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View all search resultsAustralia hikes levy for tech giants that fail to strike local news deals
The government said on Monday it increased the levy for its planned News Bargaining Incentive to 2.5 percent from 2.25 percent.
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A 13-year-old boy poses at his home as he looks at social media on his tablet in Sydney on December 8, 2025. Australia will ban young teenagers from social media on December 10, 2025, launching a world-first crackdown designed to unglue children from addictive scrolling on the likes of Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. (AFP/Saeed Khan)
T
he Australian government has hiked a planned levy that will force tech giants to pay multimillion-dollar charges if they fail to strike commercial deals with local media outlets for news on their platforms.
The government said on Monday it increased the levy for its planned News Bargaining Incentive to 2.5 percent from 2.25 percent.
In a change from an earlier proposal, the tax would only be calculated from a tech company's advertising revenue, rather than its entire business revenue, the government said.
The levy applies to companies with a "significant" social media or search service in Australia, and local revenue exceeding A$250 million ($175.7 million), capturing Meta, Google and TikTok.
An exclusion for professional networking sites has also been removed, bringing LinkedIn within its scope.
All of the money raised would be directed to the news media sector to support local journalism, the government said.
"The charge-base for the News Bargaining Incentive will be advertising revenue," Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino told ABC Radio National.
"We've upped the charge rate from 2.25 to 2.5% to make sure that the overall amount of money raised by the deals entered into by these platforms with the media is about the same, and that it will, going forward, increase as the amount of revenue from advertising increases for the platforms, but that this will be more connected with that part of their business."
The new laws are expected to be introduced when parliament resumes sitting later this month.
In June, Tech giant Meta attacked Australia's "grossly unfair" bid to make social media companies pay for news, saying it is vehemently opposed to the draft laws.
"Our position is clear: this law is poorly designed, grossly unfair, and will fail to deliver a diverse and sustainable news industry," said Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
When Canberra mooted similar laws in 2024, Meta announced that Australian users would no longer be able to access the "news" tab.
Supporters of such laws argue that social media companies attract users with news stories and hoover up online advertising revenue that would otherwise go to struggling newsrooms.
