- SubjectCommission in law
- Guides5
- Checked10 October 2026
Commission caps: what the law allows on estates, trusts and agency sales
Some commissions in Australia are not left to a contract: an Act sets a ceiling, leaves the figure to a court, or decides how GST treats it. This is a guide to those rules, published by Dotto from the Acts themselves, and each figure on it is a limit the law sets, never a usual or recommended rate. Part 5D.3 of the Corporations Act does not prevent a trustee company charging fees a will directs or fees agreed under s 601TBB.
General information only. Dotto is not a financial adviser or a trustee company, and this guide is not financial or legal advice. Nothing here works out what anyone should charge or pay; each guide names the Act to read and links it.
The main ceilings, on one page
Among the maximums in the laws these guides read, as each law stood in the version read on 10 October 2026 (each guide holds the rest):
| Ceiling | On what | The law |
|---|---|---|
| not exceeding 5.5%, once | a trustee company’s capital commission on a new client charitable trust’s gross assets | Corporations Act 2001 s 601TDC(1), compilation 149 |
| not exceeding 6.6% a year | the same trust’s income | s 601TDC(4) |
| not exceeding 1.056% a year | gross assets, as a management fee instead of both commissions | s 601TDD(1) |
| not exceeding 1.1% a year | a charitable trust’s assets held in the trustee company’s common fund, as a common fund administration fee on their gross value | s 601TDE(1) |
| the published schedule | a trustee company’s fees for other services, at the schedule last published before the work began | s 601TCA(2) |
| no more than five per cent | commission the Supreme Court allows an executor, administrator or trustee in Victoria | Administration and Probate Act 1958 (Vic) s 65(1), version 130 |
| 4% on the first $200,000, then lower bands | South Australia’s Public Trustee, commission on an estate’s capital | Public Trustee Regulations 2025 (SA) Sch 2 cl 1(1) |
The Corporations Act percentages are GST inclusive, as the Act states them, and Part 5D.3 does not prevent a trustee company charging fees a will directs or fees agreed under s 601TBB. In South Australia and Queensland the Acts set no ceiling on an executor’s pay: where a court allows it, the court decides what it considers just and reasonable (South Australia) or appropriate (Queensland). In South Australia the Court may, in the special circumstances of a particular case, fix the Public Trustee’s commission higher or lower than the regulations allow (Public Trustee Act 1995 s 45(5)), and where GST is payable, s 45A lets the Public Trustee, subject to the terms on which it provides the service, charge up to an amount that, once GST is deducted, is equivalent to the regulations’ maximum.
How the law words a ceiling
The Acts use a small set of phrases, and each one means something different. “Not exceeding”, as in s 601TDC of the Corporations Act, sets the most a trustee company may charge, apart from fees a will directs or fees agreed under s 601TBB. “Just and reasonable”, as in s 96 of South Australia’s Succession Act 2023, leaves the amount to the Court. “Excessive” is the word that opens a court’s power to reduce fees, in s 601TEA of the Corporations Act and s 161 of Queensland’s Trusts Act 2025.
A ceiling is also not a promise of payment. In Victoria, an executor of a will executed on or after 1 November 2017, other than a trustee company, who does not give beneficiaries the information s 65D requires is not entitled to be paid commission or fees from the estate.
Which version of each law
Laws on pay for estates moved recently, so every guide names the version it read. South Australia’s Succession Act 2023 commenced on 1 January 2025 and repealed the Administration and Probate Act 1919. Queensland’s Trusts Act 2025 repeals the Trusts Act 1973 (s 220); this site reads it as current at 28 April 2026. The Corporations Act is read in compilation 149, of 19 September 2026, and the GST Act in compilation 96, in force from 1 January 2026.
Real estate agents’ commission, sales pay and superannuation on commission are other subjects, and this site leaves them aside.
The five guides
- What a trustee company may charge an estate
The published fee schedule, will‑directed and agreed fees, and when a court may cut excessive fees.
- Commission on a charitable trust
The two options in Part 5D.3, the common fund fee, and trusts the company already held.
- Executors’ commission in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland
A five per cent ceiling, a court’s “just and reasonable”, and Queensland’s word “remuneration”.
- Public Trustee commission in three states
South Australia’s rate bands, and how Queensland and Western Australia have their fees fixed.
- GST when an agent earns commission
Division 153: one tax invoice, and the written arrangement that turns commission into a reduction.