Under the National Energy Retail Law (NERL), any person or business who sells energy to another person for use at premises must have either a retailer authorisation or a retail exemption.
The AER can issue exemptions to persons or classes of persons and impose conditions on these exemptions in accordance with the Retail Exempt Selling Guideline (the Guideline).
The Guideline sets out the processes for registering and applying for retail exemptions, and outlines the various exemption classes, their eligibility criteria and exemption conditions. The Guideline also details our policy considerations when making decisions on exemption applications and on exemption classes and conditions.
The Notice of final decision which explains the consultation process, key changes and rationale behind this version of the Guideline can be found at Review of the AER exemptions framework for embedded networks.
Update
On 24 October 2025, the AER republished a corrected version 7 of the Guideline after 2 minor errors were identified:
- The number of years a prospective exempt network service provider is required to maintain its customers’ explicit informed consent records was incorrectly stated as 7 years, rather than 2 years (on page 18).
- Condition 2(1)(k), requiring exempt sellers provide exempt customers with a copy of their family violence policy, was applied to classes D3, D5, D9, D10 and R7 in error (on page 46).
Correcting these minor errors has not altered the substance or intention of the Guideline.