Regional guide · Toowoomba
Business broker, Toowoomba and the Darling Downs
Tony Pope works from Gumdale in the Brisbane City Council area, so he is not from the Downs and will not claim to be. This page absorbs the old Darling Downs and South West page and covers six local government areas, Toowoomba, Western Downs, Southern Downs, Goondiwindi, Balonne and Maranoa, from Toowoomba, Oakey and Pittsworth through Dalby, Chinchilla, Miles, Warwick and Stanthorpe to Goondiwindi, St George, Dirranbandi and Roma.
Every figure on this page is sourced and dated. Where a figure is not published for this region, the page says so. Last updated 15 September 2026.
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What is different about selling a business in Toowoomba or on the Darling Downs?
Agriculture, forestry and fishing is the main industry in all six councils on this page, including Toowoomba. The six held 10,369 agricultural businesses at 30 June 2024, 25.0 per cent of Queensland’s total, on 6.4 per cent of the state’s business base. So your buyer is often not local, and a season shows up in your profit and loss before it shows up anywhere else.
What Toowoomba actually runs on
| Industry division | Businesses | Share of the base | Against Queensland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 10,369 | 31.7% | 3.92 |
| Mining | 133 | 0.4% | 1.02 |
| Manufacturing | 1,141 | 3.5% | 0.97 |
| Other services | 1,726 | 5.3% | 0.94 |
| Rental, hiring and real estate services | 3,152 | 9.6% | 0.82 |
| Construction | 4,506 | 13.8% | 0.81 |
| Retail trade | 1,511 | 4.6% | 0.80 |
| Transport, postal and warehousing | 1,995 | 6.1% | 0.79 |
| Accommodation and food services | 922 | 2.8% | 0.72 |
| Health care and social assistance | 1,785 | 5.5% | 0.68 |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 2,007 | 6.1% | 0.50 |
| Information media and telecommunications | 101 | 0.3% | 0.39 |
Counts are the six local government areas combined at 30 June 2024, from ABS Data by Region drawing on Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, July 2021 to June 2025, released 26 August 2025; the index compares the combined share of businesses with the Queensland share across 509,275 businesses, ABS perturbs small cells and suppresses cells of fewer than three so the divisions do not sum exactly to the published combined total of 32,685, the council by council split sits below in the council section, and this is a count of businesses on the register, not a count of businesses that were sold.
Where the businesses actually are
Six local governments, the business counts for each at 30 June 2025, and the industries that carry them.
Where the businesses actually are on the Darling Downs, 2,028 words, on its own page.
Local knowledge
What I know about this market that a data table does not carry
Why Toowoomba is different
The Toowoomba Bypass and the Wellcamp airport and freight precinct changed the economics of the region. Toowoomba is now a genuine inland freight hub rather than a town that trucks pass through. That has lifted the value of transport, logistics, warehousing and distribution businesses based there. At the same time the agricultural services base across the Downs feeds a steady stream of equipment, transport, engineering and supply businesses that are substantial operations by any measure.
Confidentiality matters more in a regional market
In Brisbane you can have a conversation about selling and nobody notices. In Toowoomba, everybody knows everybody. A rumour that you are selling reaches your staff, your customers and your competitors faster than it would anywhere in the south east, and the damage is harder to undo. It is the reason regional owners give me for putting off the conversation at all. The way I handle it is simple. The first conversation is private, off the record and costs nothing. No listing, no marketing and no approach to any buyer happens without your explicit sign off.
The sectors I work across the Downs
Transport and logistics operating through the Toowoomba freight corridor. Earthmoving and civil contractors working regional infrastructure and agricultural projects. Mining services and supply feeding the Surat Basin. Construction and building businesses where the QBCC licence structure has to be worked through. Equipment sales, hire and service businesses. E-commerce and retail operations, which are more common in Toowoomba than anyone outside the region expects.
Regional businesses, national buyers
The concern I hear again and again from a regional owner is that the buyer pool is too small. It is not, unless your marketing is local. The business is presented confidentially across the national business sale portals and taken directly to buyers who are actively looking, wherever they are. Interstate buyers wanting to acquire in Queensland regularly buy regional operations, particularly in transport, equipment and services.
Wellcamp and the freight story
The airport and the freight activity west of town changed what a Toowoomba business can credibly claim about reach. If your operation moves goods, the routes available now are not what they were a decade ago. Where that has changed your cost base or your customer geography, show it in the numbers. Buyers pay for evidence of it. They do not pay for the story about it.
Health and education are the employers
Toowoomba's hospitals, universities and schools underpin a large services economy: allied health, professional services, food, accommodation and trades. These businesses are stable, which buyers like, and they are frequently owner dependent, which buyers do not. If you are the practitioner, the principal or the person the clients ring, closing that gap is the single most valuable thing you can do before selling anything.
Regional address, national buyer list
The mistake is assuming a Toowoomba business sells to a Toowoomba buyer. In practice the strongest offers often come from operators in Brisbane, interstate or overseas looking for a regional base or a bolt on. Reaching them takes a target list and a deliberate approach rather than a local advertisement, and out here that work is most of the job.
Servicing the Downs and Brisbane at once
A great many Toowoomba businesses earn from both directions, west into the Downs and east down the range. That dual market is a strength worth quantifying. Break your revenue down by geography, show the split, then show what it costs to service each. Buyers looking at a regional business often assume the market is smaller than it is, and the fastest way to correct that assumption is with your own invoicing rather than an argument.
Questions people ask
3 of the 19 answered in full on the questions page for this topic.
Where will my buyer come from if I am at Roma, St George or Chinchilla?
Usually from outside your town, and often from outside the district. The six councils hold 285,704 people across 167,075 square kilometres, and four of the six averaged under one person per square kilometre at 30 June 2024. The pool of local financial buyers is thin because the local population is thin.
Does my food business licence transfer to the buyer?
Not in Toowoomba. Toowoomba Regional Council states that when taking over the ownership of a previously licensed food business you must apply for a new licence prior to commencing trade, and that a new licence is required before you start operating if you are taking over an existing fixed or mobile food business.
Does the water come with the business?
That is the first question to answer, because on a property that depends on it the water entitlement carries real value of its own. The Queensland Government states that generally a water licence is attached to land, and that water taken under it can only be used on the land the licence is attached to.
So work through it in order. Does the business hold a water licence, a water allocation, an overland flow entitlement, a bore entitlement under the GABORA Water Plan 2017, or a supplemented supply contract with Sunwater or Mallawa Irrigation Ltd? Is it attached to the land, and is the land being sold? If the business is sold without the land, what happens to the water on settlement day? What is the announced allocation history, and what does the entitlement actually deliver in a dry year rather than on paper?
Water allocations and licences can both be traded permanently, temporarily or by leasing, and a temporary trade is also called a seasonal water assignment. Deal with water expressly in the contract rather than assuming it follows the business.
Questions owners in Toowoomba ask, all 19 of them.
Go deeper
The long form, where it belongs
The full detail is on the pages below, each on its own page.
Check it yourself12 primary sources
Primary sources, none of them affiliated with me and none of them endorsing this site. Where anything here differs from an official source, the official source is right.
Ask what it is worth
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