Development Application is a guide to development approval in Queensland under the Planning Act 2016, written and published by Dotto. In Queensland, local governments carry out most development assessment in their own areas, and the state takes part where its interests are involved. When a proposal needs approval, a development application goes to the assessment manager, which is usually the local council.
General informationThese pages describe the rules as the Planning Act 2016, the Development Assessment Rules and the Queensland Government’s planning pages set them out, as at October 2026. They are not planning or legal advice for any project. For a particular property, the official places to check are your local council and the Queensland Government’s planning website.
The flight, chamber by chamber
Nearly every proposal meets the same flight. The first chamber decides whether it needs to pass through at all; the others follow the order in which an application meets them.
- Which category: accepted, assessable or prohibited
The three categories of development, code and impact assessment, and who sets them.
- The five parts of an application, and their days
Application, referral, information request, public notification and decision, under the DA Rules.
- Referral agencies and SARA
Concurrence and advice agencies, the state’s own assessment, its fees and its timing.
- Public notification and submissions
The notice, the submission period, a properly made submission, and social impact assessment.
- Decisions, changes and appeals
What a decision can say, how long an approval lasts, and where an appeal goes.
Who is involved
- The applicant
- The person who makes the application: the owner of the property, or a planning consultant or agent acting for the owner.
- The assessment manager
- The entity that assesses and decides the application, usually the local government. The Planning Regulation 2017 says which one it is for each type of development.
- A referral agency
- An entity other than the assessment manager that has a role in assessing the application.
- A submitter
- A person who makes a properly made submission about an application that must be publicly notified: written, signed, on the topic and made on time.
What holds for every application
All development applications go through standardised processes, so that they are assessed equitably, and those rules bind every party: the applicant, the assessment manager, the chief executive and any referral agency. The Act also sets rules for how an assessment manager may decide an application anywhere in Queensland.
Decisions are open to view. The reasons for a decision on a development application must be published on the local government’s website, or on the state planning website if SARA was the assessment manager. And an approval does not last forever: each one carries a currency period, the time allowed before the development must start, after which it can lapse.
Where the official word lives
The Queensland Government’s planning website explains development assessment, the State Assessment and Referral Agency and dispute resolution, and publishes the Development Assessment Rules. The Act itself is on the Queensland legislation website.