The STC clearing house

A fixed $40, before GST

The clearing house price is set in the regulations at $40 per certificate, excluding GST. A seller registered for GST receives $44 and passes the GST on. A seller who is not registered receives $40. Because any buyer can get certificates there at that price, it acts as a ceiling on the whole market: no electricity retailer needs to pay more.

The regulator warns that it cannot adjust a completed transaction if GST was applied incorrectly, and GST registration details cannot be changed inside the REC Registry itself. Check them before you offer anything.

Panel and battery certificates sell at the same price. The Australian Government notes that the two are not identified separately in the clearing house, and since the battery program began in 2025 it has bought certificates there in volumes matching the STCs created for batteries. The regulator's June quarter 2026 report says those purchases continued through April and May 2026.

The transfer list

Offer certificates while there are more sellers than buyers and they go onto the transfer list. The REC Registry describes the rules plainly:

• First in, first served. The most recent offers are added to the bottom of the list, and certificates sell to buyers in list order.
• Your place is kept. Certificates keep their position from the moment they were first offered for sale. Transferring ownership of the certificates does not change their place.
• You can leave. A seller can withdraw an offer at any time, and the certificates go back to "registered" in the account.
• You can hand over your place. A holder can transfer their position in the queue to another party, which stays pending until the other account accepts it.
• You can see the queue. The REC Registry publishes the current status and the number of certificates waiting, on a public page that needs no login.

When a buyer takes your certificates, the money is paid into the bank account nominated in your REC Registry account and the certificates move to the buyer's account as registered certificates.

Surplus and deficit

The clearing house has two states. In surplus there are more sellers than buyers, and new offers join the end of the transfer list. In deficit there are more buyers than sellers, and a seller's certificates sell immediately. If a buyer wants certificates and none are on offer, the regulator can create them for the buyer, and later offers are offset against those certificates first.

Surplus is the normal state, and the size of the queue moves with the quarterly deadlines by which electricity retailers must surrender certificates. The regulator's June quarter 2026 report, published in September 2026, gives the recent picture:

• The surplus peaked at 14.4 million STCs in May 2026 and fell to 2.5 million by the end of June.
• Average wait times rose to more than four weeks in May and came back to 13 days by the end of the quarter.
• Liable entities bought about 1.5 million STCs from the clearing house between 29 April and 28 July 2026, against 5.4 million surrendered for the 28 July deadline. The rest came from the open market.

Ecovantage reported a surplus of 2.38 million certificates in the week of 26 to 30 October 2026. Check the live figure before you offer, because the queue a seller joins today is not the one described in a report.

How to sell through it

1. Hold the certificates. Only registered STCs can be offered, so they must already be created, validated by the regulator and registered. That means collecting the documents, paying the registry fee of $0.47 per certificate once you pass the first 250, and carrying the audit yourself. How STC trading works walks through that chain.
2. Get access. You need a REC Registry account as a registered person or registered agent, upgraded for clearing house access. The regulator says it assesses the upgrade within 24 to 48 hours, and your bank and GST details must be current.
3. Offer. In the REC Registry, go to the clearing house, choose "sell certificates" and enter the number. They join the transfer list, or sell at once if the clearing house is in deficit.
4. Wait. Watch the public status page. Withdraw at any time if the open market or a trader looks better.
5. Get paid. When a buyer takes your certificates, payment goes to your nominated bank account. Account for GST if you are registered.

The open market, compared

Most certificates never see the clearing house. Buyers and sellers agree a price between themselves, the price can move daily, and payment is arranged by contract outside the REC Registry. In the June quarter of 2026 the regulator counted 45.5 million STCs transferred between market participants, excluding the clearing house, the highest quarterly volume on record.

Because the cap sits at $40, open-market prices sit just below it. Two public reports for the last week of October 2026 put trades at about $39.65 to $39.85 before GST. A buyer there pays a little less than the cap and gets the certificates now rather than when the queue clears.

The regulator does not regulate the open market, does not moderate disputes and cannot recover a payment for you: non-payment is a contract matter between the parties. How to choose an STC trader covers what to check before you rely on anyone's promise to pay.

Trader or clearing house?

For a solar retailer or installer the question is rarely "which price is higher". It is what lands in your account, when, and who does the work and carries the risk in between.

The clearing house makes sense when you are already a registered agent, you hold registered certificates, and you can afford to wait for a guaranteed $40. A trader makes sense when you want the money within days of the install and would rather not run a registry account, pay the fees or carry the audit.

On a home system our $41 is above the $40 cap, and the regulator advises caution with payment prices above it. That caution applies to us, so check us as you would any trader. We pay within 1 business day of approval, which keeps the amount you have at risk small while you find out. How STC prices work shows where our number sits against the market.

The three ways to sell STCsWork out a job