Terms and Conditions Australia | Schedule 2 CCA 2010

A website terms and conditions document (often called terms of use, terms of service, or website terms) is the contract a visitor accepts when they buy from you, create an account, or use your platform. It is a standard form contract: you write it once, publish it, and every customer agrees to the same wording. That efficiency is also its legal risk, because standard form contracts sit squarely inside the unfair contract terms regime of the Australian Consumer Law.

People often confuse three separate documents. Terms and conditions govern the commercial relationship, what the customer pays, what you deliver, and who bears which risk. A privacy policy deals only with how you collect and handle personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). A website disclaimer is a narrower notice limiting reliance on published content. You usually need all three, but they are not interchangeable, and stapling privacy language into your trading terms is a common drafting error. The template here covers the trading relationship: formation of contract, pricing, payment, delivery, cancellation, warranties, limitation of liability, and dispute resolution. Terms only bind a customer if they had reasonable notice and accepted them before the transaction, which is why the document is built around a clear click-to-accept mechanism rather than a link buried in a footer.

Australian trading terms operate inside a framework you cannot draft your way out of. The centrepiece is the Australian Consumer Law, contained in Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), which applies nationally across every state and territory and is enforced by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) alongside state and territory regulators. The ACL implies a set of consumer guarantees into every supply of goods and services to a consumer. Goods must be of acceptable quality, fit for purpose and match their description; services must be supplied with due care and skill under section 60, be reasonably fit for a made-known purpose under section 61, and be delivered within a reasonable time under section 62. These guarantees cannot be excluded, restricted or modified by contract, and a term that tries to do so is void.

That single rule reshapes how you write refund and liability clauses. A blanket "no refunds under any circumstances" sign or clause is treated as unlawful, because it misrepresents rights the ACL grants and can breach the misleading conduct provisions in sections 18 and 29. What you can say is narrower and precise: change-of-mind refunds are discretionary, but faulty goods and failed services always attract a remedy. The distinction between a major failure and a minor one decides who chooses that remedy. A major failure lets the customer choose a refund, replacement or, for services, cancellation and a refund of the unused portion; a minor failure lets you repair, replace or re-supply within a reasonable time.

The second pillar is the unfair contract terms regime in sections 23 to 28 of the ACL. Since 9 November 2023, an unfair term in a standard form consumer or small business contract is not merely void, it exposes the business to significant penalties, with each unfair term treated as a separate contravention. Terms that let you vary price unilaterally, cap all liability regardless of fault, or auto-renew without clear notice are exactly the clauses the ACCC targets. The regulator's plain-English guidance on consumer guarantees and refund obligations is the practical reference every trader should read alongside their terms, available through the ACCC guidance on repair, replace and refund obligations. Getting the balance right is the difference between enforceable terms and a document that quietly voids its own strongest clauses.

The clearest trigger is launching or relaunching any site that takes money. If you sell physical goods, digital products, subscriptions or services online, your checkout needs terms the customer accepts before paying, or you are relying on unwritten expectations that courts read against you. A service agreement for business-to-business engagements covers negotiated one-to-one deals, but your website terms handle the high-volume, standard-form transactions where you never speak to the buyer.

SaaS and subscription operators need them most urgently, because recurring billing, auto-renewal and account suspension are precisely the mechanisms the unfair contract terms rules scrutinise. A subscription that renews silently, charges an exit fee, or lets you change pricing at will invites both customer complaints and regulator attention. Marketplaces and platforms that connect buyers and sellers need terms that allocate liability between three parties, not two, and that carve out their role as intermediary.

Service businesses that quote online, from consultants to trades to agencies, use website terms to set payment timing, late payment interest, and the boundary of what is included before scope creep starts. Anyone running promotions, discount codes or comparative pricing claims needs terms that align with the misleading conduct provisions, because a mismatch between your advertising and your terms is itself a risk. One edge case worth flagging: if you sell to overseas customers as well as Australians, your terms need a governing law clause, but you cannot use it to strip Australian consumers of ACL protections, which apply regardless of what the contract says.

• The acceptance and formation clause sets out exactly when a binding contract forms, typically at the click of an accept button before payment, not merely on browsing the site. This matters because terms only bind a customer who had reasonable notice, so the mechanism is drafted to create a clear, timestamped acceptance you can prove later.
• The pricing and payment clause states prices, taxes, payment methods and timing, and handles failed or reversed payments. It includes a late payment provision drafted to remain reasonable, because a charge that operates as a penalty rather than a genuine estimate of loss risks being struck as an unfair contract term under section 24.
• The consumer guarantees clause is the heart of the document. Rather than pretending liability can be excluded, it acknowledges the non-excludable guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law and then limits liability only to the extent the law permits, the drafting approach the ACCC actually expects to see.
• The refunds and returns clause separates change-of-mind returns, which are discretionary, from faulty goods and failed services, which always attract a remedy. It avoids any blanket "no refunds" language that would breach sections 18 and 29.
• The limitation of liability clause caps liability for matters the law allows you to limit, excludes indirect and consequential loss, and expressly preserves the customer's non-excludable statutory rights so the cap itself does not become void.
• The variation, termination and dispute resolution clauses set out how you can change terms with proper notice, when accounts can be suspended, and how disputes are handled, all drafted to survive scrutiny under the unfair contract terms regime rather than trigger it.

The Australian Consumer Law is a single national law, so the core consumer guarantees and unfair contract terms rules apply identically in every state and territory. What differs is the enforcement body a customer complains to and the tribunal that hears a dispute, which shapes how you word your complaints and dispute clauses.

New South Wales consumers deal with NSW Fair Trading, and low-value disputes are heard in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT). Because NCAT handles consumer claims quickly and cheaply, NSW traders see disputes escalate faster, so a clear internal complaints step in your terms genuinely reduces tribunal filings.

Victoria operates through Consumer Affairs Victoria and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). Victoria has historically been the most active state on consumer enforcement, and businesses selling into Victoria should be careful that any cancellation fees or non-refundable deposits reflect genuine loss, since these are recurring targets for regulator action.

Queensland channels complaints through the Office of Fair Trading Queensland and the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT). Queensland's strong tourism and services economy means service-delivery guarantees under sections 60 to 62 come up often, so your terms should be specific about timing and what "reasonable time" means for your offering.

Western Australia administers the ACL through Consumer Protection WA within the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, with disputes heard in the Magistrates Court or relevant tribunal. The substantive rights are the same, but the geographic spread of WA makes delivery and supply-timing clauses worth drafting carefully, because what counts as reasonable delivery differs between Perth and a remote regional customer.

You start by identifying your business correctly, the legal entity name, ABN or ACN, and registered address, because the party bound by the terms must be the entity that actually contracts with customers, not a trading name floating free of a company. From there the template asks what you sell, goods, services, digital products, or a mix, and adjusts the consumer guarantees language to match, since the guarantees for services under sections 60 to 62 read differently from the goods guarantees.

Next you set your commercial terms: payment methods and timing, delivery or supply arrangements, and your change-of-mind refund position, which is yours to choose so long as it never overrides the statutory remedies for faults. The form then walks you through liability limits and dispute resolution, prompting you to name your state so the complaints and jurisdiction wording points to the right regulator and tribunal. Once complete, you review the assembled document, download it in Word to make final adjustments, and publish it with a click-to-accept step at checkout. For the personal-capacity side of running a business, a general power of attorney for business affairs is a useful companion when someone else needs to act for you.

The single most common error is copying a "no refunds" or "all sales final" clause from an overseas template. Those clauses are lawful in some countries and unlawful in Australia, because they misrepresent the non-excludable consumer guarantees and can breach sections 18 and 29 of the ACL. The fix is not to promise refunds for everything, it is to distinguish change-of-mind from genuine faults and to state each honestly. A close relative of this mistake is a limitation of liability clause that tries to exclude all liability full stop; drafted that way it becomes void, taking your legitimate liability cap down with it, so the clause must expressly preserve statutory rights while limiting everything the law lets you limit.

The second cluster of errors sits in the unfair contract terms zone. Unilateral variation rights, silent auto-renewals, disproportionate exit fees and one-sided termination clauses are the exact terms the ACCC pursues, and since November 2023 each one is a separate penalty exposure, not just a void clause. Businesses also forget the notice requirement entirely, publishing terms as a footer link and assuming customers are bound, when acceptance needs a clear affirmative step before the transaction. Finally, many traders staple privacy obligations into their trading terms instead of maintaining a separate privacy-compliant approach to handling personal information, which muddies both documents and leaves gaps under the Privacy Act 1988.