Towing fees in Queensland

One regulation, two kinds of tow

The rules come from the Tow Truck Act 2023 and the Tow Truck Regulation 2024. Together they cover towing after a crash, towing vehicles the police have seized from off-street regulated parking areas, and towing vehicles off private property, all within the regulated areas. They also set who may do the work: drivers and assistants must be accredited and employed by an accredited operator, using authorised tow trucks.

Two of those tows have a published price, and they are built differently. Read side by side:

What the crash tow price includes

The $447.90 is a package. Transport and Main Roads lists what it covers: one hour of work at the scene, such as loading the vehicle and sweeping up broken glass and other debris; the trip from the crash to the agreed destination; and 72 hours in the holding yard. The Queensland Government’s crash towing page calls this a standard tow.

The destination is the owner’s choice, whether that is home, a smash repairer or the operator’s holding yard. The towing authority form, which must be signed before the tow, has to give the full address the car is going to and the fees the operator will charge.

Before the signature

The towing authority form carries the destination and the fees, so the Queensland Government’s advice centres on signing it. It suggests reading the form carefully and never signing one that is blank or incomplete. Choosing who tows the car is the owner’s right, and someone who is injured and cannot sign can have a police officer, or another person acting for them, sign instead.

The law also limits the driver. A tow truck driver or assistant must not force or harass anyone into signing who is unwilling or unable to make an informed decision, and must not get in the way of medical help.

Where the regulated areas are

The caps apply only inside the regulated areas, and they are drawn on council boundaries as they stood before 15 March 2008, before Queensland’s councils were amalgamated. Twenty-four of those former council areas are on the list, eleven of them shires and thirteen cities; in alphabetical order:

• Beaudesert
• Boonah
• Brisbane
• Bundaberg
• Caboolture
• Cairns
• Caloundra
• Esk
• Gatton
• Gold Coast
• Hervey Bay
• Ipswich
• Kilcoy
• Laidley
• Logan
• Mackay
• Maroochy
• Maryborough
• Noosa
• Pine Rivers
• Redcliffe
• Redland
• Rockhampton
• Toowoomba

A group of parishes in the counties of Gray and Elphinstone completes it.

To check an address, the department points to the Queensland Globe map: add the transportation layer and tick tow truck regulated areas, which show in yellow. Some remote parts of the state sit outside the scheme altogether.

A car towed from private property

Queensland’s private property rules turn on timing. While the driver is still loading and securing the car, a returning owner gets it back straight away and pays nothing. Once it is loaded and secured but the truck has not left the property, the driver must offer an on-site release for the capped fee, and hand the car back as soon as it is paid.

After that, the car goes to the holding yard. The operator must tell the Queensland Police Service about the tow, and the owner can ask the operator to show the towing consent, the contract with the property owner or occupier that allows the removal. Operators may not add call-out fees, charge for finding the owner or for travelling to the car, or charge for access to it at the yard in business hours, and the property owner and the motorist cannot both be billed for the same tow.

The tow the schedule leaves out

The scheme does not regulate breakdown towing or trade towing, so a tow after an engine failure has no maximum under it. For a crash, the Queensland Government suggests contacting the insurer before signing anything, because the insurer may be able to arrange the tow.