From 1 July 2026 you'll need to tell customers whether the seafood you serve is Australian, imported or both — on every surface where they decide what to order. If you run a restaurant, café, pub, club, caterer, takeaway or food truck that puts seafood on the menu, this is now a legal requirement, not a nice-to-have. The good news: the rule is simple once you break it down, and most of the work is a one-off menu audit you can finish in an afternoon. This checklist walks you through it.
Key takeaways
- The deadline is hard: 1 July 2026. From that date, "you'll need to tell customers if the seafood you serve is Australian, imported or both" (business.gov.au, 2026).
- It uses a three-letter system — A, I or M. Mark each seafood dish A if it's from Australia, I if it's imported, or M if it has mixed origins (business.gov.au, 2026).
- It has to show before they order — everywhere. Printed menus, menu boards, signs, plus your website and food-ordering apps (business.gov.au, 2026).
- Get origin in writing from your supplier. If they haven't given you country-of-origin details, you ask — and "they must provide it in writing" (business.gov.au, 2026).
- Don't over-claim "Australian". Misleading or incorrect origin claims can breach the Australian Consumer Law (Restaurant & Catering Association, 2026).
What changes on 1 July 2026 — and who it covers
Australia already requires country-of-origin labels on packaged seafood in shops. From 1 July 2026 that obligation extends to seafood served for immediate eating. As business.gov.au puts it: "Restaurants, cafes, pubs and other hospitality businesses will soon need to say where their seafood comes from" (business.gov.au, 2026).
In practice that's nearly every venue that sells a dish containing seafood — restaurants, cafés, pubs, clubs, caterers, takeaways and food trucks. If barramundi, prawns, salmon, oysters, calamari or a seafood chowder appears on your menu, you're in scope. There's no minimum-size carve-out for a small café, and it applies whether the dish is a headline main or a garnish of prawns on a salad.
It lands the same week as the 1 July award wage rise, so it's worth treating as one compliance sweep rather than a surprise — see what the 2026 wage rise really costs an Australian venue for the other half of that date.
The A / I / M rule, in plain terms
The whole system is three letters. Label each seafood item:
- A — if the seafood is from Australia
- I — if the seafood is imported
- M — if the seafood has mixed origins
That's the exact framing on business.gov.au: "A if the seafood is from Australia / I if the seafood is imported / M if the seafood has mixed origins" (business.gov.au, 2026). The letter has to be obvious to the customer — a small tag against the dish name on the menu, or a letter chalked beside the special on the board. It doesn't need to be fancy; it needs to be there and to be right.
The seafood labelling checklist
Work through these in order. The first few are about getting your facts straight; the rest are putting them on every surface and keeping them right.
1. List every seafood item on every menu
Pull your main menu, specials board, function menus, kids' menu, bar snacks and any seasonal inserts, and write down every dish that contains seafood. Include the easy-to-miss ones — the anchovies in a Caesar, the prawn in a laksa, the fish sauce isn't seafood but the actual fish is. This list is the spine of the whole job.
2. Confirm origin with every seafood supplier — in writing
For each item, you need to know where the seafood actually comes from. Ask your supplier for country-of-origin details if they're not already on your invoices or spec sheets. This isn't a favour you're requesting: under the rules, "If your seafood suppliers haven't provided country of origin information, ask them for it. When you ask them for this information, they must provide it in writing" (business.gov.au, 2026). Keep those emails or spec sheets — they're your evidence if anyone asks.
3. Map each item to A, I or M
Against your list from step 1, write the letter. Australian barramundi → A. Imported tiger prawns → I. A chowder with Australian fish and imported scallops → M. Where you genuinely can't establish origin, fix that with the supplier before 1 July rather than guessing — a guess is what turns a labelling task into a misleading-claim risk (step 7).
4. Decide how you'll handle mixed (M) dishes
For a dish that blends Australian and imported seafood, you have a choice. You can mark the whole dish M, or you can label each seafood ingredient individually: "For mixed dishes, you can choose to label each individual seafood ingredient with an A or I instead" (business.gov.au, 2026). M is simpler to maintain; itemising is more transparent if you want to show off the Australian component. Pick one approach and apply it consistently.
5. Add the letters to every customer-facing surface
The label has to appear "in a way that is obvious to the customer before they order" (business.gov.au, 2026). That means the origin shows up wherever a customer is choosing a dish:
- printed menus
- menu boards and in-venue signs
- your website
- food-ordering apps and digital or QR-code menus
business.gov.au is explicit about the digital ones: "Don't forget to add origin information to any menus on your website and food ordering apps" (business.gov.au, 2026). A label on the printed menu but not the QR menu isn't compliant.
6. Update your digital menus the same day as the print ones
This is where venues come unstuck: the new printed menu goes out, but the website and the QR menu still show last month's list with no origin letters. Every surface has to agree. If your online menu or QR menu is something you can edit yourself in a couple of minutes, this is trivial — change the dish, add the letter, done. If it's a site "the nephew built years ago and then vanished", an editable own-your-menu tool (the model behind builders like DineHere) is what turns a same-day update from a fortnight-long chase into a five-minute job. Either way, the rule is the same: print and digital must match.
7. Don't over-claim "Australian"
The biggest trap isn't forgetting a letter — it's calling imported seafood Australian. Origin claims you can't back up are a consumer-law problem, not just a labelling slip. As the Restaurant & Catering Association warns, "Misleading or incorrect origin claims may breach Australian Consumer Law and expose businesses to enforcement action" (Restaurant & Catering Association, 2026). If your supplier can't confirm a product is Australian, don't label it A. When in doubt, the honest letter protects you.
8. Brief your floor staff
Customers will ask "is the fish local?" — and a wrong answer from a server can be just as misleading as a wrong menu. The industry guidance is to train staff "so they can answer customer questions confidently" (Restaurant & Catering Association, 2026). Walk the team through the A/I/M list at a pre-service meeting so the verbal answer matches the menu.
9. Build a re-check into your specials routine
Origin can change when a supplier substitutes or you switch products. Because daily specials change constantly, make the origin letter part of writing the board — never let a seafood special go up without its A, I or M. A quick monthly glance at the main menu against current supplier paperwork keeps everything honest as products move.
How this fits your wider 2026 cost and compliance load
Seafood labelling lands in a year that's already busy for owners: the wage rise on the same date, the card surcharge ban from 1 October 2026, and the squeeze between wholesale food prices and the menu prices you can charge. Treating labelling as a single, finished task — audit, source, label, brief — gets it off your plate cheaply so your attention stays on the costs that actually move your margin. For the full picture of where each dollar goes, see where every dollar goes in an Australian restaurant.
Frequently asked questions
When do the seafood labelling rules start?
1 July 2026. From that date "you'll need to tell customers if the seafood you serve is Australian, imported or both" (business.gov.au, 2026).
Which businesses have to comply?
Hospitality venues that serve seafood — "Restaurants, cafes, pubs and other hospitality businesses" (business.gov.au, 2026). In practice that includes clubs, caterers, takeaways and food trucks too.
What do the letters A, I and M mean?
A for seafood from Australia, I for imported, M for mixed origins (business.gov.au, 2026).
Where exactly do I have to show the origin?
Wherever the customer chooses a dish, before they order — printed menus, menu boards and signs, and "any menus on your website and food ordering apps" (business.gov.au, 2026).
Does it have to be on my QR-code and website menu, or just the printed one?
On all of them. Print and digital menus must carry the origin, and they have to agree with each other.
How do I handle a dish with both Australian and imported seafood?
Label it M, or label each seafood ingredient individually with its own A or I (business.gov.au, 2026). Choose one approach and use it consistently.
My supplier hasn't told me where the seafood is from. What now?
Ask them. If they haven't provided country-of-origin information, "they must provide it in writing" when you request it (business.gov.au, 2026). Keep the written confirmation as your evidence.
Can I just label everything "Australian" to be safe?
No — that's the opposite of safe. Misleading or incorrect origin claims may breach the Australian Consumer Law (Restaurant & Catering Association, 2026). Only label A what you can prove is Australian.
Do I need to label seafood that's a minor ingredient?
If a dish contains seafood, it needs an origin label. Don't overlook anchovies, fish sauce's fish, or a prawn garnish — they put the dish in scope.
What's the quickest way to stay compliant when specials change daily?
Make the A/I/M letter part of writing the specials board, and re-check your main menu against supplier paperwork monthly. Building it into the routine means an origin label never gets missed when a product changes.
