Quick answer
The Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) is the national, online register where lenders and suppliers record that they hold a security interest in someone's movable assets, such as vehicles, equipment, stock and receivables. Anyone can search it. For a small business it shows who has a claim on your assets, and it's the first place a new lender will look.
Key points
- The PPSR covers personal property (vehicles, equipment, stock, receivables), not land, which sits on state title registers
- A new lender will search your business's name, ABN and ACN, so it pays to search yourself first
- An online search costs about $2, according to the PPSR's published fee schedule, and gives you a search certificate
- Entries don't clear themselves: you have to ask the secured party to remove or amend them after you repay
- Suppliers, hire companies and equipment sellers register too, not just lenders
Most owners meet the PPSR by accident. An accountant mentions it, a supplier’s terms refer to it, or a lender says “we’ll run a PPSR search” as if everyone knows what that is. Then a letter turns up saying a registration has been made against your business, and it feels like something has gone wrong.
Usually nothing has. This guide covers what the register is, how to look at your own entries in a few minutes, and what to do when one looks wrong.
What is the PPSR, and what does it record?
The Personal Property Securities Register is a national online register run by the Australian Government. It started in January 2012 and replaced a patchwork of state and federal registers that used to record charges over cars, boats, company assets and more.
It records security interests in personal property. In everyday terms, that means a claim over things that aren’t land:
- Vehicles, trucks, trailers and boats
- Machinery and equipment
- Stock and inventory
- Money owed by customers
- Intellectual property and licences
- Most other movable or intangible business assets
Land and buildings are recorded with each state’s land titles office instead. That’s the dividing line, and it’s why a loan secured by both a property and a business often involves two registers. We cover how the property side works in what lenders mean by security.
A registration doesn’t show how much you owe. It records who the secured party is, who the grantor (the asset owner) is, and a description of the collateral. That’s it.
Who registers, and why is it not only banks?
Many different parties use it:
- Banks and non-bank lenders registering a general security agreement over all of your business assets.
- Equipment financiers registering their interest in a specific machine or vehicle they funded.
- Suppliers who sell on retention-of-title terms (“you don’t own the stock until it’s paid for”).
- Equipment hire and leasing companies, whose interest in the goods they lease out is recorded.
- Invoice financiers who buy or lend against your receivables.
This is why a business with several perfectly ordinary arrangements can have several entries on the register. Entries are normal. What matters is whether they overlap, and whether they’re still current.
Why does a new lender search the PPSR?
Because it answers the question every secured lender asks first: who is ahead of me?
Generally, among competing security interests in the same asset, the first to register ranks first. A lender who sees an all-assets registration from your bank knows it would rank behind the bank for those assets. It may then ask the bank to agree on how to share priority, take security the bank doesn’t hold, or decline.
Lenders search more than once. They search before approving, and again just before settling, to make sure nothing was registered in between. If a search turns up a registration you didn’t mention, it can slow things down, even when the entry is old and harmless. Having already seen your own search results lets you explain it in one line.
How do you search your own business?
You don’t need a lawyer for this. The steps:
- Go to the PPSR website and choose the search by organisation grantor.
- Enter an identifier: ACN, ABN or exact name. The register has a preference order of identifiers, and each search uses one.
- Repeat for the other identifiers you have. Entries are sometimes made against only the ACN or only the ABN, and a lender looking carefully will check more than one.
- Download the search certificate, which is your record of what the register showed at that moment.
For serial-numbered goods such as motor vehicles, searches use the serial number (a VIN, for example) rather than the owner’s name. That’s the search to run if you’re buying a second-hand truck or ute from a business, because a finance company may still have a claim on it.
According to the PPSR’s published fee schedule, an online search costs about $2. Check the current schedule before you search, as fees are set by a government determination and can be updated.
Not sure how your existing registrations affect a new loan? Ask us. It takes a minute and doesn’t touch your credit file.
What should you look for in the results?
Read each entry as a short story. For each one, ask:
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Who is the secured party? | Do you recognise the name? An unfamiliar one deserves a call. |
| What’s the collateral described as? | “All present and after-acquired property” is a general claim. A serial number points to one asset. |
| Is the registration still needed? | If the loan or lease ended, it should be removed. |
| When does the registration end? | Registrations can run for a set number of years or with no end date. |
| Is there a surprise? | A supplier, a previous owner or a related company you’d forgotten. |
A worked example: a small café buys a second-hand coffee machine from a seller who used it as security on an old equipment loan. Two years later, the café applies for finance and the lender’s search shows a registration on the machine from the previous owner’s financier. The owner never had a problem with the machine itself, but the settlement is held up for a week while a release is chased. Searching on the day of purchase would have made the seller sort it out first.
What if there’s a wrong or old registration?
A registration that should have ended but didn’t is common. Here’s the order to work through:
- Ask the secured party to remove or amend it. Many just forget.
- Keep the evidence: a payout letter, a final statement, the settlement email.
- Send an amendment demand through the PPSR if they don’t respond. The register’s guidance says the demand must be sent to the address for service on the registration, and you must wait a set number of business days (five at the time of writing) before taking the next step.
- Get advice if the dispute is about whether you owe the money.
Banks and established lenders usually attend to this quickly. A defunct company or an old private lender can be harder, which is another reason to clean it up before you need to borrow, not after.
How does this connect to borrowing?
Three practical habits:
- Search yourself once a year, alongside your tax and insurance review. The keeping clean business records guide has a checklist that fits.
- Diarise a PPSR check at the end of every loan or lease, and confirm removal in writing.
- Tell a new lender about existing registrations early. No lender is surprised that a business with a vehicle loan has a registration. They’re put off when it seems you hid it.
If a registration is the reason for a past decline, or your current lender’s claim is limiting what you can add, equipment finance and other asset-specific products are sometimes a way through, because they attach to the asset being bought rather than everything you own. Our overview of the terms lenders use, including security interest, may help when you’re reading paperwork.
Ready to find out what your business can access?
The register tells a lender who else has a claim. The enquiry tells us the rest of the story. Our form takes about a minute, and enquiring doesn’t touch your credit file, so there’s no cost in finding out where you stand. Your details aren’t sent to a crowd of lenders: a real person looks at your situation and calls you. List your existing finance and any registrations you know of as accurately as you can, so the right option is the first one on the table.
Frequently asked questions
What is the PPSR in simple terms?
It's a public, government-run online register that records who has a claim over particular assets that aren't land. If a lender, supplier or leasing company wants its rights to be protected against other creditors, it registers there. Buyers and new lenders search it to see whether an asset is already spoken for.
Is a PPSR registration the same as a default on my credit file?
No. A registration just says someone has a security interest. It is normal, even for a healthy business with a car loan or equipment finance. It's not a judgement of your creditworthiness and doesn't appear as a default. Lenders read it as a map of who is ahead of them.
How much does it cost to search the PPSR?
According to the PPSR's published fee schedule, an online search costs about $2, and an assisted search by phone costs more. Check the current schedule on the PPSR website before you search, as fees are set by a determination and can change.
How do I search the PPSR for my own business?
Use the organisation grantor search on the PPSR site and enter your ACN, ABN or exact registered name. Each search uses one identifier, and entries are sometimes recorded against only one of them, so try each that you have. Save the search certificate it gives you.
A registration is on my business and I've repaid the debt. What now?
Ask the secured party, in writing, to remove it. They can amend or discharge the registration on the PPSR. If they don't respond, the law gives you a formal route: send an amendment demand, and if the registration still isn't dealt with after the waiting period, you can take the matter further.
Do I need to register anything myself?
Only if you're the one with a security interest. A business that sells goods on retention-of-title terms, or leases equipment to others, may need to register to protect its position. Most borrowers only need to search and check, not register.