What is company name change?
Form 205 prepared with the fee and the downstream updates mapped — ABN records, agreements, banks.
A company name change in Australia runs through one form — Form 205, Notification of resolution — lodged with ASIC. There's no separate certificate of incorporation to reissue and no new registration number to wait for: the Australian Company Number stays exactly as it was before the change, because the ACN identifies the legal entity and the name is just the label attached to it. That's a genuine difference from jurisdictions where a name change touches the entity's core registration. Here, it's a targeted filing with a hard clock attached.
The clock is 14 days from the date members pass the special resolution approving the new name, and it runs whether or not anyone remembers it's running. Miss it and a late fee applies on top of the standard lodgement fee. The resolution itself needs at least 75% of the votes cast — a board deciding to change the name isn't enough on its own; the members have to approve it formally, and that approval has to be minuted before Form 205 is prepared.
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Company name change, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your registered BAS or tax agent | Everything that carries a licence in Australia — rendered exactly as written: work out what goes on your bas, or advise you on it — under tasa 2009 that requires registration we do not hold. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Company name change in Australia
Form 205 has a 14-day clock that starts at the resolution, not at the filing decision
The 14-day window to lodge Form 205 with ASIC counts from the date the special resolution is passed, not from whenever the company gets around to preparing the paperwork. A resolution passed at a general meeting on a Tuesday puts the deadline two weeks out regardless of how long the filing itself takes to assemble, which is why the name-availability check and the Form 205 data fields get prepared before the resolution goes to members, not after.
The lodgement fee for FY26-27 is $503
ASIC's Form 205 lodgement fee for the 2026-27 financial year (1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027) is $503. ASIC's statutory fees reindex every 1 July, so the figure that applies is whichever financial year the lodgement falls in — the fee is paid at lodgement, on top of whatever a provider charges for preparing the filing.
A special resolution needs 75% of votes cast, not a simple majority
Changing a company's name requires members to pass a special resolution under the Corporations Act — at least 75% of the votes cast by members entitled to vote, whether at a general meeting or through a written resolution process if the company's constitution or the replaceable rules permit it. A board resolution or an ordinary majority vote doesn't clear this bar; the resolution has to be minuted and retained as the internal record even though it isn't itself lodged with ASIC.
The ACN never changes — only the name does
ASIC issues an updated extract or certificate confirming the new registered name once Form 205 is processed, but the Australian Company Number stays identical throughout. Anything keyed to the ACN — the entity's tax file number, ABN, existing contracts referencing the ACN, ASIC's own register history for the company — remains valid without amendment; it's specifically the name field on the public register and everything referencing the company by name, rather than by number, that needs updating.
What your registered BAS or tax agent receives from us
- An ASIC name-availability search result confirming the proposed new name clears the register before the resolution is drafted.
- A special resolution drafted for the general meeting or written-resolution process, ready for members to pass at the required 75% threshold.
- A completed Form 205 data set — company details, resolution date, and the new name — assembled and checked against the company's current ASIC register extract.
- The Form 205 lodged with ASIC inside the 14-day statutory window, with the $503 FY26-27 fee paid at lodgement.
- A downstream-update checklist mapped against the company's actual footprint: bank account records, ABN registration details, existing contracts, insurance policies, the common seal if one is used, and any overlapping registered business names.
- The updated ASIC extract confirming the new registered name, with the unchanged ACN clearly carried through as the constant identifier.
