How to become an RTO in Australia.
The full process, the real costs, the real timeline. Then the fixed-price packages if you want help.
Fixed scopes. Published prices. Written for owner-operators, not procurement departments.
ASQA’s position — read this before anything else
This is why we do not sell registration in a box.
Templates are raw material. Contextualisation is the service. Evidence of context is the deliverable. Every page and every package on this site is built around that order.
Nine stages. In this order. No shortcuts between them.
Open any stage for the short version. Every stage has a full page: what it is, what ASQA wants, what goes wrong, and whether we can help.
The applicant is a legal entity, not a person. Company structure, registrations and clear ownership come first, because every later document hangs off them — and register mismatches invite questions you do not want.
Which training products you apply to deliver. Scope sets your workforce needs, your evidence volume, your cost and your risk. Narrow and evidenced beats broad and hopeful — you can extend later.
Executives and anyone who influences the provider make declarations about their history. Disclosure beats discovery, every time — and this stage should be done in week one, not month six.
The Financial Viability Risk Assessment tests whether the entity can survive a slow first year. Evidenced assumptions and committed capital pass; hockey-stick projections and missing cost lines fail.
Named people for every product: training and assessment credentials, vocational competence, current industry skills — evidenced per person, per product. 'We will recruit later' is not capability.
The long pole: a training and assessment strategy per product, assessment tools for every unit, and policies describing your actual operation. Templates are raw material — contextualisation is what gets assessed.
Lodged through asqanet with the fee paid. One rule shapes everything: initial applications must be complete and consistent at lodgement, because resubmission is not permitted.
ASQA assesses the application, sends requests for information, and interviews your executives and trainers. This is where contextualisation is tested in person — your people must know their own application.
Registration granted, granted with conditions, or refused with reasons. A grant is a licence to start performing everything you promised — under scrutiny, with ongoing charges and obligations.
You get one lodgement. There is no “fix it later”.
Everything on this site — the stage order, the readiness check, the completeness review inside our lodgement package — exists because of this rule. You do not lodge to see what happens. You lodge when the application is complete, consistent, and yours.
What it costs. Two different answers.
ASQA’s fees
Set by the regulator, and currently in a period of change. We never type fee amounts into page copy — every fee on this site renders from a maintained source, and where an amount is awaiting verification you get a link to the regulator’s schedule instead of a stale number.
Our fixed prices
Five packages, one per stage of help. Every price is a number on the page — from $2,900 for feasibility and scope selection to $12,500–$18,500 for the evidence build, banded by the size of your scope. No POA. No “it depends” without the depends spelled out.
The costs everyone forgets
Premises, insurances, a student management system, trainer salaries before revenue, resource licensing. We list them without invented dollar figures — they belong in your FVRA, priced by you.
Would your application survive contact with ASQA?
Fourteen questions, two minutes, no email required to see your result. You get a red / amber / green score, a specific gap list, and the package we would actually recommend — which is sometimes “none, not yet”.
Should you even do this?
Registration is a licence to carry permanent obligations: annual charges, performance assessments that can arrive at any time, workforce and data duties that never switch off. For a meaningful number of people who ask us, the right answer is a partnership, an auspicing arrangement — or not doing it at all. We wrote the page most consultants will not.
Help by the stage. Priced before you call.
Feasibility and scope selection
$2,900Entity checklist, demand evidence, scope recommendation, go/no-go report.
FVRA preparation
$3,900Projections built on defensible assumptions, workbook done properly, capital story documented.
Evidence build and contextualisation
$12,500–$18,500TAS, assessment system and policies — contextualised to your cohort. Three bands by scope; the calculator gives you your number.
Full application lodgement
$4,900Completeness and consistency review, assembly, lodged with you.
Post-lodgement support and RFI response
$3,400RFI drafting support and interview preparation for your people.
The honest timeline: think in months, plan in quarters.
Most of the timeline is you, not ASQA — preparation done properly takes months, and the assessment that follows takes months more. Anyone who quotes you a fast, precise number is selling the number, not the outcome. We publish ranges with the reasoning attached, and nothing else.