Fines went up again on 1 July 2026: what changed by state

Fines went up again: this happens most years

If a fine you received recently looked bigger than you remembered, you're not imagining it. Most Australian states and territories lifted infringement penalties, including speeding fines, on 1 July 2026, the start of the new financial year. It wasn't a special anti-driver push. It's largely routine: state governments tie their fine schedules to an automatic formula, so the dollar figure on a notice creeps upward every year without a fresh, standalone announcement.

What made mid-2026 more visible than usual is that Australia's peak motoring body, the NRMA, published a state-by-state roundup confirming the changes, and some state governments, South Australia in particular, released the new numbers directly rather than leaving drivers to work it out from a penalty-unit formula.

What actually changed, state by state

• South Australia: the government confirmed CPI-linked rises across every speeding band, from $208 to $215 for under-10 km/h-over offences up to $1,954 to $2,018 for the most severe. Drink-driving penalties also rose, from $875 to $904 for a low-range reading.
• Queensland: the state's penalty-unit value rose 3.5% to $172.70, lifting the lowest speeding band from $333 to $345 and the top band to $1,986. Vehicle registration fees also rose roughly 3.4%.
• New South Wales: fines rose under the state's usual indexation, but the more notable news was a cost-of-living offset in the same budget: a cut to the Sydney toll weekly cap from $60 to $50, plus a temporary $80–$100 registration discount from September 2026.
• Victoria: alongside its annual fee and penalty indexation, Victoria introduced new rules from 1 July 2026 changing how unpaid infringements escalate and are enforced if they're not paid by the first due date.
• WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT: each applied their own routine inflation-linked increase too, though none had published a full, itemised new fine schedule with the same level of detail as SA and QLD at the time of writing. The safest way to check the exact figure for an offence is against the amount printed on your own notice.

A bigger number doesn't change your options

It's worth being clear about what indexation does and doesn't touch. It changes the dollar figure on the notice. It does not change:

• Your right to ask the issuing authority for a free review, usually within 28 days of the notice.
• What counts as good evidence: the same photos, documents and factual grounds that helped before still help now.
• Whether leniency is available for a genuine one-off with a clean record.

If anything, a higher fine makes the five minutes it takes to check your options more worthwhile, not less, because the cost of simply paying a fine you didn't need to is now larger than it was last financial year.

What to actually do if your fine looks bigger than expected

Two things are worth doing before you pay anything:

• Check the amount against your notice, not memory. Fine schedules are set by the date of the offence, and the exact figure depends on your state, the offence type and how far over any limit you were. The notice itself is the accurate source, not a number you recall from a previous year.
• Ask honestly whether you have grounds. A higher fine amount has no bearing on whether a review will succeed; that still comes down to your specific facts and evidence. But it does raise the cost of not checking.

Fight My Fine's free check reads your situation in plain English and tells you honestly whether a dispute or a leniency request is the stronger path, including telling you when neither is likely to work, before you pay anything. See how it applies to your speeding fine or any other fine type.