Small Business Debt Helpline: what happens when you ring, and what to say

The Small Business Debt Helpline is 1800 413 828. It’s a free, confidential line where qualified financial counsellors help owners whose business can’t keep up with its debts. Ring Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm Sydney time. Tell them who you owe, how much, and what’s due next. They’ll help you sort priorities, can speak to creditors for you, and point you to the right next step.

That’s the short answer. The rest of this guide is about the call itself: what to say in the first minute, what they’ll ask, what to have in front of you, and how it fits with ringing the ATO or a lender.

Who runs the Helpline, and is it really free?

It is. The line is run by Financial Counselling Australia, the peak body for financial counsellors, with Australian Government funding. On 11 February 2026 the Government announced $8 million to extend the Helpline and the NewAccess for Small Business Owners mental health program for another 12 months from 1 July 2026.

Financial counsellors don’t sell anything. They don’t earn commission and they don’t lend money. That’s what makes the call different from ringing a “debt solutions” company you found in an ad.

You won’t be the only caller with a tax bill

If embarrassment is what’s stopping you, the numbers may help. Financial Counselling Australia reported on 31 August 2026 that:

• a record 7,237 small businesses sought help in 2025–26, up 22% on the year before;
• 66% of cases involved a debt to the ATO;
• bank and non-bank business loans made up 25% of the debt owed;
• 74% of contacts were about managing debt;
• 64% of cases were linked to a change in the owner’s personal situation.

The counsellor on the other end hears your situation every day. Tax debt, a lender chasing arrears, a marriage break-up that wrecked the books: none of it will shock them.

Business debt or personal debt: which number do you ring?

Ringing the wrong line wastes a morning. Use this:

Your debts are mostly…	Ring	Number	Hours
Business: ATO, BAS, business loans, suppliers, lease arrears	Small Business Debt Helpline	1800 413 828	Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm Sydney time
Personal: credit cards, car loan, household bills, personal tax	National Debt Helpline	1800 007 007	Weekdays, 9:30am–4:30pm
Both (common for sole traders)	Start with the Small Business line	1800 413 828	As above

Sole traders often have business and personal money tangled together. That’s fine. Tell the counsellor about all of it, so they can see the whole picture.

What time is that where you are?

The Helpline’s site gives its hours as 9am to 5:30pm AEDT. Read that as Sydney and Melbourne time. While daylight saving runs (until early April 2027), here’s what it means locally:

You’re in	Lines open	Lines close
NSW, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania	9:00am	5:30pm
Queensland	8:00am	4:30pm
South Australia	8:30am	5:00pm
Northern Territory	7:30am	4:00pm
Western Australia	6:00am	2:30pm

West Australians lose the afternoon. If you’re a Perth tradie, the call has to happen before lunch, or between jobs on a morning off. Some government pages give the hours in AEST rather than AEDT, so if you’re calling right on the edge of the window, allow a margin. Our best time to call planner does the same conversion for our own line.

What to have on the desk before you dial

You don’t need perfect paperwork. You need enough to answer “who do you owe, and how much?” without hanging up to check. Ten minutes with your bank app and your inbox usually covers it.

• A one-page debt list. For each debt: who it’s with, the rough balance, the regular repayment and whether it’s up to date. Our page on listing existing business debts shows a simple layout. The same list works for a lender later.
• Your ATO position. The balance owing, any payment plan, and your last lodged BAS. If the ATO has rung you and you’re not sure it was really them, read our guide on checking whether an ATO call is real before you act on it.
• Any letters with a date on them. Demands, default notices, statutory demands, garnishee notices, court papers. Have the dates ready. These set the order of everything else.
• Roughly what comes in. Monthly takings or turnover, even a guess, and anything big due to you.
• What’s personally at risk. Personal guarantees, a director penalty notice, or a loan secured over your home. This matters more than most owners realise.
• A pen. Write down the counsellor’s name and any reference number.

What to say in the first minute

The hardest part is the opening line. Keep it short and factual. The counsellor will take it from there.

“Hi, I run a small landscaping business in Geelong. I’m behind on a few things and I don’t know which to deal with first. I owe the ATO about $48k, I’m two repayments behind on an equipment loan, and a supplier’s sent a final notice. I’ve got about $15k a month coming in. I need help working out what to do.”

Illustrative example only.

That gives them the business, the debts, the money coming in and what you want. If you can’t get through it without your voice cracking, that’s normal. Say “this is hard to talk about” and keep going.

If English isn’t your first language, or you’re Deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment, you can bring in an interpreter or use the National Relay Service. Our page on calling with an interpreter or the NRS explains how those calls work.

What happens on the call

Every call is different, but owners usually describe a similar shape.

1. The counsellor listens. They’ll ask what the business does, how long it’s been trading and what went wrong.
2. They sort the urgent from the loud. The creditor ringing most often isn’t always the one that matters most. A court date, a garnishee or a threat to your home goes ahead of an angry supplier.
3. They look at options. The Helpline says its counsellors can help you understand your loan contract, talk to lenders and creditors for you, negotiate instalment arrangements and ask for a hardship variation. They can also point you to grants, legal help or emotional support.
4. They tell you what happens next. It might be a follow-up call, a referral, or a short list of calls for you to make.

Before you hang up, ask: “What should I do first, before the end of this week?” Write the answer down.

The questions to ask back

Counselling is a two-way conversation. Good questions to ask:

• “Which of these debts could cause the most damage soonest?”
• “Is my house or anything personal at risk here?”
• “Can you contact the ATO or my lender for me, or should I make that call?”
• “Should I be talking to an accountant or an insolvency practitioner?”
• “What shouldn’t I do this week?”

That last one often gets the most useful answer.

Watch out for paid “debt fixers”

Search for business debt help and you’ll find firms offering to make the problem go away for a fee. Some are legitimate professionals. Some are not. The ATO’s page on insolvency advice and illegal phoenix activity warns about advisers who:

• get in touch out of the blue after a creditor has started court action;
• charge a fee based on a percentage of your debt;
• suggest moving assets to someone else for nothing;
• claim to know a liquidator who’ll protect your assets.

If a stranger rings offering to sort out your debts, hang up and call the Helpline instead. The free service comes first. Then go to a registered professional for anything it can’t cover.

Counsellor first, or lender first?

Both calls have a place. They answer different questions.

Ring the counsellor first if you don’t yet know what you owe in total, if there’s court action or a demand with a deadline, if your home is on the line, or if you’re thinking about closing the business. They’ll help you see the whole picture before you take on anything new.

Ring a lender when the picture is clear and the problem is the shape of the debt, not the size of the business. A common case: a trading business with steady revenue, carrying an ATO balance and a couple of short-term loans with daily or weekly repayments. ATO interest charges incurred from 1 July 2025 are no longer tax deductible, so carrying tax debt costs more than it used to. Combining several debts into one, or clearing a tax balance, can sometimes bring repayments back to something the business can carry. Our page on what to say when you owe the ATO covers that call.

If you’re already worried about this month’s repayment, our guide on calling your lender before you miss it has a script. If restructuring sounds like your situation, you can check your options here without it touching your credit file.

Many owners do both in the same week, and that’s often the smartest order. The counsellor helps you decide what’s realistic. The lender tells you what’s possible.

After the call: a short checklist

• Write down the counsellor’s name, date and any reference number
• Note the first three actions they suggested, in order
• Diary any deadlines on letters or notices
• Make the creditor calls you agreed to make, and confirm any arrangement in writing
• Book a follow-up call if they offered one
• Update your one-page debt list as things change

Ready for the lender conversation? Here’s where we come in

A good counselling call often ends with a clear head and one question: could the debts be put into a shape the business can carry? That’s the conversation we have every day, including with owners carrying ATO debt, arrears or more short-term loans than they’d like.

You can tell us what’s going on in about 60 seconds. Asking won’t leave a mark on your credit file, because there’s no credit check when you first enquire. Your details stay with us. We don’t send them to a pile of lenders, so your phone won’t light up with strangers. A real specialist reads what you’ve sent and rings you to talk it through. Please fill the form in accurately, including the ATO balance, any arrears and what the counsellor suggested, so we can match you to something that genuinely eases the pressure. Rather talk first? Call 03 4059 1829, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Melbourne time.

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