Regional guide · Toowoomba
What changes when you sell in Toowoomba and on the Downs
The largest practical difference between selling a business here and selling one in south east Queensland is that this page covers six separate local governments.
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 changes when you sell in Toowoomba and on the Downs
Six local governments, six planning schemes, six fee registers
The largest practical difference between selling a business here and selling one in south east Queensland is that this page covers six separate local governments. Each has its own planning scheme, its own local laws, its own licence fee register and its own development assessment team. A buyer who owns a business in Dalby and buys one in Warwick is dealing with two councils, two planning schemes and two sets of paperwork.
A buyer acquiring a business across Toowoomba, Dalby and Roma runs searches and approval applications with three councils at once, each with its own lodgement system, fee schedule and assessment queue. That is a scheduling problem to manage from the day the contract is drafted rather than one to discover in the last week before settlement. No published council search turnaround time was located for any of the six, so ask each council directly rather than assuming a coastal timetable applies.
The Toowoomba Regional Planning Scheme is at version 29 with a commencement date of 21 July 2026. Council’s flood provisions were changed by a May 2025 resolution declaring that the defined flood level is to be the flood planning level as identified in the Flood Hazard Overlay Code for designated flood hazard areas.
The six councils, at 30 June 2025 and 30 June 2024
| Council | Businesses, 30 June 2025 | Change over 2024-25 | Agriculture share, 30 June 2024 | Agriculture index, Qld = 1.00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toowoomba | 17,994 | +369, +2.1% | 20.4% | 2.52 |
| Western Downs | 5,215 | +125, +2.5% | 47.1% | 5.81 |
| Southern Downs | 4,477 | +76, +1.7% | 37.0% | 4.57 |
| Maranoa | 2,638 | +21, +0.8% | 52.2% | 6.44 |
| Goondiwindi | 2,047 | +31, +1.5% | 44.1% | 5.44 |
| Balonne | 942 | -3, -0.3% | 52.9% | 6.53 |
| Six councils combined | 33,313 | +619, +1.9% | 31.7% | 3.92 |
ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, July 2021 to June 2025, released 26 August 2025, with divisional shares at 30 June 2024 from ABS Data by Region. Balonne is the only local government area researched for this site whose business count fell over the year to 30 June 2025.
Toowoomba says it in terms: a new licence before you commence trade
Toowoomba Regional Council’s published position is 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.
Council’s stated terms carry two timing traps. Council will assess an application and decide whether to grant or refuse the licence within 30 days, so the buyer cannot trade before that decision issues. And food licences are valid until 30 September each year and are renewed annually, so a settlement in August or September buys a licence with weeks of life in it and a renewal fee falling due almost immediately. Compliance assessments take 14 days, temporary licences need at least 10 business days before the event, the applicant must be a legal entity being an individual, a partnership or a registered company rather than a trust or a business name, and a food safety supervisor certificate must be provided within 30 days of licence issue.
There is a matching product for the seller. Council offers a Licensed Business Compliance Inspection Certificate covering compliance with the Food Act 2006 and the Food Standards Code, in particular Food Safety Standards 3.2.3, and premises cleanliness. The request can only be made by the current licensee and will not be accepted from a solicitor or a third party, so it is a task for you rather than for your lawyer.
The other five councils license separately. Southern Downs issues licences for fixed, mobile, temporary and domestic kitchens and separately licenses holiday and workers accommodation, caravan and camping tourist parks, entertainment event permits, personal appearance services and commercial use of council road reserves and footpaths. Western Downs administers food business licences, amendment applications, temporary food stalls, environmental health and personal appearance services. Balonne administers food operator permits and local law permits. Fee amounts and the takeover position for the five councils other than Toowoomba could not be verified, so none are quoted here.
An abandoned use and a busier use are both material changes of use
Goondiwindi Regional Council states the test plainly. A material change of use applies to the start of a new use of the premises, to re-establishing on your premises a use that has been abandoned, and to significantly increasing the intensity or scale of the use of the premises. It also applies to environmentally relevant activities. Premises means a building or other structure and land. The definitions sit in Schedule 2 of the Planning Act 2016.
Two of those limbs catch business sales here. A shed at Chinchilla not used as a workshop for two years, a Millmerran depot that stopped operating in a downturn, a Roma yard mothballed when a gas project finished: re-establishing an abandoned use is a material change of use and needs a fresh development approval. And a buyer planning to run more trucks, more stock, longer hours or a bigger throughput than you have been running may be significantly increasing the intensity of the use, which is also a material change of use.
So the question in due diligence is not only what approval exists. It is what the approval permits, whether the use has been continuous, and what the buyer intends to do that you have not been doing.
Trade waste here is a council function, not a water utility function
This is a genuine structural difference from the south east Queensland pages. In Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Redland, Moreton Bay, the Sunshine Coast and Noosa, trade waste is administered by a distributor retailer such as Urban Utilities or Unitywater. In Toowoomba it is administered by Toowoomba Regional Council itself, and in the western councils by the local council.
Toowoomba Regional Council groups trade waste generators into five categories. Category One, low impact, covers hairdressers and medical clinics. Category Two, mechanical, covers workshops with oils, solvents and coolants. Category Three, food industry, covers kitchens producing grease, fats and food scraps. Category Four is high flow and low impact, such as swimming pool backwash. Category Five is high strength and high flow, being businesses exceeding standard sewer limits. An applicant must submit a trade waste application and pay the trade waste licence discharge fee, install required pre-treatment devices, maintain those devices through licensed operators, and comply with the Trade Waste Policy and Management Plan.
Category Five is the category that matters here and barely exists in a coastal suburb. A small goods manufacturer, a commercial laundry servicing mine and gas camps, a vegetable washing and packing shed or a dairy processor sits at the high strength, high flow end, and the pre-treatment infrastructure attached to that consent can be the most expensive fixed plant in the sale. Council does not publish whether an existing approval transfers on sale, or what the fee is. Assume it does not transfer, confirm with council, and do not let anyone tell you the published position is settled, because it is not.
Outside the reticulated towns there is no trade waste system at all. Council administers on site sewerage facilities separately, and that is the regime for a roadhouse, a workshop or a processing operation on an unsewered site.
Intensive animal industries make this the sharpest environmental authority region in the state
Environmentally relevant activities are regulated under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld), and a business performing one needs an environmental authority. The Queensland Government publishes a dedicated process for changing, combining or transferring an environmental authority, and the general position is that you can apply to transfer an environmental authority for a prescribed activity but you cannot transfer one for a resource activity.
The scale here is the point. The 2020-21 Agricultural Census recorded 570,633.5 pigs, 2,972,436.9 meat chickens and 1,962,369 meat cattle across the six councils. The pig herd concentrates in Western Downs at 252,925.1, Toowoomba at 137,828.9 and Goondiwindi at 133,095.8. The meat chicken flock concentrates in Southern Downs at 2,721,921.7. Intensive animal industries, abattoirs and rendering, grain drying and handling, chemical storage, fuel storage and motor vehicle workshops are the activity categories a buyer here actually runs into.
On any deal involving a feedlot, a piggery, a poultry shed complex, a grain depot, a fuel depot or a workshop with a bulk fuel or chemical store, the first three questions are the same. Does an environmental authority exist, who holds it, and is it a prescribed activity authority capable of transfer. Southern Downs and Western Downs confirm they administer environmentally relevant activities but do not publish the specific activity numbers they hold, unlike the coastal councils, so ask the relevant council which activities it administers rather than assuming.
Water is an asset class here, and it may not come with the business
Water is the one regulatory subject on this page with no equivalent on any coastal page, and it changes what a business is worth. The Queensland Government states that generally a water licence is attached to land, and that water taken or used under such a licence can only be used on the land to which the licence is attached. A licence that is not attached to land may be granted to an entity such as a local government or a water authority. A water licence is an authority granted under the Water Act 2000 to take water, interfere with water, or both where the two are inextricably linked. Water allocations and water licences can both be traded permanently, temporarily or by leasing, and a temporary trade is also known as a seasonal water assignment.
The Condamine and Balonne water plan covers the irrigation country of the Downs. The Condamine and Balonne Water Resource Plan was accredited by the Australian Government in September 2019 and the water plan is at SL 2019-0011. It manages surface water, overland flow and underground water, excluding Great Artesian Basin aquifers, with supplemented water delivered through Sunwater schemes at Chinchilla Weir, Maranoa, St George and Upper Condamine, and through Mallawa Irrigation Ltd in the St George Channel scheme. A long term watering plan was published on 12 December 2022. Overland flow is the entitlement type that catches buyers, because a large amount of the water used by broadacre and cotton operations on the eastern Downs is captured overland flow held in ring tanks rather than a river allocation. The Border Rivers and Moonie plan covers the Goondiwindi country and the Macintyre system, and the Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine plan covers the far South West.
The Great Artesian Basin and other regional aquifers plan is the GABORA Water Plan 2017 at SL 2017-0164. Its published rules require all artesian stock and domestic bores to have watertight delivery systems by 2032, meaning bores must be capped and drains replaced with pipes, tanks and troughs. That is a dated, quantified capital obligation attached to land. A buyer of a grazing or mixed farming enterprise in Maranoa, Balonne or the western Goondiwindi country with artesian stock and domestic bores is buying a capital works liability with a fixed end date. It belongs in the price, and if you have already done the works you have something concrete to demonstrate.
Toowoomba runs outdoor dining on a standards test, not a permit
Toowoomba Regional Council’s position differs from the coastal councils. Council states that an approval for outdoor dining is not required under the authorising local law if the prescribed activity complies with the minimum standards. The instrument is Subordinate Local Law No 1.2 (Commercial Use of Local Government Controlled Area and Roads) 2011.
The published minimum standards include a public liability insurance policy providing indemnity for each individual occurrence of not less than $10,000,000.00, a clear unobstructed pedestrian corridor of not less than 2 metres, operation limited to the normal business hours of the principal premises, and no part of the activity undertaken less than 1 metre from the kerb or less than 5 metres from a bus zone.
So for a Ruthven Street or Margaret Street cafe with outdoor seating the due diligence question is not whether a permit transfers. It is whether the existing layout actually complies with the 2 metre corridor and the 1 metre kerb setback, and whether the incoming owner’s insurance meets the $10 million requirement from settlement day.
Two completely different flood risks sit on one page
Toowoomba Regional Council states that in December 2010 and January 2011 parts of the Toowoomba region experienced severe flooding that caused loss of life and major property damage, attributed to creeks and the Condamine River overflowing. Council publishes flood maps showing whether a property has a chance of flooding, where on a property flooding might happen, how high the water could rise and recommended finished floor levels. The Flood Hazard Overlay identifies flood risk areas and sets standards for new development, with requirements expressed relative to the defined flood event, for example a finished floor level 300mm above the level of the defined flood event.
Toowoomba’s risk is flash flooding in an urban creek system, not a river floodplain risk. The CBD sits at the head of catchments falling steeply off the range and the January 2011 event ran through the city centre. For a commercial tenant that shows up in insurance premiums, landlord flood works and the finished floor level conditions attached to any fitout approval. Pull the flood information for the specific tenancy before contract.
West of the range the risk is a different animal. The Condamine, Balonne, Maranoa, Moonie and Macintyre systems are broad, slow, inland floodplains. Flooding at St George, Dirranbandi, Goondiwindi, Roma or Chinchilla is a river event with days of warning and weeks of isolation, so the business consequence is road closure and supply interruption rather than sudden inundation. Those are different insurance conversations and different business continuity conversations, and a buyer from the coast will not know the difference unless you explain it.
One council publishes drought support as a business resource, which tells you something
Goondiwindi Regional Council maintains a drought support page inside its business resources section, which is not a feature of any council covered by the other regional pages on this site. Council states that primary producers can access state and federal drought support without a drought declaration. The support listed includes Sustainability Loans of up to $1.3 million, First Start Loans of up to $2 million, Drought Preparedness Grants at 25 per cent of the cost to a maximum of $50,000, the federal Drought Hardship Loan through the Regional Investment Corporation, the Farm Household Allowance and the Rural Financial Counselling Service.
The Queensland Government confirms that the previous Drought Relief Assistance Scheme has ceased and been replaced by the Queensland Drought Assistance Program, available to eligible primary producers with and without a drought declaration, on a page last updated 26 February 2026. Drought financial support flows through the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority.
Current drought declaration status for the six councils could not be verified for this research, because the state declaration table loads dynamically and the declaration history page returned an error. So no declaration status is stated on this page. What matters for a sale is the accounting treatment. Separate assistance receipts, grants and insurance recoveries from trading revenue, because a buyer who finds them mixed in will discount the whole figure rather than the part.
Where a resource authority applies, a separate regime applies with it
Across the Surat Basin gas country a landholder’s position is governed by its own framework. The Queensland Government publishes landholder compensation, notification and dispute processes, and disputes are heard by the Land Access Ombudsman.
That matters to a sale in two directions. A rural property carrying gas infrastructure may carry a compensation agreement that is an income stream, and that stream has to be identified, verified and characterised before anyone capitalises it into a price. And a services business whose work is performed on other people’s land under access arrangements carries contractual and access risk that a metropolitan buyer will not have met before.
What transfers on sale here, and what does not
| Approval | Transfers on sale? | Issued by |
|---|---|---|
| Food business licence, Toowoomba | No. You must apply for a new licence prior to commencing trade; decision within 30 days; licence expires 30 September annually | Toowoomba Regional Council |
| Food business licence, other five councils | Each council licenses separately; the takeover position and the fees are not published on the pages checked | Relevant council |
| Material change of use approval | Attaches to the land, but re-establishing an abandoned use or significantly increasing intensity is a fresh material change of use | Relevant council |
| Environmental authority, prescribed activity | Yes, a transfer may be applied for | Relevant administering authority |
| Environmental authority, resource activity | No. You cannot transfer an environmental authority for a resource activity | State |
| Trade waste approval, Toowoomba | Application and discharge fee payable to council across five categories; transferability is not published, so assume it does not transfer and confirm | Toowoomba Regional Council, not a water utility |
| Outdoor dining, Toowoomba | No approval needed if the minimum standards are met, including $10,000,000.00 public liability and a 2 metre pedestrian corridor | Toowoomba Regional Council |
| Water licence | Generally attached to land; dealings include transfers, subdivisions, amalgamations, surrenders and cancellations | State, under the Water Act 2000 |
| Water allocation | Tradeable permanently, temporarily or by lease | State, under the Water Act 2000 |
Only Toowoomba’s food licence position is verified from a council publication. Food licence fees for all six councils, and the takeover position for the other five, could not be verified and are not quoted.
Named projects across the six councils
The infrastructure and precinct commitments on the public record across the six councils, sourced and dated.
Named projects across the Darling Downs and South West, 753 words, on its own page.
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