For most Australian OnlyFans creators the choice turns less on the headline company tax rate than on two integrity rules. Income produced mainly by your own personal effort can be personal services income, which the PSI rules attribute back to you even when a company receives it, and money a private company pays or lends you outside wages, director's fees or dividends can be treated as an unfranked dividend under Division 7A. A sole trader is cheaper and simpler but personally liable for the business's debts; a company is a separate legal entity with its own tax return, longer record-keeping duties, ASIC obligations and public officeholder details.
Structure comparison table
Each row summarises the official page in the source column. Read the company column as what you take on, not only what you might save.
| Factor | Sole trader | Private company | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal status | You and the business are one and the same | A separate legal entity whose money belongs to it, even when you own every share | business.gov.au comparison |
| Income tax rate | Individual resident rates, with the tax-free threshold | For 2025-26, 25% for base rate entities and 30% otherwise, with no tax-free threshold | ATO company rates |
| Taking money out | Personal drawings from the business account | Wages, director's fees or dividends, each showing up on your own return; no personal drawings | business.gov.au comparison |
| Tax returns | Your individual return with a business and professional items schedule | A company return every year, plus your own individual return | business.gov.au tax differences |
| Record keeping | Financial records and returns kept for 5 years | Tax records for at least 5 years and financial records for at least 7 under the Corporations Act | business.gov.au comparison |
| Debts and liability | Personally liable, and assets in your name can be used to pay business debts | The company is generally liable, but directors are personally liable for PAYG withholding and super debts and can be exposed if it cannot pay its debts | business.gov.au comparison |
| Set-up and running costs | An ABN at no cost, plus a business name fee if you trade under a stage name | Name reservation and company registration fees, then an ASIC annual review fee each year | business.gov.au comparison |
| Director identity | Not required | Every director needs a director ID, which is free and applied for once | ABRS director ID |
| Capital gains on business assets | The discount method and small business concessions may apply | The discount method generally does not apply, though small business concessions are open to any structure | business.gov.au tax differences |
| Visible on public registers | ABN Lookup shows your legal name, entity type, state and postcode | Company extracts show each officeholder's name and date of birth; residential addresses left the website extracts on 2 February 2026 | ASIC officeholder details |
| Closing down | Cancel the ABN and any business name within 28 days of ceasing to trade | Formal deregistration so the company stops existing | business.gov.au comparison |
The rate row is where most comparisons stop, and it is the least reliable guide on its own. Profit kept in the company is taxed at the company rate, but whatever reaches you as wages, director's fees or dividends goes on your own return, so any saving depends on how much you leave in the company and how you take the rest, which our creator tax estimate worksheet can help you model on the personal side.
Personal services income: a screening checklist
The ATO defines personal services income as income that is mainly, meaning more than 50%, a reward for an individual's personal efforts or skills, and only individuals can earn it, either directly or through a company, partnership or trust. The rules exist to stop people who are not running a personal services business from diverting that income to an associated entity that pays less tax. The ATO's page on income that is not PSI lists three exits: income mainly from selling goods, income mainly generated by an asset, and income generated by a business structure with substantial assets, employees or goodwill.
- Is most of each payment for you personally? Fees for your appearance, performance or likeness in a brand campaign look like a reward for personal effort.
- Are you selling goods? Merchandise and physical products sit on the goods side of the line, even when your skill shaped them.
- Is an asset doing the earning? The ATO's software example treats payment for the right to use a program already created as asset income rather than PSI; ask whether licensing content you already made, or a subscription library, is comparable in your case.
- Is there a business structure behind the income? Arm's-length staff doing the principal work, real goodwill and substantial income-producing assets point away from PSI; a solo creator with an editor on call usually points the other way.
- Could you pass the results test? On the ATO's results test page, at least 75% of your PSI must come from work where you are paid for a specific result, supply your own equipment and must fix mistakes at your own cost.
- If not, could another test and the 80% rule work? The ATO's self-assessment page lets you pass the unrelated clients, employment or business premises test instead, provided less than 80% of your PSI comes from the same entity and its associates.
- Do you get work through an agency? The ATO says work obtained through an agency on an ongoing basis most likely will not pass the results test.
If the rules apply, the ATO says PSI earned through a company, partnership or trust must be attributed to you and deductions are limited, but the rules do not change your entitlement to an ABN or GST registration or whether you are carrying on a business. In other words, a company that cannot get past the PSI rules may add cost and paperwork while the income is still taxed as yours. If you plan to take on staff under either structure, our guide to contractors and employees for creators covers that side.
Division 7A: the rule that catches owner-run companies
Under the ATO's Division 7A overview, a payment or other benefit a private company provides to a shareholder or their associate can be treated as a dividend for tax purposes even if everyone calls it a loan, an advance, a gift or a written-off debt, and that deemed dividend is generally unfranked. It is not treated as a dividend if it is repaid, or converted into a complying loan, by the company's lodgment day for that year, and it does not apply to amounts already assessable to you, such as ordinary dividends or director's fees.
The ATO's list of Division 7A myths reads like a warning written for creators who run their life through one card. Company money is not your money, even when you are the only shareholder and director; private use of company assets can be caught; associates include relatives and a spouse; a journal entry made after the year ends will not offset a repayment you owed; and repaying a loan just before lodgment day, only to borrow the same amount again, may be disregarded. If you do move to a company, agree with your accountant how every personal cost will be paid before the first one appears on the company account.
Register privacy under each structure
A company is sometimes sold to creators as a privacy fix. ASIC's page on officeholder details says company extracts on its website show each officeholder's name and date of birth, that it removed residential addresses from current and historical extracts on 2 February 2026, that addresses may still appear in other documents the public can buy, and that it does not hide names or dates of birth. Suppressing a residential address requires a risk to your or your family's safety, and doing so on the companies register does not hide anything on the business names register.
A sole trader trades a different set of exposures: ABN Lookup lists your legal name, and a registered stage name links back to it. Our guides to what ABN Lookup shows and to business names and suppression requests cover both registers in detail.
Questions to ask an accountant before you switch
- Is my income personal services income, and which personal services business test, if any, would I pass on my current contracts?
- If the PSI rules applied, what would a company actually save once the income is attributed back to me?
- Would the company be a base rate entity, and which company rate would apply to the profit it keeps?
- How would I be paid, through wages, director's fees or dividends, and what is the combined tax on each route at my expected profit?
- How will we keep Division 7A away from personal spending and from any company assets I use privately?
- What will set-up, the annual review fee, bookkeeping and the company return cost each year, in dollars?
- Can my platform accounts, brand agreements and payment accounts move into the company's name, and what do the platforms' own terms require?
- What happens to equipment I already own, and to any write-offs I claimed on it, when the business moves across?
- Will the company need its own GST and PAYG withholding registrations, and super arrangements if it pays me wages?
- What will the ASIC and ABN registers show about me afterwards?
- Is a trust or another structure worth considering instead, and why or why not in my case?
- If the company stops making sense, what would deregistering it involve?
Insurance needs change too when a company holds the contracts; our business insurance checklist for creators lists the policies to review.
Limitations of this comparison
This compares two Australian structures in general terms from ATO, ASIC, ABRS and business.gov.au pages checked on 1 October 2026, and it does not cover trusts, partnerships or the costs any particular firm charges. Company rates are shown for 2025-26, the latest year the ATO's company rates page listed when checked. A US limited liability company is a different thing altogether, covered in our OnlyFans LLC guide, and the wider Australian obligations are in the OnlyFans tax overview for Australia. A structure change has tax, legal and personal consequences that are hard to reverse, so get advice from a registered tax agent, whose registration you can check on the Tax Practitioners Board register, and from a lawyer where contracts or liability are involved.