Australia's Rental Rules Say Your Bank Statement Can Be Redacted. Here's the Exact List.

Here is a request every Australian renter knows by heart. The agent emails on a Tuesday: "Please send through six months of bank statements for the application."

What an unredacted statement actually hands over is not your income. It is your BSB and account number, every merchant you have paid in half a year, your salary credit, the gambling app subscription you meant to cancel, the clinic you visited, the balance in the other account on the same page. An agent assessing your ability to pay the rent does not need any of that. In at least three Australian states, the regulator says so in writing, and in one of them it is literally the law.

This is the state-by-state breakdown, straight from the government pages, and then the exact field list for what to cover.

South Australia: the redaction is the law

In South Australia you do not have to argue. Since 1 July 2024, section 47B of the Residential Tenancies Act 1995 (SA) makes it an offence for a landlord or agent to request prescribed information from a prospective tenant, and regulation 8 of the Residential Tenancies Regulations 2025 lists what is prohibited. Item (f) bans a landlord or agent from requesting "a bank or other financial statement of the prospective tenant if the outgoing transactions and bank account number on the statement are not redacted or omitted."

The state government's own choosing a tenant page says the same thing in plain language: requests for financial information are limited to a bank or financial statement with outgoing transactions and bank account numbers redacted or removed, a payslip, or a document directly relating to financial capacity. The Law Handbook notes the maximum penalty is a fine of $20,000, expiable at $1,200. The prescribed application form caps agents at two documents per category, and anyone holding your application information must destroy it within 30 days of the successful tenant signing the agreement, unless you consent to keep it for up to six months.

Victoria: the form says "without transaction details"

Victoria went a different route and got to the same place. From 31 March 2026, rental providers and agents must use the prescribed Residential Rental Application form, and they can only ask for what that form permits. On Consumer Affairs Victoria's applying page, the financial documents an agent may request, capped at two, are: payslips from current or recent employment, a "bank statement (without transaction details)," or Centrelink payment statements or letters.

And the same page answers the question renters actually have:

a bank statement with daily transactions: you may need to provide a statement, but you can delete transactions that you feel should be kept private

That is the regulator telling you, in the middle of an official government page, that the copy you send is yours to trim. The identity side has the same cap: no more than two identity documents.

New South Wales: guidance with a 2Apply ruling behind it

NSW does not yet have the statutory ban. What it has is stronger than most states' guidance. The Fair Trading Commissioner's guidance on capacity to pay says:

in situations where a prospective tenant does not have payslips and instead provides bank statements, they should be encouraged to redact the daily transaction history and only provide evidence of savings

The same guidance says it is "best practice to only require a tenant to provide the minimum level of information necessary to assess capacity to pay." And last week's post covered the backdrop that gives that guidance real teeth: the Privacy Commissioner's 2Apply determination, which found a major rent tech platform collected far more than reasonably necessary, and did it by unfair means.

Underneath all three states is the national layer. The OAIC's tenancy guidance says that if a real estate agent needs a copy of a document carrying a government related identifier, "think about blanking out personal information the real estate agent doesn't need," and that if the agent uses or discloses such a document, including copying it, they must generally blank the government related identifier out. A Medicare number and a driver's licence number are on that list. That is why the redacting a driver's licence guide exists, and why the same logic applies to the statement: trim before it leaves your hands, because you cannot recall a copy.

The exact field list

An agent assessing capacity to pay needs to see one thing: that money comes in regularly, and that the rent is not a stretch. Here is the cut.

Cover these:

• BSB and bank account number
• Every outgoing transaction line
• Merchant and payee names
• Any other account balances on the page
• Card numbers, if shown
• Your full address and date of birth, if shown

Leave these visible:

• Your name
• The bank's name
• The statement period
• Incoming salary deposits
• The closing balance

That is the whole document, and it is all the document the agent needs. There is also a zero redaction option: ask your bank for a proof of balance letter. It shows the balance with no transaction list at all, which satisfies the Victorian "without transaction details" standard and is a perfectly reasonable capacity to pay document in NSW and SA. If the agent rejects it, ask why, in writing.

When the agent insists

You will get this at least once: "No, we need the full statement, that's our standard requirement." Here is a message that works, adapted to your state:

• SA: "Regulation 8 of the Residential Tenancies Regulations 2025 prohibits requesting a bank statement unless the outgoing transactions and account number are redacted or omitted. I can send the statement with those redacted, or a proof of balance letter. Please confirm which you prefer."
• VIC: "The prescribed application form lists a bank statement without transaction details, and Consumer Affairs Victoria says I can delete transactions I want to keep private. I can send the statement with outgoing transactions redacted, or a proof of balance letter."
• NSW: "The Fair Trading Commissioner's guidance says applicants providing bank statements should be encouraged to redact the daily transaction history and provide evidence of savings. I can send the statement redacted, or a proof of balance letter."

Note the pattern: you are not refusing, you are offering the compliant version. If they still insist on the unredacted statement, that insistence is now documented, and your next step is a complaint to the regulator. SA complaints go to Consumer and Business Services, Victoria to Rental Victoria, NSW to Fair Trading.

Why the copy you send is the problem

The regulatory point and the product point are the same point. Every unredacted statement you email becomes a copy in an agency file, a platform database, and a landlord's inbox, with a retention policy you cannot see. In South Australia the law will make them destroy it in 30 days. In the other states you have a privacy law and a regulator you can complain to, which is a weaker guarantee than a destruction deadline.

Redaction changes the input side. The identifiers are not in the file, so there is nothing to protect later. The agent receives a document that proves income the same way, with the account number and the transaction history simply not there. There is a difference between "we promise to keep your statement safe" and "your account number is not in the file." One is a promise from an organisation you have no leverage over. The other is a fact about the bytes.

That is the whole job, and it takes a few minutes: open the statement, cover the fields above, export. RedactID runs entirely in your browser, the file is read by your own device, and nothing is uploaded to a server, so the redaction step does not create a new copy of your statement somewhere else. There is a free daily allowance if you just need to clear one statement before the application deadline, and credit packs if you are in the thick of a move and sending documents to a dozen people. For the payslip that goes with the statement, the payslip guide covers the TFN, the deposit account number, and the super member number.

Related

• What to redact on a rental application
• Redact a payslip for an Australian rental application
• How we handle your files