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 comparison 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 3 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 aimed to strengthen the DMO framework and improve its effectiveness as a safeguard for customers who are unable or unwilling to engage in the electricity retail market.
The amendments to the DMO Regulations that give effect to the outcomes of the Australian Government’s review were published on 5 March 2026. The main changes to the DMO framework are:
- introducing a new statutory objective aimed at protecting small customers on standing offers
- requiring the AER to determine both DMO annual prices and tariff caps based on the efficient costs of supplying those customers, with reference to mandatory considerations and a new DMO guideline (to be developed by the AER before DMO 9)
- requiring the AER to determine tariff caps for common standing offer types as well as a new Solar Sharer Offer (SSO) tariff, set annual comparison prices for these regulated tariff types and a comparison price based on model annual usage for non-regulated tariffs.
Issues paper
On 5 November the AER published the DMO 8 issues paper for consultation. This consulted on changes to the DMO methodology based on changing market conditions and the anticipated regulatory reforms. The AER also published the companion report Assessing the performance of the wholesale cost model alongside the DMO 8 issues paper. This report was prepared in response to stakeholder submissions to previous DMO determinations.
As part of that consultation process, the AER hosted 2 in-person retailer workshops, engaged in bilateral meetings with a wide range of stakeholders and presented to the AER’s Consumer Consultative Group on the topics raised in the issues paper.
27 written submissions were received through that process.
Solar Sharer Offer consultation
On 4 November 2025 the Australian Government announced the SSO policy. The Government consulted on the policy design and implementation of the SSO in November 2025 and published an outcomes paper on that consultation on 23 January 2026. 76 written submissions were received through that process.
The DMO 8 issues paper proposed the AER would consider the outcomes of the Australian Government’s SSO consultation before undertaking its own targeted engagement.
Subsequently, we held targeted consultation through bilateral meetings with a group of impacted stakeholders (retailers, network businesses and consumer groups), focusing on design elements of the SSO relevant to the AER’s role. This enabled us to develop an informed SSO draft decision and a solid basis for broader consultation through this draft determination
Draft determination
On 19 March 2026 the AER released the DMO 8 draft determination.
We value stakeholder feedback on all aspects of our draft determination. We are mindful that not all stakeholders have had the opportunity to formally engage on the design of the SSO. Therefore, we encourage submissions on the proposed SSO tariff structure, including the timing of the free usage periods and our approach to estimating and reapportioning retailer costs.
We invite stakeholders to make written submissions on the DMO 8 draft determination by close of business, 9 April 2026.