Glossary›Regulation, capture and thresholds / Regulation, capture and timing›Lodgement with ASIC and reporting deadlines
Glossary term
Cluster B · B25
Tier 1 · differentiator
Lodgement with ASIC and reporting deadlines
Definition
Lodgement is the filing of the sustainability report and the auditor’s report on it with ASIC after the financial year ends. The deadline is three months after year end for disclosing entities, registered schemes and registrable superannuation entities, and four months for all other reporting entities. Both are lodged on Form 398.
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ss 319(3) and 1232(1)
· ASIC Form 398 ·
In force
On this page
In practice
This entry exists to kill one specific error, which appears across this market: publishing a reporting-period start date as though it were a due date. They are different dates, usually more than a year apart.
The sequence for a June-balancing Group 2 entity is worth writing out, because it is the most common private-company profile:
Event
Date
First reporting period commences
1 July 2026
First reporting period ends
30 June 2027
Sustainability report and assurance report lodged with ASIC
by 31 October 2027
Four months, because a privately held Group 2 entity is generally not a disclosing entity. A disclosing entity on the same balance date lodges by 30 September 2027.
Three mechanics that catch first-time reporters.
Two forms, not one. The annual financial report, directors’ report and financial audit report go on Form 388. The sustainability report and the auditor’s report on the sustainability report go on Form 398. They are lodged at the same time but they are separate lodgements, and the second one is new to everybody.
The assurance report is part of the lodgement. You cannot lodge the sustainability report and follow with the assurance report later. That collapses the real deadline: the assurance engagement must be complete and the conclusion signed before the lodgement date, not by it.
Members and the AGM. Sections 314 and 315 require the reports to be sent to members on the same three or four month timetable, and a public company must lay the sustainability report and the auditor’s report on it before members at its AGM. For a private company with no AGM, the member-distribution obligation still applies.
The practical consequence for a first-time reporter is that the working-back calculation starts from the lodgement date and subtracts the assurance engagement, which for a first year is typically longer than a financial statement audit because the file has never been tested.
What the assurer does with it
The date drives the engagement plan. The assurer works backwards from the lodgement deadline to fix the fieldwork window, the deadline for the complete evidence file, and the date the management representation letter must be signed. What derails first-year engagements is not the report, it is the interim data: emissions activity for the first nine months of the year arriving in the last two weeks, unreconciled. Assurers respond by requesting an interim or dry run pass during the year, and an entity that refuses one is committing to a compressed post-year-end engagement. Where the file is not ready, the practical options are a modified conclusion or a late lodgement, and a late lodgement is a contravention of section 319.
Commonly confused with
The first reporting period. The reporting period is the financial year the disclosures cover. The lodgement deadline falls after it ends. A Group 3 entity whose first reporting period commences 1 July 2027 does not lodge anything in 2027; it lodges by 31 October 2028. Also confused with the ASX Appendix 4E and continuous disclosure timetable, which binds listed entities only and runs on a different clock.
Timing and relief
There is no general transitional relief from the lodgement deadlines. The section 319 clock runs in full from an entity’s first sustainability report. What exists instead is individual relief on application. ASIC will consider applications for relief from one or more of the sustainability reporting requirements and decides them case by case. ASIC asks entities to begin the application process as early as possible, because the requirements are new and applications may raise novel issues that take longer to assess, and ASIC will generally refuse an application lodged after the statutory deadline, because by then a breach has occurred and ASIC has no power to grant retrospective relief. Separately, ASIC has said it will take a pragmatic and proportionate approach to supervision and enforcement while industry adjusts, set out in Section E of RG 280. That is a posture on enforcement, not an extension of the deadline.
Sources
1
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Review status
Review required
Last reviewed
15 September 2026
Editorial pass, unsigned
Reviewer required
Corporate lawyer or registered company auditor
Next scheduled review
1 July 2027
Part of
Cluster B, Regulation, capture and thresholds / Regulation, capture and timing
26 terms on who has to report, when their first report is due, and what the regime is built on.
Related terms
The distinction this deadline is built on
Where the section 319 lodgement clock comes from
What a late lodgement exposes the entity to
Related questions
We are Group 2. When is our first report actually due?
−
Group 2 obligations start with your first financial year commencing on or after 1 July 2026, not on 1 July 2026 itself. With a 30 June balance date that is the year ending 30 June 2027. It is lodged by 30 September 2027 if you are a disclosing entity, registered scheme or RSE, otherwise 31 October 2027.
What happens if we do not lodge?
+
The sustainability report is part of your Chapter 2M annual reporting, so failing to prepare or lodge it contravenes the Corporations Act and ASIC can act. ASIC has said enforcement is most likely where an entity fails to prepare a report at all, or where misconduct is serious or reckless.
Our financial year ends 30 June. What is our first reporting period?
+
Your first reporting period is the first financial year that begins on or after your group’s start date, so the test applies to the start of the year and not its end. With a 30 June balance date that is the year ending 30 June 2026 for Group 1, 30 June 2027 for Group 2 and 30 June 2028 for Group 3.
Other terms in this cluster
Lodgement with ASIC and reporting deadlines