National e-bike sale standards are coming: ACCC told to draft new rules

The patchwork era of e-bike regulation in Australia has a new national layer. On 6 August 2026, Assistant Minister for Competition Andrew Leigh directed the ACCC to draft new mandatory safety standards covering the sale of e-bikes, e-scooters and e-skateboards. The move follows a meeting of state and territory consumer affairs ministers in Darwin in July, where governments agreed the device-by-device, state-by-state approach was not keeping up.

The numbers behind the decision are hard to argue with. New South Wales recorded 226 e-bike related injuries in 2024, and 233 in just the first seven months of 2025, including four deaths. Queensland has logged more than 6,000 emergency department presentations linked to e-mobility devices between 2022 and 2025.

What a sale standard would actually do

Today, most of the enforcement action happens after a bike is already on the road: police powers to seize and destroy non-compliant devices in Queensland and NSW, fines for illegal throttles, roadside power testing. A mandatory sale standard moves the checkpoint to the shop and the import warehouse, so a non-compliant machine is blocked before anyone hands over money for it.

• Standards would apply at the point of sale, covering the devices themselves rather than just rider behaviour
• The ACCC drafting process covers e-bikes, e-scooters and e-skateboards in one package
• It builds on the battery and labelling rules already in force, including the mandatory frame certification label introduced in February 2026

There is no start date yet: the ACCC has to draft the standards, consult, and have them made into law. But the direction is set, and it points the same way every state has been moving through 2026, toward a market where the compliant, certified bike is the only one legally on the shelf.