15. Annual charge

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All approved providers must pay an annual charge (Part 4, Division 1, VET Student Loans (Charges) Act 2016). This is payable each financial year you’re approved for, even if you’re only approved for part of the year.

The annual charge assists with recovering the costs of administering the VSL program - for example, for compliance and auditing costs, payments, processing and actioning complaints and provider and student management.

15.1 - Amount of the annual charge

The amount of the annual charge depends on the size of the provider in the relevant financial year. A provider’s size is the total number of all reported VSL student enrolments for which VSL payment has been made. Therefore, a single student who is approved for multiple loans for multiple courses at the same provider counts as multiple VSL enrolments.

The annual charges are as follows and are exclusive of GST:

  • if the approved course provider is a small provider (fewer than 200 enrolments) for the financial year - $1,280
  • if the approved course provider is a medium provider (between 200 and 1,000 enrolments, inclusive) for the financial year - $12,480
  • if the approved course provider is a large provider (more than 1,000 enrolments) for the financial year - $62,870.

If there are no enrolments the approved provider is liable to pay the minimum annual charge.

15.2 - When to pay the charge

The department will invoice you for the annual charge for the previous financial year in August/ September each year. You have 30 days from the date of invoice issue to pay the charge, after which a late payment penalty may apply.

If you don’t pay the annual charge by the due date, you may incur a late payment penalty.

If you fail to pay your annual charge, the department may take compliance action against you.

The amount of the late payment penalty is approximately 0.055% of the annual charge for each day that the annual charge remains unpaid.

Legislation: VSL (Charges) Act 2016, Part 4, Division 1, VSL (Charges) Regulations 2017, Rules Part 9, Division 3, Rules s 159