Use the search facility to find business information and services sourced from business.gov.au and other Australian, state, territory and local government websites.
Using the search
1. Search Terms
The Search for text field and options are explained below:
| Search criteria |
Document must contain... |
| Any words |
At least one of the words entered in the ‘Search for’ text field. |
| All words |
All of the words entered in the ‘Search for’ text field. |
| Exact phrase |
The exact words, in the order typed, entered in the ‘Search for’ text field. |
| Excluding |
None of the words entered in the ‘Excluding’ text field. |
To narrow your search, enter words into a combination of these text boxes, e.g.
Search for: business tax
Excluding: GST
will return documents with business and tax but will exclude any documents with GST.
2. Search postcode
The Search postcode feature enables you to refine your results to your local area. Note that you will only see local government website results if you enter a valid postcode.
3. Submit Search
Click Search to submit your search.
Search Results
By default, the search results page will divide results into three categories:
- business.gov.au results
- Australian Government website results
- State and Territory Government website results.
If you have refined your search using a valid postcode, you will see a fourth category entitled Local Government website results.
Initially, you will be able to see the number of matching search results and the top three results in each category. You have the option to see more results within each category by clicking on the 'More results' link.
Each individual business.gov.au search result includes:
- the title of the result hyperlinked to the resource
- a brief description of the resource
- the actual URL of the resource.
Relevance
Results will be ordered in terms of 'Relevance' which is the degree of match between your search terms and the contents of the web page.
Wildcards
The search supports * as a wildcard to extend searches. Note that at least two regular characters must appear in combination with the * wildcard. For example, tax* matches tax, taxes, taxpayer, taxidermy, etc.
Noise Words
Noise words are common words such as and, the, they etc. These words are ignored when searching except when they are included as part of an exact phrase.
Case insensitive
The search fields are not case sensitive. For example, gst will find gst, and GST.
Refining your search
1. Too many results
Refine the search criteria by adding additional search terms or entering a postcode.
2. Too few results
Broaden the search criteria by removing a search term or not entering a postcode.
3. Can’t find it!
If you can't find what you are looking for, contact us to request assistance.
