The 4% is the Commonwealth's target. The 51% test is yours.

On 1 July 2026 the Indigenous Procurement Policy started moving its ownership bar from 50% to 51%.

This is a composite of a pattern we see often. A cleaning and grounds business in Townsville has two directors who each own half. One of them is First Nations. The business has done Commonwealth work, it has been registered as an Indigenous business for years, and under the original criteria it met the 50% ownership test without anyone giving it a second thought. Then one director reads the National Indigenous Australians Agency's update and works out that the share register sits exactly one point short of the new test.

That's the change to the Indigenous Procurement Policy that affects suppliers. The one that gets the headlines, the rise to a 4% target, is about agencies. Keep the two apart and the policy gets much easier to plan around.

The 4% is a buying target, not a fund

The NIAA sets out the numbers. On 1 July 2025 the Commonwealth's Indigenous procurement target rose to 3% of contract value. The NIAA's news page has it climbing 0.25 percentage points a year until it reaches 4% in 2029-30. It's measured by contract value.

Sparke Helmore's analysis points out that the target applies to the Commonwealth as a whole and to each portfolio. The NIAA's main policy page lists two annual targets for 2025-26: 3% of the number of eligible contracts and 3% of their value. The Minister's release says 'The targets will then rise annually until they reach 4 per cent by 2030.'

None of that money is set aside for any particular business. The target doesn't put anyone on a shortlist, and it doesn't oblige an agency to buy from you. Agencies and portfolios are measured against it. A supplier still has to find the work, qualify to use the policy and lodge a response that holds up on its own merits.

So a supplier needs answers to two questions. Do you meet the test to use the policy? And which contracts does the policy actually reach?

The 51% ownership-and-control test

The National Indigenous Australians Agency's changes to the Indigenous Procurement Policy commenced on 1 July 2026. The new test is 51% or more First Nations owned and controlled, or registration with the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC). The original criteria asked for at least 50% Indigenous ownership, and the control requirement is new. Minister McCarthy's release confirms the move, and indigenous.gov.au describes it as a stricter standard.

The test has two halves, ownership and control. Ownership is the easy one because it's on the share register. Control is about who sits on the board, who holds the casting vote, who signs contracts and who decides which jobs to bid for. If one share moves across but every decision still sits with the non-Indigenous director, the business has changed its paperwork and left control where it was.

A paper fix that doesn't change who runs the business is the wrong fix.

If you're short of 51%, take it to your accountant and your lawyer. Things to put on the agenda:

• the current share register and any shareholder agreement
• board composition, and who holds the deciding vote
• who signs contracts and approves bids day to day
• the tax, duty and personal consequences of any transfer of shares
• whether a different structure, including an ORIC-registered corporation, suits the business better

2026-27 is a transition year

The NIAA describes 2026-27 as a transition year. During it, a business that meets either the original 50% ownership criteria or the new 51% criteria can use the policy. Businesses that are already registered get 12 months from the day a new verification provider starts to meet the stricter 51% test. The transition follows the extension of Supply Nation's contract and an approach to market for a new Indigenous Business Verification and Support Services provider, which closed on 18 September 2026.

The 12 months starts when that provider does. Some owners read that as permission to wait, but it points the other way. Changing ownership or control takes months: valuations, new agreements, board changes, sometimes a new entity. Once the 12 months starts, an owner who has already restructured can put that time into bidding.

There are two checks you can do this month. Measure your ownership and control structure against 51%, and confirm your current verification status and the dates attached to it.

Where the policy actually applies

Meeting the test gets you halfway. The other half is aiming at the contracts the policy covers. The NIAA's policy page and Sparke Helmore's analysis describe two mechanisms, and they sit at opposite ends of the market.

The Mandatory Set Aside covers Commonwealth contracts between $80,000 and $200,000 (GST inclusive), and contracts of any value in remote Australia. This is where a smaller Indigenous-owned business can bid directly. Think of a ten-person IT support firm providing managed services to a federal agency's regional office, a caterer in a regional centre feeding a training program, or the Townsville cleaning and grounds business on a site contract. A small team can price, staff and deliver all of those without a head contractor.

The Mandatory Minimum Indigenous Participation Requirements cover contracts of $7.5 million or more delivered wholly in Australia, across 19 listed industries including construction. Those contracts mostly go to larger firms, and those firms need Indigenous participation to deliver them. For a smaller business the way in is often a subcontract, supplying the cleaning, catering, traffic control or IT support a head contractor has to bring in anyway.

That shapes your pipeline. In the set-aside band, the buyers to watch are Commonwealth agencies with offices, sites or programs in your region. At the top end, watch which agencies are awarding large contracts and which head contractors keep winning them, because they're the firms that will need your scope. ICN Queensland (the Industry Capability Network) runs a register built to put suppliers in front of head contractors, and a strong profile there is worth the effort.

Finding the work once the structure is right

The ownership check is between you and your verifier. Helm Tender doesn't verify Indigenous status and doesn't tell you whether you meet the 51% test. Its job is finding the work: federal tenders sit in one feed with Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council tenders, and each one gets an itemised 0 to 100 score against what your business does, with every addition and deduction labelled. You can watch a Commonwealth buyer and be emailed when it publishes, see who has won this kind of work from that buyer before, and get reminders 7, 3 and 1 days before close. You can do all of that by hand, or have Helm Tender do the reading for you.

See which tenders fit your business at https://helmtender.com.au/?utm_source=web&utm_medium=insights&utm_campaign=helm-tender