NSW retail lease reforms: what the 2026 bill changes

Where it's up to

The bill is the Retail Leases Amendment (Review) Bill 2026. It came out of the statutory review of the Act and was first introduced in October 2025. The Legislative Assembly passed it, with amendments, on 23 September 2026. The next day it went to the Legislative Council, and that's where it sits.

Two things follow, and they matter more than any single change in the bill.

• Nothing has changed yet. Even after the Council votes, each change starts only on a day the Government proclaims, and those days can be staggered.
• Existing leases keep the old rules. The bill says its changes don't apply to a lease entered into, or a disclosure statement given, before the relevant change starts. Sign this month and the current Act governs your lease.

Disclosure: the 7-day rule gets an exit, with conditions

Today the landlord has to give the tenant a disclosure statement at least 7 days before the lease is entered into, full stop. Plenty of deals stall on that week. Under the bill the 7 days stays as the default, but both sides can agree in writing to shorten it or waive it. There's a catch: each party has to have engaged a lawyer or licensed conveyancer and taken their advice on the shortcut. They can also agree to make the period longer.

That condition is the whole point. A tenant signing without advice keeps the full week.

Landlords should be careful here. A tenant who didn't get the disclosure statement properly, or got one that was incomplete or materially misleading, can end the lease within 6 months of entering into it and claim the costs of getting in, fit-out included. The bill keeps that right in the same terms it has now. So a waiver signed when only one side had a lawyer is a risk the landlord carries, not the tenant.

The disclosure forms themselves are moving out of the Act. Instead of the schedule at the back, the statements will follow a form published in the Government Gazette and adopted by regulation, with the information and attachments the regulations set. That makes the forms easier to update, which means templates will need checking once the new ones appear.

End-of-lease notices will reach leases with options

This one is easy to miss and it'll catch landlords. At the moment the landlord must, between 12 and 6 months before the lease expires, either offer a renewal on stated terms or say there won't be one. Get it wrong and the tenant can ask for the lease to run on until 6 months after the notice is finally given. But that rule doesn't apply to a lease with an option to renew, and a lot of shop leases have one.

The bill deletes that exclusion. For a lease with an option, "expiry" will mean the end of the renewed or extended term. Read plainly, a landlord with option leases will need to diarise the notice for the end of the last term, not just the first. Exactly how it plays out where the tenant doesn't exercise the option is one of the details we'll be watching.

Outgoings audits get cheaper for strip shops

Right now the annual outgoings statement generally has to come with a report from a registered company auditor, wherever the shop is. That's an expensive sign-off for a landlord with two shopfronts on a high street. Under the bill a registered company auditor is still needed for shops in a retail shopping centre. Everywhere else, a certified practising accountant can do it.

Tenants lose nothing on the substance. The statement still has to be audited. It just gets cheaper to audit outside a centre.

Relocation rent looks at more than value

When a landlord moves a tenant to another shop under a relocation clause, the rent for the new shop starts from the old rent, adjusted for the difference in commercial value. The bill widens that. The adjustment will also take in each shop's exposure to foot traffic, the retail mix around it, its road frontage, and its shape, nature and internal layout.

For a tenant being moved from a busy corner to a quiet back walkway, that's a real lever in the rent conversation.

The smaller changes

• Assignment versus new lease. Lease preparation costs stay banned in general. The bill lets a landlord charge a reasonable sum for preparing a new lease where the existing one could have been assigned but the parties chose a fresh lease instead.
• Pharmacies and turnover rent. Turnover rent can't be worked out by reference to the profits or takings of a pharmacy business.
• The 3-month deadlines. The landlord has 3 months to hand over a signed copy of the lease, and 3 months to lodge a registrable lease. Those periods will stretch for delays caused by the tenant not providing documents, such as proof of insurance or a bank guarantee, as well as for head lessor or mortgagee consents.
• Before the lease is offered. A landlord or agent still can't offer or advertise a shop without a copy of the proposed lease available for inspection, and must hand it over, with any documents the regulations list, once negotiations start.
• Mixed premises. Where one lease covers a shop and other space, the Act will apply to the shop and to areas used for running it, such as car parking, signage and storage.
• Clean-up. The COVID-19 provisions go, and the list of excluded uses (ATMs, signage, communication towers and the like) moves from the Act into the regulations.

What we'd do now

Tenants signing in the next few months: nothing changes for you, so read the disclosure statement properly and use your full 7 days. Landlords and agents: keep your current disclosure templates until the new forms are published, don't try to waive the 7 days yet, and pull a list of your option leases with their final expiry dates so the new notice rule doesn't surprise you. If you own non-centre shops, ask your accountant what the audit change could save you.

The bill could still change in the Council. We'll update this page when it passes, and again when a start date is set.

Read next: retail leases in NSW and what you're entitled to · option to renew: how it works · what a retail lease review covers