Australia's parliament approved the News Bargaining Incentive law on August 20, 2026, mandating a 2.5% levy on advertising revenues of major tech companies that do not reach commercial agreements with local news publishers [1, 2, 3, 4]. The levy targets companies including Meta, Google's parent Alphabet, TikTok, and Microsoft's LinkedIn, provided they operate significant social media or search services in Australia and earn over A$250 million in local advertising revenue [1, 2, 3, 4].
To avoid paying the levy, tech platforms must finalize agreements with at least eight different local publishers before the end of their financial reporting period. The value of these deals offsets the levy liability [1, 2, 3, 4]. Payments supporting news content production or relating to news accessible through the platform qualify for the offsets [1, 2, 3, 4].
The legislation sets a 150% offset rate for payments to large publishers and a 200% offset rate for payments to small and medium publishers. However, any single deal can only offset up to 25% of the platform's total levy liability [1, 2, 4]. Proceeds from any collected levies will be directed to Australian local news outlets to support journalism and news production [1, 2, 4].
The Australian government said, "The legislation is here, and the message to platforms to pursue commercial deals is clear. Deals will need to be finalised before the end of a digital platform's financial reporting period to be used to offset their liability in that period. This is an important day for Australian news businesses and Australian journalism" [1].
The News Bargaining Incentive law followed one day after Parliament passed laws restricting gambling advertisements on August 19, 2026 [1, 2].
