Cafes & coffee shops in Australia

2026-09-18

Your ATO debt just became the most expensive money in your business

No. Interest the ATO charges you on an unpaid tax bill stopped being tax deductible for anything incurred on or after 1 July 2025, and the 2025-26 return on your accountant's desk right now is the first one where that shows up. Nothing about your payment plan changed. What changed is that the money you borrow from the ATO by not paying now costs you roughly a third more after tax than it did, which for a lot of owners makes it dearer than the bank. Here is the arithmetic on a real BAS debt, then the three ways out, cheapest first.

2026-08-17

Delivery riders got a pay floor today. Uber and DoorDash asked for it

This one does not touch your wage bill, so nobody will write to you about it. It touches the cost of the channel that sells your food when the customer never walks in. From today the apps must pay a delivery worker at least $31.30 an hour of engaged time, that floor steps up on 1 January 2027, and from 2028 it rises with the minimum wage every year. Nothing in the order says a word about what Uber or DoorDash may charge a venue, which is exactly the point.

2026-07-26

The card surcharge disappears on 1 October. The fee behind it moves onto your P&L.

If your cafe adds a card surcharge at the terminal, that line goes away on 1 October 2026. The fees behind it do not. They move into your cost of doing business, and unless you act before then they come straight out of your take-home. Here is what that costs on real takings, the cost cut arriving the same day, and the bigger saving that most cafe owners are sitting on without knowing it.

2026-07-12

The July 2026 wage rise: the number that hits your cafe is 4.75%, not the 6% in the headlines

If you run a cafe you have probably seen the 6% minimum wage headline and braced for it. Here is the first thing worth knowing: 6% is almost certainly not your number. Your baristas and floor staff are on the Restaurant or Hospitality award, and award rates went up 4.75%, not 6%. Smaller than the headline, still straight out of your margin, and it lands on more of your bill than the percentage lets on. Here is what it actually costs you, on your own roster, and the bit that quietly follows you to the day you sell.