Getting registered with TEQSA means satisfying the national regulator that your organisation already meets the Higher Education Standards Framework, paying a preliminary fee of $14,700 and a substantive fee of $112,100, and waiting up to nine months, extendable by a further nine, for a decision. It is not a licence to start building a college. It is confirmation that the college you have built is fit to award Australian higher education qualifications.
This article is written for someone encountering the process for the first time: who needs registration, what the categories mean, what has to exist before an application is lodged, the stages an application passes through, and where to begin. It draws on fifteen years of TEQSA registration work with private providers, and it links to more detailed articles at each step.
Who needs to be registered with TEQSA?
Any organisation that wants to offer or confer an Australian higher education award, from a diploma at AQF level 5 through to a doctorate at level 10, must be registered under Part 3 of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011. That includes public universities, private colleges, professional bodies that want to award their own degrees, and vocational providers moving up from the VET sector. It does not include organisations offering only short courses with no AQF award, which are unregulated in the higher education sense but cannot describe what they do as a degree, diploma or graduate certificate.
The distinction matters because a good deal of confusion at the start comes from people who hold an RTO registration with ASQA and assume it carries over. It does not. ASQA regulates vocational education; TEQSA regulates higher education, and the two frameworks share almost nothing. A fuller explanation of what registration is, and is not, is in what is TEQSA provider registration.
Which category will you register in?
Since 1 July 2021 there have been four provider categories: Institute of Higher Education, University College, Australian University and Overseas University. A new private provider almost always registers as an Institute of Higher Education. The other categories require an operating history, self-accrediting authority, research activity or, for a university, courses across at least three broad fields and research at the standard set by the Quality of Research Determination 2021.
Category is not a badge; it is a set of obligations. An Institute of Higher Education delivers courses that TEQSA accredits individually, which means the registration application is lodged together with an application to accredit each course. That is the shape of the exercise for nearly everyone reading this, and it is why the fees and timeframes below assume it.
What must exist before you apply
This is the part first-time readers least expect. TEQSA does not assess intentions. The Threshold Standards are written in the present tense, and the assessor is looking for a provider that is already governed, staffed, resourced and quality-assured to the standard, with the only thing missing being the students. In fifteen years I have not seen a successful application from an organisation that treated the application as the plan rather than the record.
Concretely, before lodgement there must be a legal entity with a constitution, a governing body with independent members, an academic board with real authority, a suite of academic and corporate policies adopted by those boards, at least one fully designed course that has been externally reviewed and approved by the academic board, named academic staff qualified at least one AQF level above the course, premises or a delivery platform, a financial model showing viability, and evidence that every director and controlling owner is a fit and proper person. Our step-by-step companion, navigating the TEQSA registration process, works through each of those.
The stages of getting registered with TEQSA
TEQSA asks prospective providers to engage with it at least six months before applying, and in my experience that early contact is worth having. The application then has two stages. A preliminary assessment, for which the fee is $14,700, is completed within 30 days of lodgement and checks that the application is complete enough to assess. A substantive assessment, for which the fee is $112,100 plus $44,700 per course accredited with initial registration, follows. TEQSA aims to decide within nine months of the substantive assessment commencing, and the TEQSA Act allows that period to be extended by up to a further nine months.
During substantive assessment the provider can expect requests for further information, and usually a site visit. A request for further information is not a rejection, but every one adds weeks, which is why a complete, specific and true application is the fastest route through. Registration, if granted, is for a period of up to seven years; TEQSA's initial registrations policy contemplates five years with capacity to extend. The registration is then recorded on the National Register. The full process from lodgement to decision is set out in the TEQSA registration application process, step by step.
How long does it really take?
TEQSA's indicative timeframes describe the regulator's side. The provider's side is longer. From the day a board decides to proceed to the day a domestic registration decision arrives, my experience is eighteen to twenty-four months: six to twelve months of preparation, of which a single course design, external review and academic board approval cycle takes three to four months, followed by the assessment period. Providers that intend to enrol international students then need CRICOS registration, which is applied for after higher education registration and typically adds another year before the first visa student arrives.
The figures across the sector bear this out. Our companion article, getting registered with TEQSA in Australia: a look at the data, sets out what the published timeframes and fee settings imply for a realistic budget and calendar. The point for a first-time reader is simple: nobody registers in a year, and a business plan that assumes revenue in year one is wrong.
What it costs beyond the fees
The application fees are the visible cost. The larger cost is building a provider that meets the standards before it has any revenue. Independent directors, an academic board with external members, a dean or academic director, course writers, an external reviewer for each course, a learning management system, a library and learning resources, a student management system, insurance, and premises all have to be in place and paid for before TEQSA will look at the application. Fees exclude GST, are not refundable, and are discounted by up to 70 per cent for providers with fewer than 5,000 equivalent full-time student load, which covers every new entrant.
I do not give a single number for the build cost because it depends entirely on the discipline, the delivery mode and the scale, and anyone who quotes one without asking those questions is guessing. What I can say is that the fees are a small fraction of it, and that the money is best spent on people who will still be there after registration.
Where to start
Start with the governing body. Everything else follows from having a board that owns the decision to enter higher education, understands that it is non-delegably responsible for the application, and is prepared to spend two years building the institution before the first student arrives. Then read the application guide for prospective providers from cover to cover, contact TEQSA to open the conversation, and decide which single course will be your first. Practitioners who have been through it many times offer their own view in getting registered with TEQSA: a view from the experts.
Consultants, including my own firm, can shorten the preparation and reduce the number of requests for further information. We cannot make the decisions, sit on the boards or teach the courses. Getting registered with TEQSA is something an organisation does; advisers help it do so without avoidable mistakes.
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Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be registered with TEQSA to run short courses?
No, provided no AQF higher education award is offered or implied. Registration is required to offer or confer any Australian higher education qualification from AQF level 5 upward.
What does TEQSA registration cost in 2026?
The preliminary assessment fee is $14,700 and the substantive fee is $112,100, plus $6,000 preliminary and $44,700 substantive per course accredited with initial registration. Fees exclude GST and are discounted by up to 70 per cent for providers under 5,000 EFTSL.
How long does TEQSA take to decide a registration application?
Preliminary assessment is completed within 30 days of lodgement. Substantive assessment is decided within nine months of commencement, extendable by a further period of up to nine months, with notification within 30 days of the decision.
Can an RTO use its ASQA registration to offer degrees?
No. ASQA registration covers vocational education only. Offering any higher education award requires separate registration with TEQSA under the TEQSA Act and accreditation of each course.
Dr Brendan Moloney is CEO of Darlo Higher Education, Australia's largest specialist TEQSA consultancy. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, is a Cambridge University Press author on governance in higher education, and has advised private providers on registration and course accreditation for more than fifteen years.