Transfer water entitlements

How to transfer the ownership of a water share or licence.

There are different ways to transfer an entitlement, including permanent or limited term transfers, annual use limit (AUL) transfers and delivery share transfers.

All forms and fees are available on the Victorian Water Register (VWR).

Water share transfer

You can choose to sell all or part of a water share or lease it to someone else.

If you are transferring both a water share and land ownership, contact us – we will need to create a custom application form.

Permanent transfer

If you sell all or part of a water share, it’s a permanent transfer. The legal ownership of the water share changes. If there are any existing limited term transfers against that water share, these will remain.

Limited term transfer

If you lease your water share for a set period (for between 1 and 20 years) without changing ownership, it’s called a limited term transfer.

A limited term transfer remains in place until it expires or is renounced, even if the water share is transferred permanently to a new owner.

The person leasing the share is called the ‘holder’ of the limited term transfer. This is the only person who can renounce or cancel the limited term transfer before its expiry date.

Allocations held by the seller at the time of the transfer remain in the seller’s ABA (allocation account) but can be traded by the seller via an allocation trade. Future allocations will be added to the holder’s ABA.

How to apply

Go to Water share forms on the VWR website to download:

  • Form 1 – Application to transfer a water share
  • Form 10 – Application for a limited term transfer

The application fee for 2023/2024 is $215.80.

Submit your application:

To pay the fee by credit card, contact us. We can’t process your application until the fee has been paid.

Annual use limit (AUL) transfer

It may be possible to transfer your annual use limit to another water user. This allows the same volume of water to instead be used on the land specified in that user’s water-use licence or water-use registration.

Use Form 64 – Application to transfer annual use limit from the Victorian Water Register.

Contact the Rural Customer Team for payment details.

Delivery share transfer

You may be able to permanently transfer all or part of your delivery share rate. Restrictions apply where a delivery share can be traded within the district, as each share directly relates to and influences the capacity of each of the delivery systems in the district.

Use Form 36 – Application to transfer delivery form (PDF).

Contact the Rural Customer Team for payment details.