The Default Market Offer (DMO) came into effect on 1 July 2019.
The AER’s role is to determine DMO prices annually. Our DMO price determination applies to residential and small business customers across New South Wales, South East Queensland and South Australia.
The DMO caps the prices a retailer can charge a standing offer customer. It also serves as a reference price for market offers in these regions.
The Competition and Consumer (Industry Code – Electricity Retail) Regulations 2019 set out the regulatory framework for the DMO. On 4 November 2025, the Australian Government announced the outcomes of its review into the regulatory framework for the DMO including a package of recommended changes. This review focused on potential reforms to the DMO framework that would improve the way policy is articulated in the DMO framework and clarify its function as a safeguard for customers who are unable or unwilling to participate in the electricity retail market. Most of the announced reforms are expected to come into effect for DMO 8.
Under the current regulations the DMO aims to prevent retailers from charging unjustifiably high prices to customers on standing offers, while maintaining market competition and participation.
Under the announced reforms the DMO would become a fair, trusted and reasonably priced electricity offer which reflects the essential nature of the service, and should only reflect the efficient costs to supply.
Issues paper
On 5 November 2025 we released the issues paper for DMO 8. Stakeholders are invited to make written submissions to the AER by close of business, 26 November 2025.
The AER also published the supplementary report Assessing the performance of the wholesale cost model alongside the DMO 8 issues paper. This analysis and report have been prepared in response to stakeholder submissions to previous DMO determinations and provides context for the percentile estimate discussion in the wholesale chapter of the issues paper.