20 October 2026

Victoria rebuilt its Security of Payment Act, and most of it helps you

Act No. 43/2025 repealed reference dates and excluded amounts, put a 20 business day ceiling on any contractual due date, made unfair notice-based time bars declarable, and created a statutory claim for the release of retention and bonds.

If you work in Victoria and your payment process was set up before this year, it was built for an Act that no longer exists in that shape. Act No. 43/2025 amended the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002 so heavily that the section list is barely recognisable, and the changes run mostly in the subcontractor's favour.

Reference dates are gone, named months are in

Sections 14(4) to (9) were repealed. The new s 14A says a payment claim may be served on and from the last day of the named month in which construction work was first carried out, and of each subsequent named month in which further work is carried out. Section 14D then allows one claim per named month unless the contract provides otherwise, while expressly preserving the right to include previously claimed and unpaid amounts, to claim for more than one progress payment at once, and to claim in a later month for an earlier month's work.

Section 14C is the outside limit: a claim may be served no later than the day before the latest of the contractual last day, six months after practical completion of all the work, and six months after the supply of all related goods and services.

Excluded amounts are gone

The definition of "excluded amount" was repealed. For two decades Victoria was the Australian outlier where a payment claim could not include amounts for non-claimable variations, damages, or claims arising other than under the Act, and where including one could poison the claim. That trap has been removed.

The due date now has a ceiling

Section 12(1B), new: a term in a construction contract has no effect to the extent that it provides for payment of a progress payment later than 20 business days after the claim is served. And where the contract says nothing, s 12(1)(b) gives 10 business days counted from the earliest day the claim could have been served under s 14A, which is the last day of the named month rather than the day you happened to serve.

Unfair notice-based time bars can be declared unfair

Section 13A lets an adjudicator, a court, an arbitrator or an expert appointed by the parties declare a notice-based time bar unfair in relation to a particular entitlement, where compliance is not reasonably possible or would be unreasonably onerous. A declaration kills the provision for that entitlement in that proceeding and leaves it standing elsewhere, and the party alleging unfairness carries the onus.

And retention and bonds now have their own statutory claim

• A "performance security" means a performance bond or retention money, and s 9(2) gives an entitlement to its release.
• Division 1A, ss 17A to 17H, builds a claim, schedule and adjudication process for that release which mirrors the payment claim machinery. A performance security claim must state that it is made under the Act, the same way a payment claim must.
• Section 17B sets the earliest service day at the earlier of a day at least 20 business days after the end of the relevant defects liability period, or a day or event specified in the contract.
• Section 17A(3) is the sentence to remember: the entitlement to serve is NOT affected by the termination, purported termination or expiry of the contract.
• Section 12(1A) then gives the release its own due date, and s 12(3) allows interest on an unpaid release.

What to change

Rewrite the Victorian claim template so it carries the s 14(2)(e) endorsement and the named month rather than a reference date. Diary the last day of each month as the earliest service day. And read your retention clause against ss 17A to 17H, because for the first time in Victoria the release of a bond or a retention is a claim with a statutory clock rather than a request.

What the product does with it

The project carries its state, and Victoria computes on the new anchors: the due date runs from the last day of the named month where the contract is silent, and a contract due date recorded against the claim that falls beyond 20 business days after service is shown as having no effect to that extent rather than as the deadline. Amounts appear in AUD.

General information, not legal advice. Transitional provisions decide which contracts the 2025 amendments reach, and that is a question for a lawyer on your particular contract.