The QBCC commercial building contract template - what it actually says

The QBCC publishes a free commercial building contract template, and it is one of the fairest documents we have analysed - which makes it useful in a way most subbies miss. It is not just a contract you can use; it is a benchmark you can point to. When a builder's template is harsher than the government regulator's own drafting, that gap is your negotiation anchor.

What the drafting says

Payment terms

25 business days — from receipt of the payment claim - sitting at the QLD statutory cap, not beyond it.

Set-off

Requires notice — the builder must tell you before deducting - the position only a minority of builder templates offer.

EOT notice window

15 days — roomy enough to actually prepare a claim - builder templates in the corpus run as short as 2.

Retention

5% — the market-median cap.

Termination for convenience

Present — even the regulator's template lets the principal end the job on notice - negotiate the exit account, not the clause.

Release deed before final payment

Not required — final payment is not conditioned on signing away your claims.

Figures read from publicly published documents analysed in the Australian Subcontract Index corpus, August 2026.

How it compares

Against the Index (55 real subcontracts): the QBCC template's notice-before-set-off puts it in the fairest 2% of the corpus - 98% of analysed contracts allow deduction without notice.

Its 15-day EOT window is more than seven times the 2-day median of the builder-authored templates we hold.

Payment terms match the corpus median (25 days) and respect the QLD statutory cap.

What to do about it

Use it as your counter-anchor

When a builder's terms are harsher, the argument is not "be nicer to me" - it is "the QBCC's own template gives notice before set-off and 15 days for EOT claims; I'm asking for what the regulator considers standard."

Don't assume the version you're handed is the template

Any party can amend a template before issuing it. If a builder says "it's just the QBCC contract", verify the drafting - especially the schedules.

The version you were handed is not the pattern. It's a specific document.

Templates get amended, schedules get filled in, and the risk lives in the details. The free scanner reads your actual document - every clause, benchmarked against real Australian subcontracts - in about 90 seconds.

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Common questions

Is the QBCC contract template free to use?

Yes - the QBCC publishes commercial building contract templates for free on qbcc.qld.gov.au. They are drafted for Queensland and reference the BIF Act's machinery.

Is the QBCC template fair to subcontractors?

It is one of the more balanced documents we have analysed: notice before set-off, a 15-day EOT window, payment at the statutory cap rather than beyond it, and no release deed conditioning final payment. It still contains termination for convenience, so read the exit provisions.

Can I ask a builder to use the QBCC template instead of their own?

You can ask, and occasionally on smaller commercial work it lands. More realistically, its value is as a benchmark: specific, regulator-endorsed positions you can ask the builder to match in their own document.

Keep reading

General information for Australian subcontractors, not legal advice. Patterns describe publicly published documents analysed in the Index corpus; the document you are handed governs, and only a reading of that specific document (or advice on it) can tell you your position. Written by Mat Kennedy at The Construction Contracts Co.