The most common thing we hear from a new client is that they have spent an evening on Google and come away with a subscription offer, three consultants' landing pages and no clear list of programs. The list exists. It is spread across a handful of official sites, all free, most with email alerts. This is the order to search them and what each one will and will not show you.
1. GrantConnect for Commonwealth grants
GrantConnect at grants.gov.au is the Australian Government's grants information system. It centralises publication of current grant opportunities, grant awards and forecast opportunities, and it describes itself as a free service for all potential applicants.[1] Three things on it matter:
- Grant opportunities are the rounds open now, with guidelines and closing dates.[1]
- Forecast opportunities are programs agencies expect to release, with limited detail and an estimated release period.[1] This is the single most useful free signal in Australian grant-seeking, because it tells you what is coming before it opens.
- Grant awards list who received what, reported since the end of 2017.[1] Reading the awards for a program tells you the size and type of organisation that actually wins it.
Anyone can register to receive notification of new Commonwealth opportunities matched to their interests as they are published.[2] Set that up once and stop searching for federal rounds by hand.
2. The business.gov.au finder for the cross-government view
The Grants and Programs finder on business.gov.au is a free guided search across grants, funding and support programs from across government.[3] It filters by state or territory and regional location, by industry, by business structure including not-for-profit, by support type and objective, by business stage and by status, with a separate flag for Indigenous-specific programs.[3] It is the fastest place to confirm whether anything at all exists for a given combination of state, industry and purpose.
3. Your state's finder
Queensland runs a whole-of-government Grants Finder covering grants, rebates, loans, subsidies and training.[4] Business Queensland separately lists the business grant programs and publishes a small and family business grants schedule.[5]
New South Wales has a single grants and funding search for business, project and community programs, filterable by status, recipient type, category and postcode.[6] Victoria's whole-of-government grants and programs page filters by applicant type, topic and status.[7] Other states publish equivalents; the pattern is the same, and the state site is where rebates and industry-specific programs usually appear before they reach any national listing.
4. Your council
Councils publish their own grant programs and they are frequently the best fit for a club or a small community project. Sunshine Coast Council, for example, lists major and minor grants, help and resources for applicants, funding outcomes, and a grants and funding email list.[8] Brisbane City Council publishes community, environment, creative and history grants, a youth climate fund and sponsorship.[9] If your council is not on this list, search its site for the word grants; almost every local government has a page.
5. Tender portals, which are a different thing
A tender is paid contract work, not funding, but it turns up in the same searches. AusTender publishes Australian Government business opportunities, annual procurement plans and contracts awarded, registration is free, and a registration can include your area of business interest to receive automatic email notifications.[10] Queensland Government tenders appear on QTenders, with a free supplier profile, and Queensland is moving to a new procurement platform.[11]
How to run the search in an hour
- Register for GrantConnect notifications and read the forecast opportunities list.[2]
- Run the business.gov.au finder for your state, industry and structure and note everything open or coming soon.[3]
- Repeat on your state finder and your council's grants page.[4][6][7][8]
- For each candidate, open the official guidelines and check three things: eligible applicant type, eligible activity, and closing date.
- Discard anything where you fail the applicant type. That usually removes most of the list.
The free tools find programs. What they cannot do is tell you whether your particular business, project and timing fit, or whether the effort of applying is worth the likely outcome. That judgement is where time goes, and it is the reason a business might pay for help while never needing to pay for the list.
All portals were checked on 7 September 2026. Program listings change daily; use the sites, not this article, as the source of truth for what is open.