deal documents in transport deal with regulatory conduct expressly. Have your solicitor address run-off exposure, warranties on compliance history, and who answers for conduct before completion. This is not a clause you want drafted from a generic business sale template.

For the schedule running 1 August 2026 to 30 June 2027, the maximum for a Category 1 offence is $436,850 for an individual, or 5 years imprisonment, or both, and $4,230,550 for a corporation. Category 2 is $212,090 and $2,120,880. Category 3 is $70,580 and $705,820.

The Category offences are cited as sections 26F, 26G and 26H in NHVR guidance. For a contravention of the executive duty at section 26D, the penalty for an individual equals the corresponding primary duty penalty for the category of breach involved.

The figures move every year. Penalties are indexed annually on 1 July using Australian Bureau of Statistics figures. As at 1 July 2025 the Category 1 maximum for an individual was more than $424,794, or 5 years imprisonment, or both, and more than $4,113,837 for a corporation.

Infringement notice amounts are set at 10 per cent of the maximum court imposable penalty. Separately, the NHVR states that courts may impose fines exceeding $13,000 on individuals for the prohibited requests and contracts provision cited as section 26E.

Yes, for entry to the Heavy Vehicle Accreditation scheme. General Safety Accreditation establishes the minimum safety capability required to enter the HVA scheme, and it is based on a whole-of-business Safety Management System audit rather than the narrower NHVAS module audits.

The NHVR sets out five SMS components: Leadership and Commitment; Risk Management; People; Assurance, Monitoring and Improvement; and Safety Systems. The NHVR states the system must be fit-for-purpose, simple and demonstrably effective, and that it scales from a single owner driver to a large fleet.

This is where an unpriced cost sits in a 2026 sale. A business that has never documented an SMS carries both a cost and a timing risk into the transition, and a buyer will either fund that work or discount for it. Documenting the SMS before you go to market removes an argument you would otherwise have during diligence.

Existing accredited operators have options. The NHVR states you can maintain current NHVAS accreditation for up to 2 years if it expires before year end, or apply for an NHVAS extension of up to 1 year. You can also transition immediately to HVA, or exit the scheme. Existing accredited operators have up to three years to transition overall. A buyer inherits whichever option you chose, so record the decision and the date.

Because a search by VIN alone does not clear a truck fleet. The Personal Property Securities Register states that a security interest in a commercial motor vehicle may be registered by reference to the grantor and contain no reference to its serial number. Such an interest will only be revealed through a search by grantor.

So the buyer runs both. A serial number search against every vehicle identification number, and a grantor search against every seller entity by ACN or ABN. Trailers, dollies, forklifts, workshop plant and any non-serial-numbered collateral show up only in the grantor search.

There is a limited statutory protection, and it is not a substitute for searching. Section 45 of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) applies where a search by serial number alone would not have disclosed a registration. An eligible buyer will generally take the motor vehicle free of any security interest. The protection is conditional, including on the seller being the grantor or possessing the vehicle lawfully.

Run both searches on your own entities before you go to market. Undischarged historical registrations against a seller entity are common and they slow settlements down. Cleaning the register early costs a search fee, while finding a stale registration in week three of due diligence costs momentum.

It depends on whether the buyer is an associated entity. Where the old and new employers are associated entities, accumulated annual leave carries across to the new employer. Where they are not associated entities, the new employer may decline to recognise it, and then the old employer has to pay out the untaken accumulated annual leave.

Continuity of service is different from leave balances. The Fair Work Ombudsman states that a new employer has to recognise an employee’s service with the old employer. Recognition of prior service is mandatory for sick and carer’s leave, flexible work requests and parental leave entitlements.

Redundancy is discretionary between non-associated entities. A new employer that is not an associated entity can choose not to recognise service for redundancy purposes, in which case the old employer bears the redundancy liability. Employees lose the redundancy entitlement if they reject an offer of employment on similar terms and conditions that recognises prior service.

In a driver cohort with long tenure this is the largest negotiated adjustment after the fleet valuation. Either you pay the accrued liability out at settlement, or the buyer assumes it as a price adjustment. Model both before you agree a headline price, because the two produce very different net proceeds.

There are two, and a business doing both line haul and metro work will be running both side by side. The Road Transport and Distribution Award 2020 [MA000038] covers the road transport and distribution industry. The Road Transport (Long Distance Operations) Award 2020 [MA000039] covers long distance operations.

MA000038 applies to employers throughout Australia in the road transport and distribution industry and their employees in the listed classifications. The industry as defined includes road transport of goods, materials or livestock, and receiving, handling or storing goods in distribution facilities. It also includes storage and distribution related to air freight forwarding, wholesale meat transport from abattoirs, and petroleum product cartage and distribution. Milk and cream transport, quarried materials cartage, and vehicle relocation and distribution services are covered as well.

MA000038 expressly excludes employees undertaking long distance operations, who fall under MA000039. It also excludes employees under the Mining Industry Award 2020, the Transport (Cash in Transit) Award 2020, the Waste Management Award, enterprise awards and public sector awards.

Misclassification between MA000038 and MA000039 is a standard diligence finding and a standard price adjustment. A buyer will sample payslips against the classification structure of both awards. An audit of your own classifications before listing is cheaper than a retrospective underpayment calculation negotiated across a table.

In Queensland an employee is entitled to 8.6667 weeks of paid long service leave after 10 years of continuous service, so a driver at 12 years has an accrued entitlement. A further 4.3333 weeks accrues after 15 years, totalling 13 weeks.

Long service leave in Queensland is governed by the Industrial Relations Act 2016 (Qld). Entitlements are based on continuous service, including instances where that Act states continuity of service is taken to be with the same employer or not broken. For national system employees, state and territory laws determine the entitlement where no pre-modernised award applies, and from 1 January 2010 those laws generally prevail over inconsistent enterprise agreement provisions.

The precise section governing continuity of service on a transmission of business could not be confirmed against the Act in the research behind this page. Treat the accrued long service leave balance as a settlement adjustment to be quantified with your accountant and confirmed with your solicitor rather than assumed either way.

Practically, build a per-employee schedule before you go to market. Name, start date, award, classification, accrued annual leave, accrued personal leave and long service leave position. A buyer that receives that schedule on day one does not spend three weeks constructing it and pricing the uncertainty.

Three years, because that is the retention period. The NHVR states that your employer as record keeper must keep a copy of each daily work diary sheet for three years. Electronic work diary records must be kept for at least three years as well.

The NHVR requires electronic work diary records to be kept in a way that ensures they are readable and reasonably capable of being understood, and capable of being used as evidence. A record set that cannot be produced in a readable form is a diligence finding in itself.

Not every driver needs a work diary. Under standard hours you must record in a work diary if you will drive outside a radius of 100km from your base, under section 12D of the Heavy Vehicle (Fatigue Management) National Regulation. Drivers doing only local work within a 100km radius under standard hours are not required to keep one.

Three years is also the window a regulator can look back over after settlement. That is why a buyer samples it, and why an incoming director cares about it. Assemble the three years before you list, and check that the records tie to the trips your invoices show.

A PBS Vehicle Approval lists the vehicle identification numbers of the vehicles approved, so it follows the vehicle rather than the operator. If you retain a vehicle in an asset sale, the approval covering that vehicle is worth nothing to the buyer.

PBS approval is two stages, both issued by the NHVR. A PBS Assessor evaluates the design and the NHVR issues a Design Approval specifying the configuration. Once built, a PBS Certifier inspects and certifies, and the NHVR issues a Vehicle Approval showing the VINs, the approved level of access, associated masses and operating conditions.

The second trap is bigger. The NHVR states that the Vehicle Approval is not an authorisation to access the road network, so an access permit or notice is still required. A fleet marketed as PBS approved on a given lane is describing two separate entitlements, and both need to be verified by name.

Queensland has also tightened Class 1 access. Queensland no longer approves blanket 12-month permits, and permits carry individualised travel conditions with a duration based on the movement need, and are expected to be rare and infrequent. The National Automated Access System covers vehicles up to 5.4m high, 8m wide or 45m long on state-controlled roads, with local government networks being added.

Yes, within 14 days. The NHVAS Business Rules and Standards require participants to notify the NHVR in the approved form within 14 days. That covers any change to the nominated vehicle, such as a plate change, and any change to accreditation details.

The HVA Scheme Operator Guidelines carry the same vehicle-level mechanism. Operators must keep vehicle details current and notify the NHVR when vehicles are added to or removed from an accredited fleet, transferred between scheme members or sold, or when key details change. You must notify within 14 days of any change relating to your accreditation that would affect fees payable.

Registration is a separate 14 day clock. A buyer of a Queensland registered vehicle must transfer the registration into their name within 14 days, through Transport and Main Roads.

Build the notifications into the settlement checklist rather than leaving them to whoever remembers. A missed notification is a small administrative failure that lands on a compliance record a future buyer will read.

Queensland transfer duty is assessed on dutiable value by the Queensland Revenue Office, on rates last updated 25 June 2026. Nothing is payable up to $5,000. From $540,000 to $1,000,000 duty is $17,325 plus $4.50 per $100 over $540,000. Above $1,000,000 it is $38,025 plus $5.75 per $100 over $1,000,000.

Vehicle registration duty applies separately on the transfer of each vehicle in an asset sale. For heavy vehicles over 4.5 tonnes, hybrid or electric is $2 per $100 of dutiable value and 1 to 4 cylinders is $3 per $100. A vehicle with 5 to 6 cylinders is $3.50 per $100, and 7 or more cylinders is $4 per $100. Conditional registration for tractors, forklifts and graders is a flat $25.

On a fleet-heavy asset sale that second line is large, and it is one of the structural arguments you and a buyer will weigh when choosing between a share sale and an asset sale in this sector.

The Queensland Revenue Office pages dealing specifically with business asset duty, goodwill and share versus asset sales could not be read in the research behind this page. Get the duty position confirmed by your accountant and solicitor on your actual numbers before you agree a structure.

Yes, and buyers now read the pricing mechanics rather than just the revenue. The NHVR identifies payment structures using per-kilometre rates that incentivise excessive speed, and penalty clauses for late arrivals, as examples of conduct capable of contravening the prohibited requests and contracts provision cited as section 26E.

The provision makes it an offence to ask, direct or require a driver, directly or indirectly, to do something the person knows or ought reasonably to know would cause the driver to speed or drive fatigued. It is equally an offence to enter into a contract with that effect.

So a contract book that looks commercially attractive can carry regulatory risk inside its rate structure. That applies to customer contracts and to subcontractor agreements alike, and a buyer’s legal diligence will read both.

The commercial point behind the rate structure is worth knowing too. A cents per kilometre rate prices the vehicle movement irrespective of what is on it, so you carry the volume and load factor risk. A per tonne, per pallet or per carton rate prices the freight carried, so you carry the distance and empty running risk. These are industry terms, not statutory definitions.

Fuel tax credits are a material earnings line for a heavy fleet, and 2026 had three different rate regimes inside one financial year. Any normalisation that does not adjust for that will misprice the business, in either direction depending on which period is sampled.

The Australian Taxation Office rates run as follows. From 1 April to 30 June 2026 the heavy vehicle road user charge was set to zero, following a temporary reduction in fuel excise by 60.9 per cent. From 1 July to 2 August 2026 the rate for heavy vehicles on public roads was 20.2 cents per litre, with a road user charge of 16.4 cents per litre. Other business use of liquid fuels was 36.6 cents per litre.

From 3 August 2026 the rate for heavy vehicles on public roads is 21.3 cents per litre. The road user charge is 32.4 cents per litre, or 43.2 cents per kilogram for gaseous fuels. Other business use of liquid fuels is 53.7 cents per litre.

Show the adjustment rather than argue about it. Present fuel tax credits as a separate line, split by rate period, with litres and the applicable rate for each. A buyer that can reconcile your fuel tax credit claim to the ATO rate table will accept the earnings figure faster than one that cannot.

Queensland road freight was 45.1 billion tonne kilometres in 2024 to 2025, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics yearbook published in December 2025. That compares with 44.5 billion tonne kilometres in 2023 to 2024 and 39.9 billion tonne kilometres in 2018 to 2019.

One caveat belongs with those numbers. BITRE itself warns that uncertainty is higher for road freight estimates after 2020, when the last Survey of Motor Vehicle Use was completed. Queensland figures from 2020 to 2021 onwards are modelled estimates rather than survey counts.

Nationally, BITRE puts the total Australian freight task at its highest point in 2024 to 2025 at 786 billion tonne kilometres, with road freight at approximately 253 billion tonne kilometres and rail at approximately 447 billion tonne kilometres. For comparison, New South Wales road freight was the highest on record at 87.6 billion tonne kilometres.

On operator numbers, the Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 249,289 Transport, Postal and Warehousing businesses in Australia as at 30 June 2025. That was a rise of 5.1 per cent across 2024 to 2025, the second-largest percentage growth of any industry. The ABS release does not publish a Queensland count for that industry, so this page does not state one.

Typically as a multiple of adjusted earnings, with the fleet either included or dealt with separately depending on the structure that suits the deal. The multiple moves with the contracted share of revenue, customer spread, driver stability, compliance history and the state of the fleet. Because the gear carries a big share of the value, honest market values across the register, not book values, are the foundation of pricing it right.

Yes, financed fleets are completely standard and do not stop a sale. Every encumbrance needs to be identified early and dealt with at settlement so the buyer takes clear title. Know your payout figures across the whole fleet before going to market.

A sensible mix can genuinely help, because it gives the buyer flexible capacity without capital tied up in every truck. What matters is documentation: written agreements, commercial rates, compliant engagement terms, and key subcontractors likely to continue after settlement. Handshake arrangements get priced as risk, so paper them well before market.

Not through a properly run process. The business is advertised by its shape, its lanes and its numbers, with no trading name and no depot address attached. Every enquiry signs a confidentiality agreement and is qualified before it learns anything identifying, and the detail that would let a competitor work out who you are comes last, to a buyer who is already committed. In an industry where good drivers get poached weekly, confidentiality protects the very asset you are selling.

If it is leased, the lease is assigned to the buyer with the landlord's consent, so tenure and terms become part of the deal, and a short lease is worth fixing before market. If you own it, you can sell it with the business, keep it and lease it to the buyer for ongoing income, or sell it separately. Each path lands differently for tax and retirement planning, so structure it with your accountant early.

Now, whatever your timeline. If your exit is years away, the appraisal tells you which of those years to spend on what. If it is closer, you may be able to fast track, and businesses with contracted freight, stable drivers or sought after accreditation are saleable to strategic buyers today.