How much does it cost to open a retail shop? A money timeline from lease to first sale

How much does it cost to open a retail shop? It depends on the site, the fit-out and what you sell, so any single figure you find online is a guess. The order the costs come in is much more predictable: lease and bond, shopfit, fixtures and POS, opening stock, staff, and then the first quiet months. Get the order right and you’ll know when you need the cash, not just how much.

Most first-time shop owners budget a total. The ones who open smoothly budget by date. Here’s how to do that.

Why does the timing matter more than the total?

A shop pays out for months before it takes a dollar. The shopfitter wants progress payments, suppliers want paying for opening stock, and the rent clock may already be running. Takings only start on opening day, and they start slowly.

That’s why two owners with the same budget can have very different openings. One runs out of cash in the fortnight before opening because the stock invoice and the final fit-out claim land in the same week. The other saw that coming and lined up the right money for each bill.

The money timeline for opening a shop

Every shop is different, but the order rarely changes. Use this as your frame, then put your own quotes and dates against each line.

Stage	Typical timing	What you’re paying for	What usually funds it
Site checks	Before you sign	Lawyer’s lease review, zoning check with council, a shopfitter’s look at the shell	Your own funds
Lease signing	Week 0	Bond or bank guarantee, rent in advance, legal fees	Own funds or a property-secured loan
Setting up the business	Weeks 0–2	ABN, business name or company, bank account, insurance	Own funds
Design and approvals	Weeks 1–6	Shopfit design, any certifier or council fees, signage approval	Own funds or a loan
Shopfit	Weeks 4–12	Deposit and progress payments, electrical, lighting, flooring, signage	A loan, a landlord contribution, own funds
Fixtures and POS	Weeks 6–12	Shelving, display units, counters, POS hardware, security	Equipment finance
Opening stock	Weeks 4–12	First orders, freight, often paid upfront by a new account	Working capital or a property-secured loan
People	Weeks 8–12	Recruiting, training shifts, first pay runs and super	Working capital
Launch	Final 2 weeks	Marketing, opening promotions, a soft-opening float	Own funds or working capital
First months	After opening	Rent, wages, super, restocking, repayments	A cash buffer or a line of credit

The busiest stretch is usually weeks 6 to 12. That’s when the shopfit, fixtures, stock and staff all want paying at once. Our small business funding planner helps you put realistic dates against each stage.

What does the lease really cost before you open?

Rent is only the beginning. Before signing, expect a bond or bank guarantee, rent in advance and your own lawyer’s fees. A landlord may also ask for a personal guarantee, which is worth knowing before you speak to a lender.

Retail lease laws protect you here. Use the protections before you sign:

• Victoria: The Victorian Small Business Commission’s tenant brochure says the landlord must give you the disclosure statement “at least 14 days before you enter into the lease”. The Act also contemplates a minimum five-year term, options included, unless you get a waiver certificate. Landlords there must pay the cost of preparing the lease and hold any security deposit in an interest-bearing account.
• NSW: The NSW Small Business Commission says the landlord’s disclosure statement must reach you at least seven days before the lease is entered into.
• Other states: Each has its own retail leases law and small business commissioner. Check yours before you sign.

The disclosure statement sets out outgoings, the works the landlord will do and the works you’ll pay for. Read it with your shopfit budget open beside it. And negotiate a rent-free period or a landlord fit-out contribution before signing, not after.

How do you budget the shopfit and fixtures?

Split the shopfit into two piles, because lenders treat them differently.

Built works: partitions, flooring, lighting, electrical, ceilings, a fitting room, the shopfront and built-in joinery. These become part of the premises, so they can’t secure a loan on their own. They’re usually funded from your own contribution, a landlord contribution, an unsecured loan for an existing trading business, or a property-secured loan.

Loose fixtures and equipment: shelving systems, display units, a counter that isn’t built in, the POS terminal, scanners, a security system and cool cabinets if you sell food or drink. These are identifiable and can be resold, which is exactly what equipment finance is designed for.

Get quotes itemised that way from the start. Our guide to budgeting a fit-out before you sign covers contingency and the questions to ask the shopfitter. Our fit-out finance page compares the funding options.

There’s also a tax angle. Business.gov.au confirms the $20,000 instant asset write-off became permanent from 1 July 2026 for businesses with turnover up to $10 million. Eligible assets costing less than $20,000 each can be deducted straight away. That’s worth knowing when you’re pricing fixtures, but check with your accountant how it applies to your quotes.

Shopfit quote on the desk and an opening date pencilled in? Check your options in about a minute. Just asking won’t touch your credit file.

Opening stock: the cost that catches new shops out

This is the line that drains new shops. Three things make opening stock harder than it looks.

1. You pay before you sell. New accounts with wholesalers are often asked to pay upfront or on short terms until there’s a trading history. The stock invoice can land weeks before your first customer walks in.
2. Lead times set your opening date. Ask each supplier for a delivery date before you commit to an opening day. Imported and made-to-order lines can take much longer than local stock, and a shop with half-empty shelves on day one makes a weak first impression.
3. It’s not a tax write-off like equipment. Trading stock isn’t a depreciating asset, so the instant asset write-off doesn’t cover it. The ATO deals with stock under the trading stock rules instead. Its simplified trading stock rules let eligible small businesses skip a formal stocktake for tax if the value of stock changed by $5,000 or less in the year. That’s handy later on, but it doesn’t help your opening cash flow.

Plan the first order for the season you’re opening into. A shop opening before Christmas needs deeper stock than one opening in February. Our stock finance page explains how working capital facilities match stock cycles.

What do the first staff cost before opening day?

If you’re hiring, budget for training shifts before you open, not just wages after. From 1 July 2026, the National Minimum Wage is $26.44 an hour, according to business.gov.au. That’s the floor, and the retail award may set higher rates and penalty rates for your staff.

Super changed too. Under Payday Super, which started on 1 July 2026, you pay super with each pay run and it generally needs to reach the fund within seven days of payday. There’s no quarterly breathing space anymore, so super sits in your cash flow from the very first pay run. Our guide to hiring your first employee covers the other on-costs.

Registration costs are small but real. From 1 July 2026, ASIC charges $47 to register a business name for one year or $108 for three, and $636 to register a company.

How do you match each cost to the right finance?

The aim is to fund each cost with money that suits it, not to squeeze everything into one loan.

• Fixtures, displays and POS hardware: equipment finance. The lender pays the supplier and the equipment secures the loan.
• Shopfit built works: your contribution, a landlord contribution, or a property-secured loan. These run from $20k to $5m, with $20k to $250k possible same day.
• Opening stock and the first months: working capital. If you or a director owns property, a property-secured loan can cover it. If you’re already trading (say you’re moving an online store or market stall into a shopfront), unsecured, cash flow and line-of-credit options typically run from $5k to $500k, sized on turnover and bank statements.
• The buffer: a line of credit you draw only when needed, which suits uneven early takings.

Our retail business loans page goes deeper on funding a shop once it’s trading, and finance to open a business covers what’s realistic before day one.

An illustrative example

Illustrative only: A homewares retailer has sold online and at weekend markets for three years. She signs a lease on a shell tenancy in a Melbourne shopping strip after receiving the disclosure statement 14 days ahead. Her lawyer uses that time to query the outgoings estimate.

She asks her shopfitter to quote the built works and the loose fixtures separately. The shelving, display tables and POS go on equipment finance against an itemised supplier quote. Her suppliers want new-account orders paid upfront, so she orders opening stock eight weeks out to land two weeks before opening, and funds it, the built works and a three-month buffer with a loan secured on her home. Her first casual starts with two paid training shifts, and super goes out with each pay run.

Nothing about her budget was unusual. What made it work was that every bill had a date and a funding source before she signed the lease.

Your pre-opening money checklist

• Disclosure statement received in time and read with your lawyer
• Rent-free period or fit-out contribution agreed in writing, with dates
• Shopfit quote split into built works and loose fixtures
• Each supplier’s lead time and payment terms confirmed in writing
• Opening stock order sized to the season you’re opening into
• Insurance, POS and registrations costed
• Payroll set up so super goes out with every pay run
• At least a few months of rent, wages and repayments covered after opening

Ready to open your shop? Let’s get the money in the right order

You’ve chosen the street, pictured the shelves and probably named the shop already. What’s left is making sure the money turns up when each bill does: the bond, the shopfitter’s progress claims, the stock invoice that lands before your first sale.

We help shop owners plan exactly that. The enquiry takes about 60 seconds, and there’s no credit check when you first enquire, so your credit file stays untouched just for asking. Your details aren’t sent to a pile of lenders either, so you won’t get a flood of calls from strangers. A real person reads about your shop and calls you to talk through what fits.

Please fill in the form accurately: your opening date, the shopfit and fixture quotes, your stock budget and any property you own. The clearer the picture, the faster we can find the right option first time.

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