What is director id support?
The one-time ABRS director ID — including the paper path and its 28–56 business-day reality for foreign directors.
A director ID is a 15-digit number issued once, by the Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS), to a named person — not to a company. It has to exist before that person consents to being appointed a director of any Australian company, proprietary or public. Miss that sequencing and the appointment itself is invalid until the ID is obtained: a company can't lodge Form 201 (incorporation) or Form 484 (a later officeholder change) naming a director who doesn't already hold one.
For an Australian resident with a myID (formerly myGovID) set up on their phone, the application runs online through the ABRS portal and is typically instant to a few business days once identity verifies against passport or driver-licence records. For a director who lives outside Australia — the common case for an India-based founder setting up an Australian subsidiary — myID can't complete the identity-strength check it needs, so the application moves to a paper form, NAT 75433, with certified copies of identity documents. That paper path runs 28–56 business days, and it's the single most common reason a subsidiary incorporation stalls: everything else in a Pty Ltd setup can move in days, but a foreign director's ID can take two months.
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Director ID support, 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. |
Director ID support in Australia
The director ID must exist before appointment — it's a precondition, not a same-day step
Form 201 (new company incorporation) and Form 484 (adding a director to an existing company) both require the director ID field to be populated with a number the director already holds. There is no combined flow where a person applies for their director ID and is appointed director in the same transaction — the application has to complete first. Treating it as something to sort out alongside incorporation, rather than before it, is the single most common cause of a stalled Pty Ltd setup.
Resident directors go through myID; foreign-resident directors go through Form NAT 75433, and the two paths run on completely different timelines
myID verifies identity against Australian government records — passport, driver licence, Medicare card — in minutes to a few days. A director who has never held Australian identity documents at the required strength can't clear that check, so ABRS routes the application to a paper form instead: NAT 75433, submitted with certified copies of identity documents (passport, and typically a second form of ID) through an accepted certifier. That paper path takes 28–56 business days — roughly two to three months — a window that has to be opened at the start of a subsidiary project, not discovered partway through it.
The director ID is one-time and never renews — there is no ongoing compliance task to track for it
Once ABRS issues the ID, it is valid for the director's lifetime across every company they're ever appointed to. There's no annual KYC filing, no periodic re-verification, and no lapse-and-reactivate cycle — a materially lighter compliance load than India's DIN, which requires an annual DIR-3 KYC filing with its own late-fee schedule. The only work item connected to a director ID, once it's issued, is making sure each new company the director joins records the correct number on its own filings.
The application is personal — it cannot be completed by anyone acting on the director's behalf
ABRS's identity verification step is designed to confirm the applicant is who they claim to be, in person, through their own myID or their own certified paperwork. That means the director themselves — not a company, not an agent, not CapEasy — completes the identity check and submits the application. What can be prepared in advance is everything around that step: confirming which certified documents ABRS will accept, getting the paper form filled in correctly, and tracking the clock once it's lodged.
What your registered BAS or tax agent receives from us
- A director-ID status check for every proposed and existing director on the company file — held, not yet held, or in progress — flagged before it becomes a blocker on Form 201 or Form 484.
- For resident directors: a myID setup checklist confirming the identity-strength level needed for the ABRS application clears on the first attempt.
- For foreign-resident directors: the completed NAT 75433 paper form, with the identity-document certification requirements confirmed against ABRS's accepted-certifier list before anything is mailed or uploaded.
- A tracked timeline entry for the 28–56 business day paper-path window, sequenced against the rest of the incorporation or officeholder-change project so it isn't the item discovered late.
- Confirmation, once issued, that the director ID is correctly recorded on the company's internal officeholder register and cited on the relevant ASIC filing.
- A one-line note in the client's compliance record that this ID, once issued, needs no renewal — closing the item permanently rather than carrying it forward as a recurring task.
