The Australian Business Register (ABR) is a free, public-facing register operated by the Australian Taxation Office. It records every active and historical ABN in Australia, along with associated metadata: registered name, registered business names, historical trading names where available, ABN status, GST registration status, and effective dates.
How to search
The public web interface is abr.business.gov.au (free, rate-limited). The XML web service is also free for moderate use. Hoist Assets wraps both behind a normalised JSON API and adds caching, retry, and audit logging.
Why pay for what's free?
The ABR's web service is rate-limited and returns XML with a few quirks. If you're doing low-volume one-off lookups, abr.business.gov.au is genuinely free and you should go there. If you're doing 50+ a month and want it normalised + auditable, we charge A$0.10 per call.
Related terms
- ABN - A unique 11-digit identifier issued by the ATO for tax and business purposes; covers companies, sole traders, partnerships, trusts.
- AFSA - The Commonwealth statutory authority that operates the PPSR and administers personal insolvency.
How Hoist Assets uses this
Search the ABR via the Hoist Assets API or MCP server. See /docs for endpoints.