Do non-resident Amazon sellers lodge an Australian income tax return?

Usually, no. If your company is resident in a country that has a tax treaty with Australia — China and the United States both do — and it has no permanent establishment here, the treaty allocates taxing rights over its business profits to your home country. No assessable Australian income means no return.

But there is a right way and a wrong way to not lodge a return. The wrong way is silence. The right way is a documented position — and for some sellers, the answer genuinely is “lodge”. Here is how to tell which one you are.

(General information only, current at August 2026. Confirm your own position before acting.)

Where the obligation comes from

Section 161(1) of the ITAA 1936 requires a person to lodge a return if the Commissioner requires it by legislative instrument. Each year the Commissioner issues a Requirement-to-Lodge instrument specifying, by entity type, who must lodge. The rules that matter here:

• Foreign-resident individuals must lodge if they had A$1 or more of Australian taxable income, other than income subject to final non-resident withholding. There is no tax-free threshold for non-residents — for 2026–27 the rates start at 30% from the first dollar up to A$135,000, then 37% to A$190,000 and 45% above.
• Companies: broadly, every company that derived assessable income must lodge. For a non-resident company, the practical trigger is deriving assessable income from Australian sources.
• Anyone served with a notice: the Commissioner can demand a return from any person by specific notice (ss 162–163) — relevant once data-matching puts a seller on the ATO’s radar.

Notice what is not on that list: GST registration. The return trigger is assessable income, not registration. Sellers conflate these in both directions — some assume returns follow automatically and fear the cost; others assume BAS is the end of the story and ignore a real obligation.

The pivotal question: is there assessable Australian income?

The analysis chains directly to the permanent establishment question covered earlier in this series.

Treaty-country company, no permanent establishment — the standard FBA pattern from China or the US. The treaty’s business profits article allocates taxing rights exclusively to the residence country. Given force by the International Tax Agreements Act 1953, the treaty prevails over domestic source rules. The profits are not assessable in Australia, and the strict lodgment trigger is not engaged.

Treaty-country company with a permanent establishment. Attributable profits are assessable and a return is required — company rate 30% (25% only if the base rate entity conditions are met). This is a materially different engagement.

Non-treaty company — the Hong Kong case. No treaty shield exists. Assessability turns on common-law source: where contracts are concluded, where operations occur, where stock sits. If the better view on the facts is that profits are not Australian-sourced, there is no trigger — but the position is inherently less certain than a treaty conclusion, and it should be written down with the reasoning visible. Where source is arguably Australian, lodging with disclosure is the safe harbour.

Individuals follow the same source-and-treaty logic, with one hard edge: an unprotected individual with Australian-source trading income lodges from the first dollar, at 30%.

“No return” done properly

A defensible no-lodgment position still needs administration. Three tools do the work.

The return-not-necessary (RNN) advice. If you hold a TFN or an income tax role in ATO systems but have no obligation for the year, a registered agent lodges a formal RNN — and where the position is durable, a further-returns-not-necessary (FRNN). This closes the year cleanly and pre-empts ATO follow-up. One constraint: an RNN cannot be lodged for a year the ATO has already demanded a return for — which is a reason to lodge it before being asked, not after.

No income tax role at all. A company registered for GST through the ABR without a TFN has no income tax role in ATO systems — there is nothing to lodge and nothing to RNN. This is the cleanest state for the standard no-PE seller, and a reason not to acquire a TFN reflexively: entering the income tax system creates an annual administration point. Get a TFN when there is a purpose for it, not by default. The same discipline applies to the obligation sellers are most often told they have and usually do not — a resident public officer under s 252, which is triggered by carrying on business in Australia, not by holding an ABN or a GST registration.

The position paper. One page on file recording the treaty (or source) reasoning and the facts it rests on, refreshed annually. If import data-matching or platform reporting later generates a please-explain, the answer is already written. This is the document that converts “we didn’t lodge” from an omission into a position.

The sequence to run

1. Map the entity. Company or individual; residence jurisdiction; treaty status (China ✓, US ✓, Hong Kong ✗); where central management and control sits.
2. Settle the permanent establishment (or source) view. This decides assessability.
3. Check your ATO-system state. TFN held? Income tax role open? Prior demands outstanding? This decides whether “no obligation” is expressed as silence, RNN or FRNN.
4. Check withholding. Australian interest, dividend or royalty flows taxed by final withholding sit outside the individual return trigger; incorrectly withheld amounts may justify a refund return.
5. Document and diarise. Position paper on file; RNN lodged by the due date; facts re-tested at each annual review — warehousing model, staff, director location, related entities.

Four things people believe that are not true

“You registered for GST, so you now lodge Australian tax returns.” False. Quarterly BAS, yes. An income tax return needs its own trigger, which the standard treaty-protected seller does not have.

“No return needed, so just do nothing.” Incomplete. Where an income tax role exists, an RNN closes it properly — and every no-lodgment position should have written reasoning behind it before the ATO asks.

“Non-residents get the A$18,200 tax-free threshold.” False. Foreign residents are taxed from the first dollar and lodge from A$1 of Australian taxable income.

“A Hong Kong company is the same as a Chinese one.” Materially different. One has a treaty threshold; the other rests on source analysis with more room for the ATO to argue. If you trade through a Hong Kong entity, this deserves a proper look before you scale.

What to do next

Answer three questions: which country is your entity resident in; does the permanent establishment analysis come out clean on your facts; and does the entity hold a TFN or income tax role. Those three answers determine whether your correct state is silence, an annual RNN, or a lodged return — and each of those is fine, as long as it is the one your facts support, in writing.

The GST side runs separately — start with the 2-minute GST registration check. For the whole picture in one written assessment, see AusTax Bridge.

The identifier side of this question has its own guide: does a foreign company need an Australian TFN?

General information only, current at August 2026. It does not take your circumstances into account. Lodgment outcomes depend on your treaty position, facts and ATO-system state, and the annual Requirement-to-Lodge instrument changes each year. Confirm your position with a registered tax agent before acting.