In Queensland you usually cannot end a commercial lease early just because you want to leave. You need a route your lease or the law allows, such as assigning the lease to a buyer, subletting, a break clause, or a surrender the landlord agrees to.
In Queensland you usually cannot end a commercial lease early just because you want to leave. You need a way out that your lease or the law allows. The main routes are to assign the lease to a buyer or new tenant, sublet the space, use a break clause, or agree a surrender with the landlord. Walking away is risky: the landlord can take the premises back and still claim unpaid rent and damages from you.
In this guide: Can you break a lease?; Options table; Selling your business; Assigning; Subletting; Surrender; Other exits; Walking away; Make good; Disputes; FAQs.
Queensland law as at September 2026.
Not on your own, unless your lease gives you that right. A commercial lease binds you for its full term. You can leave early through a break clause, a surrender the landlord agrees to, or an assignment. New retail tenants also have a short statutory exit in the first 6 months if the landlord’s disclosure was missing or defective.
Two Acts matter. The Property Law Act 2023 (Qld) (PLA) covers commercial leases generally, including retail ones. The Retail Shop Leases Act 1994 (Qld) (RSLA) adds rules for retail shop leases: premises in a retail shopping centre, or used wholly or mainly for a retail business listed in the regulation (ss 5A to 5C; Retail Shop Leases Regulation 2016 s 8, sch 1). Shops over 1,000 square metres and some other premises are excluded (s 5A(2), (3)). See whether the Retail Shop Leases Act applies to your lease.
Find these in your lease:
If your lease is silent on a point, the PLA’s standard terms may fill the gap (s 139, sch 1). Check with your lawyer whether they apply to a lease signed before 1 August 2025.
Each route needs something different: the landlord’s consent, its agreement, or only a written notice by a deadline. The table compares who must agree, whether you stay liable, and the Queensland law behind each route.
| Option | Who must agree | Do you stay liable afterwards? | Main law |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use a break clause | No one, if you meet every condition in the clause | Only as the lease says | The lease |
| Assign the lease (often with a business sale) | The landlord, if the lease needs consent. It must not unreasonably withhold it | Retail: you and your guarantor are released from the buyer’s defaults if your disclosure statement was proper. Other leases: depends on the lease and any signed release | PLA ss 142, 144; RSLA ss 22B, 50, 50A |
| Sublet all or part | The landlord, if the lease needs consent | Yes. You are still the tenant | PLA s 142(1)(b); RSLA ss 21B, 21C |
| Surrender by agreement | The landlord, which need not agree. Registering the surrender of a registered lease also needs the consent of the lease’s registered mortgagees and subtenants | Only as the surrender deed says | The deed; Land Title Act 1994 s 69(1), (2) |
| End a new retail lease for missing or defective disclosure | No one. Written notice within 6 months after entering into the lease | Yes, for anything owed before it ended | RSLA s 21F |
| Leave after a relocation or demolition notice (retail lease with that clause) | No one. Written notice within the Act’s time frame | Generally, for anything owed before it ended | RSLA ss 46C, 46E, 46H, 46J |
| Walk away | No one | Yes: unpaid rent, damages and make good. A guarantor may be pursued too | PLA ss 156, 159; sch 1 cl 11(2) |
Checked against Queensland law as at September 2026.
The landlord cannot stop you selling your business, but it controls whether your buyer gets the lease. Most leases need its consent to an assignment, and if yours is silent the standard terms may require it (PLA sch 1 cl 5). The landlord must not unreasonably withhold consent, and must give a written decision within 1 month after it has full details. This applies to older leases too, and cannot be contracted out of (PLA ss 142, 255(1)). Retail shop leases add disclosure steps with fixed deadlines.
When your lease needs consent to assign or sublet, PLA s 142 sets these steps:
The Act does not list what makes a refusal reasonable, so get advice before you respond to one.
For a retail shop lease, you and your guarantor are released from the buyer’s later defaults, but only if you gave the buyer a disclosure statement as the Act requires and it was not incomplete, false or misleading in an important way (RSLA s 50A). For other leases, the buyer is bound from the assignment, but you may stay liable if the buyer defaults, unless the lease or a signed release says otherwise.
For leases entered into after the PLA commenced on 1 August 2025, once your buyer assigns the lease on again, you and your guarantor are released from the next tenant’s breaches, whatever the lease says (PLA ss 144, 255(2)). Debts from before an assignment stay owed (s 143(6)(c)).
For help with the lease side of a sale, see commercial law advice.
You can offer the lease to a new tenant who takes over the rest of the term. The same consent rules apply. For a retail shop lease, so do the disclosure steps, with the 7-day clock running from the day you ask the landlord to consent (RSLA s 22B(1)(b)). Finding the incoming tenant, and paying any agent or advertising costs, is usually up to you.
Subletting lets another business use all or part of the premises while you stay the tenant, responsible to the landlord for the rent and the lease terms. If your lease needs consent to sublet, the same consent process applies.
For a retail shop, generally at least 7 days before the sublease is entered into, give the subtenant a draft sublease, the landlord’s disclosure statement (updated to no more than 2 months before) and a written statement of anything you know, or could reasonably know, that affects it. The landlord must give you its statement within 28 days of your request, and you pay its reasonable expenses (RSLA ss 21B, 21C).
A surrender is an agreement with the landlord to end the lease early. The landlord does not have to agree: Business Queensland says a landlord “is not obliged to release you”, but may negotiate. The terms often cover a payment, make good, your bond or bank guarantee, and a release for you and any guarantor. Record them in a signed deed. Registering the surrender of a registered lease needs the consent of the lease’s registered mortgagees and subtenants (Land Title Act 1994 s 69(2)).
A surrender payment can have GST and income tax effects for both sides. Ask your accountant before you sign.
Three less common routes can also end a lease early: a break clause, a new retail tenant’s right to end the lease when the landlord’s disclosure was missing or defective, and a landlord’s relocation or demolition notice under a retail shop lease. Each has strict conditions and time limits.
Follow its conditions exactly: the notice form, the date the notice is due, and any condition such as not being in breach of the lease.
You can generally end a retail shop lease by written notice given “within 6 months after the lessee enters into the lease” if the landlord did not meet its disclosure duties, or its disclosure statement was incomplete, false or misleading in an important way (RSLA s 21F). The lease is entered into on the earliest of signing, taking possession or first paying rent (s 11). For a defective (not missing) statement, you lose this right if the landlord acted honestly and reasonably and you are in substantially as good a position as if it had been correct (s 21F(4)). Earlier debts stay owed, and you may seek compensation (s 21F(5), (6)).
These rights apply only if your lease has a relocation clause (s 46C) or a demolition clause (s 46H).
Relocation. The landlord must give at least 3 months’ notice before the relocation day (s 46D(3)). You generally have 1 month after receiving it to end the lease by written notice, and it then ends on an agreed day or 3 months after the notice (s 46E). If you relocate instead, the landlord pays your reasonable relocation costs (s 46G).
Demolition. The landlord must give at least 6 months’ notice before the termination day (s 46I(3)). You can leave earlier on at least 1 month’s written notice (s 46J). Compensation can apply (s 46K).
If you stay on with the landlord’s consent after the term ends, with no agreed period, either side can end the lease by a termination notice given at least 20 business days before the termination day (PLA ss 172(b), 174). If a monthly periodic tenancy was agreed, for example in a holding over clause, the notice is at least 1 month, ending on the last day of a rental period (s 175(1)(b)). The lease can set other terms (s 171).
Walking away does not end your obligations. If the landlord reasonably believes you have given up possession, it can take the premises back without first giving you a notice to remedy breach (PLA s 156). It can still claim unpaid rent and damages for your breach (s 159), and it may call on your bond or bank guarantee. If you are thinking of leaving, talk to the landlord and get advice before you decide anything.
For a lease of more than 1 year, the landlord must give a notice to remedy breach in the approved form, with a reasonable period to fix the breach, before it can re-enter (PLA ss 150(2), 153). A copy goes to “designated persons” such as a guarantor, subtenant or mortgagee (ss 152, 154). Where the standard terms apply, the landlord can end the lease once rent is 1 month overdue, or another term has been breached for 2 months, subject to those notice rules. You still owe the unpaid rent (sch 1 cl 11).
A tenant, or a designated person such as a guarantor, can ask the court for relief, which can keep the lease alive (PLA s 160(1)). Time limits can be short: after a re-entry, the Act sets 1 month for some applications, and the court can extend it (s 160(3)(a), (4)). Get advice the day a notice arrives.
What the landlord can recover for the rest of the term, and how re-letting affects that, depends on the lease and case law. Business Queensland says a tenant who breaks a lease “may be liable for paying the rent owed from the day the lease is ended until the end of the agreed term of the lease”.
Closing the business or winding up the company does not by itself end a director’s personal guarantee. Take insolvency questions to an accountant or a registered insolvency practitioner.
Make good is your duty to hand the premises back in the condition your lease requires. If the lease does not set the standard, the standard terms may apply: return the premises in at least the same repair and condition as at the start, apart from reasonable wear and tear and damage from events such as fire, flood or storm. They also require you to remove your fixtures and repair any damage their removal causes.
These are PLA sch 1 cl 3 and 12. Items not removed within 1 month after the lease term ends are treated as abandoned; the landlord can dispose of them and recover its loss from you (cl 12(3), (4)). Your lease’s own make good clause takes priority (s 139(2)(b)).
Damages for breach of a repair obligation cannot exceed the lesser of the fall in value of the landlord’s interest and the actual cost of the repairs. None are payable if the tenant proves the premises have been or will be demolished, or structurally altered so that the repairs would have no value, or not enough to justify the cost (PLA s 178). In a retail shop lease, a clause requiring you to refurbish or refit is void unless the lease gives general details of the nature, extent and timing of the work (RSLA s 50B).
Prepare a condition report now, even if there was none at the start, and take dated photos. You may be able to negotiate a cash settlement instead of doing the work (Queensland Small Business Commissioner). Allow enough time to finish before the lease ends, and record any make good agreement in writing (Business Queensland).
For a retail shop lease, either side can lodge a dispute notice with the Queensland Small Business Commissioner for mediation (RSLA s 55). If it is not settled, many retail disputes can then go to QCAT (the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal). Do not wait long after the lease ends: a referral or application to QCAT generally needs the lease to have ended no more than 1 year before the dispute notice was lodged (ss 63, 64). Disputes about other commercial leases generally go to the courts.
Mediation is at least 7 days after the Commissioner’s notice (s 56(2)). QCAT cannot decide the amount of rent or outgoings (s 103). The parties share the lodgement fee equally (Retail Shop Leases Regulation 2016 s 9). The Commissioner can also mediate some small business disputes about other leases (s 97(1)).
No Queensland Act sets a standard fee or penalty for ending a commercial lease early, though your lease may set its own. The cost depends on the route: rent to the end of the term if you walk away, a negotiated surrender payment, the landlord’s reasonable assignment costs, and make good. Get the figures in writing before you decide.
Not automatically. Financial hardship does not by itself give you a right to end a commercial lease. Talk to your landlord early: Business Queensland notes a landlord may be willing to negotiate if you face serious financial difficulties. A surrender, sublease or assignment may be worth raising, and the Queensland Small Business Commissioner can help, including through mediation.
Usually, once you have met your obligations. Business Queensland says that if you have “reasonably fulfilled” your make good obligations, the landlord should give it back. If the lease allows, the landlord may keep some or all of it for unpaid rent or make good work. No Queensland law requires a bond paid directly to a landlord to be lodged with a government body.
For a retail shop lease, usually yes. Unless it is a major lessee, the buyer must give the landlord a legal advice report signed by a lawyer before the assignment (RSLA s 22D(2); Retail Shop Leases Regulation 2016 s 7).
For a retail shop lease, the landlord can recover its reasonable costs of investigating the buyer and its reasonable expenses of the assignment and consents, but not key money or a payment for your business’s goodwill (RSLA s 39). For other leases, check what your lease says. If you believe a condition is unreasonable, unnecessary or onerous, you can ask the court to decide (PLA s 142(8)).
Selling your business, or need to get out of a lease? Call Catton Roderick Lawyers on 1300 673 792 or email info@cattonroderick.com.au. Dr Darren Catton, our principal, acts on commercial and retail shop leases, including assignments and surrenders. We have offices in Caboolture and Redcliffe, and see clients in Brisbane and Birtinya (Sunshine Coast) by appointment.
Dr Catton’s doctoral thesis (SJD, QUT, 2017) was on retail lease legislation, and he is a member of the Queensland Law Society Property Law Committee.
You can also send us an enquiry through our contact page.
This page is general information about Queensland law as at September 2026. It is not legal advice about your situation. Time limits apply, so please get advice about your own circumstances.
This article is general information about Queensland law as at September 2026. It is not legal advice. Get advice about your own situation.
Last reviewed: 27 September 2026
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