RTA Web Services: how Queensland bonds are lodged and refunded online

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Kooky

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Queensland's rental bonds sit in one system. The money is held by the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA), the State body that had 631,805 bonds on its books in 2024-25, and it comes back out at the end of the tenancy on a request made by the tenant or by the property manager or owner. For most of the sector that exchange no longer involves a paper form. In its summary of the 2024-25 year, published on 30 September 2025, the RTA said 79.9 per cent of all bond and tenancy forms were submitted through digital channels.

The digital channel is a set of online forms the RTA calls RTA Web Services. It is a government service, not a commercial product, and its users did not choose it: tenants directed to it by an email, owners who manage one property, and agencies that lodge many bonds at a time. This guide explains how the service works as the RTA describes it on its own pages: the login, online lodgement, the refund request and its fast track, the change of bond contributors, what still has to be done on a paper form, and the figures the RTA publishes. The rules on bonds themselves, such as the maximum amount and the grounds for a claim, are a separate subject. This guide is about the machinery.

RTA, summary of its Annual Report 2024-25, published 30 September 2025; RTA page on Online Bond Refund.

What RTA Web Services covers

The RTA's page for the service lists seven online services and two explanatory pages, one on the login and one on the email addresses the system needs. All of them are reached through one portal.

The list shows what the service is and what it is not. It handles money going in, money coming out, and the record of who is entitled to it. It does not hold the tenancy agreement, the condition reports or the rent ledger. Those stay with the parties. What the RTA holds online is the bond record: an address, a bond number, the amount, the names of the people who contributed, and the managing party.

The login: Queensland Digital Identity

Nobody uses the service anonymously. The RTA's page states that customers now need a Queensland Digital Identity, or QDI, to access RTA Web Services. In a notice published on 7 April 2025 and updated on 15 April 2025, the RTA said QDI became active on 6 April 2025 and replaced the earlier QGov identity platform.

The notice describes QDI as a digital identity verification system used to authenticate a person and secure their information when they use Queensland Government services, and as a substitute for a signature on paper. That phrase explains why the login matters. On a paper Form 4, a tenant's signature is the proof that the tenant agreed to the split of the bond. Online, the verified login takes its place.

According to the same notice, a user logging in to RTA Web Services after the change had to create a QDI or verify their identity again, accept the QDI terms and conditions, and register for multi-factor authentication. The RTA said QDI accepts a wider range of documents than the earlier platform, including international identification. The notice does not list the documents or say how many are needed, and this guide does not either.

One recommendation in the notice is aimed squarely at agencies. The RTA advises creating a QDI with a personal email address that only the user has access to, and avoiding a shared or work address. A property manager's QDI is therefore the manager's own identity, not the office's.

The office is identified separately. The RTA's pages on lodgement, refunds and contributor changes all say that an organisation or joint lessors need their RTA ID number to use the service, and the refund page adds that an individual lessor does not need one. For lodgement, a managing party also gives the main registered email address used for its business communications with the RTA. Two things are checked, then: who the person at the keyboard is, through QDI, and which lessor or agency they are acting for, through the RTA ID.

There is a fallback. The RTA's page says a person who cannot verify their digital identity through QDI can use the paper forms or phone the RTA for assistance. The paper route was not closed when the login changed.

Lodging a bond online

The RTA's page on Online Bond Lodgement says the service is open to tenants, property managers and property owners. That is worth noting, because lodgement is often thought of as the agency's job. The system allows either side to do it.

Whoever starts needs a QDI login, the address of the rental property, the date of the last rent increase, the names and email addresses of all the bond contributors, and a way to pay. A managing party adds its RTA ID. A tenant who lodges should have the managing party's details to hand.

The email addresses are a design choice with practical consequences. The RTA asks for a unique email address for each contributor, which means two tenants in a couple cannot share one inbox for this purpose. The address is how the RTA reaches each person later, at the end of the tenancy, when a refund request needs an answer within hours. An address typed wrongly at lodgement is a problem that surfaces a year or two afterwards.

Payment is by credit or debit card or by BPAY, and the RTA gives its BPAY biller code as 5793. The two methods behave differently. A card payment generates a receipt in real time. In both cases the official record follows: once the payment has cleared, the RTA sends an Acknowledgement of Rental Bond by email, and that email carries the bond number. The bond number is the key to everything that follows. It is asked for in a refund request, in a bond increase and in a change of contributors.

A bond increase goes through the same form. The user selects the increase option and gives the existing bond number.

Bulk lodgement and bond search: the agency tools

Two of the seven services are built for offices and not for individuals.

Online Bulk Bond Lodgement lets a user lodge or increase several bonds and pay for them in one transaction. The RTA's lodgement page says it is available to organisations and joint lessors and is paid by BPAY. For an agency that signs a number of tenancies in a week, it replaces a string of separate payments with one.

Online Bond Search lets property managers and joint lessors view, search and download bond lists. In practice this is the agency's window on what the RTA holds against its RTA ID: the bonds, as the RTA records them. An agency's own software will have its own list of bonds received. The bond search is the means of comparing that list with the RTA's.

Requesting a refund online

The RTA's page on Online Bond Refund says a request can be submitted by either the managing party or a bond contributor. It describes a bond contributor as generally a tenant who paid a share of the bond, or someone who paid on a tenant's behalf.

Each side is asked for slightly different things. A tenant needs a QDI login, the bond number, the handover or vacate date, an email address for every tenant, and Australian bank account details. A managing party needs a QDI login, its RTA ID where it is an organisation or joint lessors, the bond number, the handover or vacate date, an email address for every tenant, and the details of any claim on the bond, with reasons and amounts.

Three limits are built into the form.

The first is timing. The RTA says a refund request should be made when the tenancy agreement has ended, and the service will not accept a request where the handover or vacate date is in the future. A refund cannot be queued in advance of the keys coming back.

The second is scope. The online form handles a full refund at the end of a tenancy and a partial refund that follows a rent reduction. For other partial refunds, such as one tenant claiming an individual share, the RTA directs users to the paper form.

The third is where the money can go. Refunds are paid only into an Australian bank account. The RTA's general page on bond refunds adds that no cheques are issued.

The refund page also carries a warning that applies to every form in the system: it is an offence for a person knowingly to give the RTA documents that contain false or misleading information.

How the fast track works

The fast track is the part of the refund service that gives it its speed, and it is simply a way of collecting everyone's agreement by email. The RTA's general page on bond refunds explains the idea. Where the tenant and the property manager or owner agree on how the bond is to be divided, one of them starts the request online, and the others are notified by email and can approve it in the system.

The refund page gives the detail. When a request is submitted, the other parties receive a Bond Refund Fast Track request by email and have 48 hours to respond. The RTA states the deadline precisely: 11:00pm on the second day after the request is submitted. It asks whoever submits to make sure everyone listed on the bond knows the request is coming.

There is one case in which no reply is needed at all. Where the managing party asks for 100 per cent of the bond to go back to the original contributors, in amounts that match the lodgement, the RTA says the bond is paid automatically, without the contributors having to agree. The logic is plain: the only party with something to claim has claimed nothing.

On timing after agreement, the RTA's general page says it is committed to processing an agreed refund on the day it is received, and asks people to allow up to 3 business days for the funds to reach the bank account. The two periods measure different things. The first is the RTA's handling. The second is the banking system.

When nobody answers, or someone disagrees

The 48-hour window is short, and the system does not treat silence as consent. If a party disagrees or does not respond in time, the RTA issues a notice of claim. According to the refund page, the notice goes by email, with a PDF attachment for a person who does not have QDI access, or by post.

The person who receives a notice of claim has 14 days to dispute it. The refund page speaks of 14 clear days, and the general page says the step is a dispute resolution request, Form 16, submitted within 14 days. Online Tenancy Dispute Resolution, one of the seven services, is the digital way to make that request. If no dispute is lodged in the period, the refund is paid automatically in line with the original request.

This is the point at which the design favours whoever moved first. The first request sets the default. A tenant who requests the full bond on the day of handover, or an agency that lodges a claim that afternoon, has defined what will be paid if the other side does nothing for a fortnight. Each side therefore has a reason to read the email when it arrives.

Where a dispute is lodged, the RTA's general page says the undisputed amount is released and only the disputed amount is held. An RTA officer then approaches the parties to start dispute resolution, a service the refund page describes as free and confidential. The page gives an average wait of 2 to 3 weeks for dispute resolution and says this can change with demand.

A managing party that makes a claim has a duty that runs alongside the online process. The RTA says a property manager or owner must give the tenant supporting evidence within 14 days of making a bond claim, and its general page gives the maximum penalty for failing to do so as 20 penalty units. The web service records the claim and its amounts. The evidence itself passes between the parties.

Changing bond contributors online

Share houses and couples change during a tenancy, and the bond record has to follow. Online Change of Bond Contributors is the service for it. The RTA's page says the request can be started by the property manager or owner, or by a bond contributor who has verified their identity through QDI. A person who wants to be added but is not yet on the bond cannot start it.

The page is specific about whose agreement is needed, and the list is shorter than many expect.

• A contributor being removed from the bond must agree.
• A contributor transferring part or all of their share must agree.
• An existing contributor whose amount stays the same or goes up does not need to agree.
• A new contributor being added does not need to agree.
• The property manager or owner does not need to agree where a tenant submitted the request.
• A tenant who is not listed as a contributor does not need to agree.

The rule behind the list is that agreement is asked only of people who are giving something up. The RTA emails the affected contributors, who have 14 days to respond. If all agree, a confirmation is sent and the request is processed. If anyone disagrees or does not respond, the request is cancelled, not escalated. Unlike a refund, a contributor change has no default outcome.

Changing the bond record is not the same as changing the tenancy. The RTA's page on changes of tenant says tenants who want to change who is on the agreement need the written permission of the property manager or owner, who must be reasonable in considering the request. The web service deals only with the bond.

What stays on paper

The RTA has kept a paper form behind each of the main services, and for some tasks the paper form is the only route the RTA's pages describe.

A change of managing party. When the property manager or owner changes, the RTA's page says Form 5, Change of property manager/owner, is completed and signed by both the old and the new property manager or owner, with a copy sent to the RTA and a copy to the tenant. No change of managing party service appears among the seven on the Web Services page read for this guide. The same RTA page says a Form 6 should also be completed where there is a change of tenants or of property manager or owner during a tenancy. The incoming manager or owner must give the tenants their details and preferred way of communicating. For an agency buying or selling a rent roll, this is the step that is still done property by property, with two signatures.

A lodgement that involves a bond loan. The lodgement page says bond lodgements with bond loans cannot be submitted through Web Services. At the other end, the RTA says it is required to refund a bond directly to the Department of Housing and Public Works for any outstanding bond loan amount.

Partial refunds other than after a rent reduction. These go on the paper Form 4.

Refunds for people experiencing domestic and family violence. The refund page refers to Form 4a, lodged with supporting evidence.

Anyone who cannot verify through QDI. Form 2 for lodgement, Form 4 for refunds and Form 6 for contributor changes do the same work as the online services.

The paper forms have their own formalities. The RTA's general page says a paper Form 4 is posted to the RTA in Brisbane, and that emailed or photocopied forms will not be accepted. On paper, an agreed refund means all parties signing the one form.

What an owner, a property manager and a tenant each see

The three kinds of user meet different parts of the same system.

An owner whose property is managed by an agency does not normally appear in the system as a user at all. The managing party is the agency, the RTA ID is the agency's, and the emails go to the agency. Such an owner sees the bond through the agency's reports.

The figures the RTA publishes

The RTA reports on the service once a year, and the figures below come from its summary of the Annual Report 2024-25, published on 30 September 2025. They describe the 2024-25 financial year and are the most recent annual figures read for this guide.

The RTA held 631,805 bonds. It reported that 79.9 per cent of all bond and tenancy forms were submitted through digital channels, which leaves about one form in five arriving another way. It described bond refunds as processed on the same day, at an average of 0.7 days.

The service around the forms is on the same scale. The RTA answered 341,728 calls in the year, an average of 1,361 a day by its own count. It conciliated 23,408 disputes and reported that 77.5 per cent were resolved where both parties agreed to take part. It finalised 600 investigations.

Read together, the figures say something about how the system is used. The average refund is handled in under a day, yet more than 23,000 disputes went to conciliation, where the RTA's own page speaks of a wait of weeks. The fast track is fast for the refunds everyone agrees on. For the rest, the web service is the front door to a process that still depends on people talking to each other.

The online forms made the agreed refund a matter of hours. A disputed one still moves at the speed of a conversation.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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