QLD Trade Waste Charges 2026–27 — What to Allow in a Queensland Fit-out
SNZ Plumbing Estimating · 2026-09-15
- Queensland is the most fragmented state. Unitywater and Urban Utilities cover south-east Queensland between them, and the rest is council-run, each with its own schedule.
- Unitywater charges $1,627 a year where an arrestor is required and not installed, and $658 a year where one is fitted but undersized. Those are standing annual charges, not one-off fines.
- A garbage grinder over 0.6 kW costs $7,453 a year in Unitywater’s area. That is a kitchen equipment decision with a bigger lifetime cost than most of the plumbing.
- Urban Utilities builds its charge off measured contaminant load rather than a flat tier, so the trade waste meter and the lab result decide the bill.
Queensland is the hardest of the three states to price, because there is no single authority. South-east Queensland is split between two utilities and everywhere else is council-run, each with its own schedule and its own idea of what a food business should pay.
These are the published 2026–27 Unitywater charges, how Urban Utilities builds its number differently, and the two charges that catch commercial kitchens every time.
01Who regulates trade waste in Queensland
- Unitywater — Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast and Noosa.
- Urban Utilities — Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Somerset.
- Councils — Gold Coast, Logan, Redland and the regional councils each run their own trade waste approvals and set their own fees.
So the first job on a Queensland tenancy is the same as in Victoria: establish who the authority actually is before you price the approval, because the two utilities do not even charge on the same basis.
02Unitywater, 2026–27
Unitywater works on treatment tiers. A business is placed in one of five, from very low to very high, on what it cooks and how — oilier and fattier food, deep frying and grilling, and bigger commercial kitchens all push the tier up. GST does not apply to any of these charges, and annual fees are billed quarterly in arrears.
Category 1 permit — annual fee by treatment tier
| Treatment tier | Annual fee 2026–27 |
|---|---|
| Very low | $606.00 |
| Low | $1,200.00 |
| Medium | $1,688.00 |
| High | $2,526.00 |
| Very high | $3,788.00 |
A Category 2 permit is a flat $3,968.00 a year.
Tankered waste, per kilolitre
| Tankered waste | 2026–27 |
|---|---|
| Domestic wastewater, landfill and holding tank leachate | $3.30 per kL |
| Non-domestic wastewater | $37.90 per kL |
| Chemical toilets | $76.20 per kL |
| Septic and on-site treatment systems | $90.20 per kL |
Strength charges, per kilogram above the threshold
| Parameter | Threshold | 2026–27 |
|---|---|---|
| Sulphate | above 500 mg/L | $1.60 per kg |
| Chemical oxygen demand | above 600 mg/L | $1.90 per kg |
| Total suspended solids | above 300 mg/L | $2.60 per kg |
| Total nitrogen / TKN | above 150 mg/L | $5.10 per kg |
| Total phosphorus | above 50 mg/L | $15.90 per kg |
Other charges
| Charge | 2026–27 |
|---|---|
| Liquid waste carriers permit, annual | $404.00 |
| Plan verification, assessment or inspection | $114.00 per hour |
| Trade waste search, per application | $268.00 |
| Access tag deposit, per tag | $83.00 |
03Urban Utilities — how the charge is built
Urban Utilities does not use a flat tier. It sorts customers into categories and builds the charge from what is actually measured:
- Category 2 — the charge is the Category 2 trade waste price multiplied by the discharge factor and the total water volume. So it rides on your metered water use and the discharge factor the utility sets, not on a fixed annual fee.
- Category 3A — charged on contaminant mass load: biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, total Kjeldahl nitrogen and total phosphorus. The load comes from the volume at the trade waste meter and the quality from laboratory analysis of samples.
The practical difference matters when you are pricing. Under Unitywater a food tenancy has a knowable annual number the day the tier is set. Under Urban Utilities it does not — it depends on metered volume and lab results, so anything you put in a feasibility is an estimate until the meter has run for a few quarters.
We have not published Urban Utilities dollar rates here. Their pricing guide sets out the structure but the current schedule of rates was not available from a published source when this was written, and a number you cannot verify is worse than no number. Take the rates from Urban Utilities directly.
04The arrestor and grinder charges
Two Unitywater charges are worth knowing before anyone value-engineers a kitchen.
Where an arrestor is required and not installed, the charge is $1,627.00 a year. Where one is installed but inadequately sized, it is $658.00 a year. Those are not penalties for a one-off breach — they are standing annual charges that run until the problem is fixed. Over a five-year lease the first one is more than eight thousand dollars, which will usually buy the arrestor several times over.
The second is the garbage grinder, and it is a kitchen equipment decision that almost never gets costed properly:
| Garbage grinder | Annual charge 2026–27 |
|---|---|
| 0.4 kW/h or less | $849.00 |
| 0.4 to 0.6 kW/h | $3,788.00 |
| Over 0.6 kW/h | $7,453.00 |
A big waste disposal unit is a $7,453 a year decision. If the kitchen schedule has one in it and nobody has told the client what it costs to run, that is worth raising before the fit-out is signed off, not after.
05What to put in the tender
- Establish the authority first. Unitywater, Urban Utilities and each council charge differently enough that the wrong assumption makes the allowance meaningless.
- Price the approval, not the operating charge. Application, plan verification at $114 an hour and inspections are project costs. Annual permit fees, strength charges and grinder charges belong to whoever runs the business.
- Raise the grinder and the arrestor early. Both are design decisions with permanent annual consequences, and both are cheaper to argue about before the kitchen is ordered.
- Say which tier you have assumed. Under Unitywater the gap between very low and very high is $606 to $3,788 a year, and it is set by the menu, not by you.
Unitywater figures are the published 2026–27 charges, taken on 15 September 2026, exclusive of GST. Queensland prices reset each 1 July, so check the live schedule before relying on them: Unitywater trade waste permit fees and charges.
06Related reading
- NSW Trade Waste Charges 2026–27 — Sydney Water and Hunter Water
- VIC Trade Waste Charges 2026–27 — Yarra Valley and South East Water
- Grease Traps for Commercial Kitchens — Sizing & Compliance
- Plumbing estimating, Brisbane and Queensland
Pricing a Queensland fit-out with trade waste in it?
We build the estimate: takeoff, labour, materials and overheads, itemised and ready for tender.
Explore more.
Need a number you can bid on?
Send us your drawings. Every line priced, every scope gap flagged, most estimates back within 72 hours.
Request an estimate