Servicing a portable fire extinguisher costs about A$8 to A$30 a unit on a six monthly cycle, with a site minimum near A$55 to A$180 a visit, so a small venue spends roughly A$310 to A$810 a year on fire compliance.
Skai Solutions builds phone agents for Australian and New Zealand venues, so we spend our days inside operators' running costs. This page gives you the market rates, the servicing schedule, and the record keeping rule that carries a far bigger number than the invoice does.
The servicing itself is cheap. The figures below are from an independent Australian cost guide, Melbourne rates verified October 2026, all excluding GST. They are market rates rather than a quote, and a regional venue will pay more for the visit and the same for the unit.
| Item | Frequency | Rate, ex GST |
|---|---|---|
| Portable fire extinguisher service | 6 monthly | A$8 to A$30 per unit |
| Site minimum, first 5 to 6 units | per visit | A$55 to A$180 |
| Fire hose reel service | 6 monthly | A$10 to A$25 per unit |
| Exit and emergency light testing | 6 monthly and annual | A$8 to A$22 per fitting |
| Small site flat visit, lights | per visit | A$110 to A$250 |
| Annual essential safety measures report, small commercial | annual | A$200 to A$450 |
Read the site minimum line twice, because it is where the quotes diverge. Most contractors price a visit, not a unit. Four extinguishers on a single site costs about the same as six, and the saving from having fewer extinguishers is close to nothing. If you are tempted to pull one off the wall to cut the bill, you are saving perhaps A$16 a year and losing the only thing that matters in a fat fire.
Here is the arithmetic for a single storey cafe or restaurant with four extinguishers, a fire blanket, one hose reel and six exit and emergency fittings. This is our own worked example built from the rates above, not a published figure.
Call it roughly A$310 to A$810 for the year at the low end of scope, and about A$1,200 once the lights are on a separate contractor and the venue sits over two levels. The guide puts a small office at A$600 to A$1,200 a year, which is the same order of magnitude. For context, that is less than a single month of the power bill on our restaurant electricity cost page and a rounding error against the lines on our restaurant overhead costs page.
So the cost is not the story. The exposure is.
This is the part almost nothing written for hospitality carries, and it is eight months old. The NSW Building Commission states that AS 1851-2012 routine servicing applies to all class 1b and class 2 to class 9 buildings, new and existing. A restaurant or cafe is class 6. Existing buildings had to start complying from 13 February 2026. New buildings comply from the date of the occupation certificate.
Three obligations come with it, and each one is a thing an inspector can ask for on the spot:
The penalties the Building Commission names are A$33,000 for an individual and A$66,000 for a corporation. Against servicing that costs a few hundred dollars a year, that is the entire argument. The money is not in the service. It is in holding the paperwork that proves the service happened.
Victoria runs the same idea under a different name. The Building and Plumbing Commission says essential safety measures apply to all buildings apart from a house or outbuilding, with the requirements in Part 15 of the Building Regulations 2018. The owner must prepare an annual essential safety measures report, and may authorise an agent such as the maintenance contractor to complete it.
The record rule is the one to note. In Victoria the owner must keep records of maintenance checks, safety measures and repair work, and make them available within 24 hours of notice. Twenty four hours is not long enough to chase a contractor who changed hands two years ago, which is the practical reason to keep your own copy of every service sheet rather than relying on theirs.
The listed measures include fire extinguishers, exit signs, emergency lighting, sprinklers, detection and alarm systems, smoke control and emergency power. Non compliance can draw an infringement notice and fine from council or the fire authority, or prosecution. Other states run their own version of the same structure, so the shape of the obligation travels even where the form and the fee do not.
Exit signs and emergency lights are the cheapest line in the table above and the one most often left off a service contract, so it is worth separating out. Three things decide what you owe here: the interval, the record, and who is on the hook for both.
The interval. Routine testing runs on a six monthly and annual cycle, which is what the market rates in the table price against. The interval and the discharge duration themselves sit in AS/NZS 2293.2, a paid standard, and this page does not quote figures out of a document it cannot link you to. What is linkable is the servicing duty that sits over it: in New South Wales the Building Commission requires AS 1851-2012 routine servicing across class 1b and class 2 to class 9 buildings, and a restaurant or cafe is class 6. In Victoria the essential safety measures regime names exit signs and emergency lighting explicitly among the measures an owner must report on annually.
The record. This is the part that costs people money. NSW requires records kept in the manner AS 1851-2012 prescribes for at least seven years, with a hard copy logbook left on site at the completion of testing. Victoria requires maintenance records to be produced within 24 hours of notice. A fitting that was tested and has no record is, for enforcement purposes, a fitting that was not tested, and the NSW penalties are A$33,000 for an individual and A$66,000 for a corporation.
Who is liable. Both regimes write the duty onto the building owner, not the tenant. If you lease your premises, the lease decides whether that duty has been passed to you, and in a single tenancy venue it very often has. Read the clause before you either pay for testing you do not owe or skip testing you do. If the building is multi tenanted and nobody can tell you who holds the logbook, that is the answer: nobody is doing it.
The one calculation worth running. The rates in the table are A$8 to A$22 a fitting, or a flat A$110 to A$250 for a small site visit. Those two cross over at about 11 to 14 fittings at the midpoints, so a venue with six exit and emergency fittings is better off on the per fitting rate and a venue with twenty is better off on the flat visit. Contractors quote whichever suits them, and almost nobody checks which side of the line their venue sits on. Count your fittings, including the ones in the cool room corridor and above the back door, then ask for the other quote.
Ask your servicing contractor to specify against the risk rather than ordering a wall of red. A deep fryer and a chargrill are a cooking oil and fat risk, which is its own fire class and is not covered by a standard dry chemical unit. A fire blanket at the pass and the right unit beside the fryer are the two items that earn their place in a kitchen, and the blanket is the cheapest item on the invoice.
We are not a fire contractor and we will not tell you what to hang on your wall. What we will tell you is that the selection is a standards question with a right answer, so get it in writing from the accredited practitioner who signs your statement, and keep that document with the logbook. If the quote does not say which standard the selection was made under, ask.
The same discipline applies to the other recurring compliance jobs a kitchen carries. The kitchen exhaust cleaning page covers canopy and duct cleaning, which is the other fire related service with a schedule attached, and the pest control page covers the third one.
It can, and this is the quiet cost of letting it slide. An insurer assessing a fire claim will look for evidence that the essential safety measures were maintained. A missing logbook is not automatically a declined claim, but it is the first thing that turns a straightforward settlement into a long one. Our restaurant insurance cost page covers what the cover itself runs to and what it tends to exclude.
If you are fitting out now rather than running already, the fire gear is a line in the build and the certifier will call it out before you open. The cafe fit out cost page has the rest of that budget.
Whether you also need a wet chemical system over the cooking line is a separate question with a surprising answer, and it is worked through clause by clause on whether a fire suppression system is required in a commercial kitchen.
If you are a two person takeaway in a shopping centre tenancy where the landlord holds the fire system and issues the statement for the whole centre, your obligation may be limited to the extinguishers inside your own tenancy. Ask the centre management for a copy of the building statement before you engage a second contractor to duplicate it. Plenty of small tenancies pay twice because nobody asked.
And if a contractor arrives unannounced, services units you did not ask about and leaves an invoice, you are allowed to say no. Unsolicited fire equipment servicing is a known problem in hospitality. Book your own schedule, know your own dates, and treat a surprise visit as a sales call.
Compliance is a fixed cost that does not care how busy you were. The only line that moves is revenue, and the cheapest revenue in a venue is the booking that rings while the pass is on fire, figuratively speaking, and nobody picks up. Skai Solutions answers every call on the first ring, takes the booking and sends it through, so the Saturday that costs you a compliance invoice is also the Saturday that fills next Friday.
If your phone mostly carries suppliers and contractors rather than bookings, a basic message taking plan is the right buy and it is not us. If it carries bookings during service, read what an AI receptionist for a restaurant actually does and judge it against what a missed Saturday costs you. Setup takes five days.
How much does it cost to service a fire extinguisher in Australia?
About A$8 to A$30 per unit for the six monthly service, with a site minimum of roughly A$55 to A$180 covering the first five or six units, ex GST, on Melbourne rates verified October 2026. Most contractors price the visit rather than the unit.
How often do fire extinguishers have to be serviced?
Routine servicing under AS 1851-2012 runs on a six monthly cycle for portable extinguishers, with longer interval services at one, five, ten and twenty five years depending on the equipment. Your accredited practitioner sets the schedule against the standard.
Does a restaurant need an annual fire safety statement?
In New South Wales, yes, where the building has essential fire safety measures. It must confirm each measure has been inspected and assessed by an accredited practitioner. Victoria runs the equivalent as an annual essential safety measures report under Part 15 of the Building Regulations 2018.
What is the penalty for not complying with AS 1851-2012 in NSW?
The NSW Building Commission names fines of A$33,000 for individuals and A$66,000 for corporations. Existing class 1b and class 2 to 9 buildings had to start complying from 13 February 2026.
How long do I have to keep fire servicing records?
At least seven years in New South Wales, in the manner prescribed by AS 1851-2012, with a hard copy logbook left on site at the completion of testing. In Victoria the owner must be able to produce maintenance records within 24 hours of notice.
What does fire compliance cost a small cafe for a full year?
On the rates above, roughly A$310 to A$810 a year for a single storey venue with four extinguishers, a hose reel, six exit and emergency fittings and the annual report. The same guide puts a small office at A$600 to A$1,200 a year.