ACL 390611 | MFAA Member | Last updated
Motorcycle Financing.Check the Bike Before the Loan.
Which machine you may legally ride is set by your licence stage and your state, and it is not the same rule everywhere. That decides the bike. The bike decides the loan. We work in that order and we compare 100+ lenders on the finance.
15 minutes. Bring the bike you are looking at, your licence stage and your state. No paperwork, no obligation, and no lender is approached without your say-so. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement and we disclose it in writing before any work begins.
Intellect Finance – Motorcycle Financing
Independent since 2005 | ACL 390611What Is Motorcycle Financing and What Can You Actually Buy?
Motorcycle financing is an ordinary secured consumer loan with the bike as security, used for road motorcycles and scooters. The part that differs from a car is upstream of the loan. Every Australian state and territory restricts learner and provisional riders to approved machines, so your licence stage decides what you may buy before any lender decides what you may borrow.
The panel is also narrower. Fewer lenders write motorcycles than write cars, and those that do apply their own limits on machine age, capacity and rider experience. That is lender policy rather than law, it varies, and it is the reason a bike that is straightforward to insure is not always straightforward to finance.
Where the bike is for personal, domestic or household use, this is regulated consumer credit and Best Interests Duty applies. Under ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 we are legally required to act in your best interests and to put your interests ahead of ours where they conflict. A machine bought for business use sits outside that framework and belongs on our commercial vehicle finance page.
Common Situations
Why Riders Come to Us
Six situations cover most of it. The first two are the ones where a conversation before the deposit saves the most money.
First bike and you are not sure it is legal for your licence
The most common one and the most expensive to get wrong. A machine that looks modest can sit outside the approved list, and a deposit paid before that is checked is a deposit at risk. It takes minutes to check and it is free.
You are close to coming off restrictions
If you are months away from an unrestricted licence, financing the novice bike over a long term is worth thinking about twice. Sometimes waiting is the cheaper answer, and we would rather say so than write the loan.
Buying interstate or moving states
The approved-machine rules are not identical across the country and two jurisdictions do not even publish their own list. A bike that is fine where it is sold may not be fine where you ride it.
A used bike from a private seller
Private sales are the norm in this market and they narrow the lender panel further. Age, kilometres and who is selling all move what can be advanced and over what term.
A commuter scooter rather than a motorcycle
Small-capacity scooters sit in their own category in some states, where a moped can be ridden on a driver’s licence you already hold. Worth knowing before you assume you need a rider licence at all.
Returning after years off a bike
Licence stages have changed and so has lender appetite. Riders coming back are often surprised by both, and the finance question is usually the simpler half of it.
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Joseph Sukkar
Principal Broker · ACL 390611
Who You’re Dealing With
Built on 25 Years in Australian Finance
Joseph Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded Intellect Finance in Penrith in 2005. Since then the team has arranged more than 6,500 loans for clients across Australia, from first homes to complex commercial and asset finance.
Motorcycle files sit with Chantelle, our Asset and Personal Finance Specialist. On a bike the useful work happens before the application, because the machine has to be legal for the licence before the loan is worth structuring. That check takes minutes and it is the reason we ask about your licence stage before we ask about your income.
Part of Our 100+ Lender Panel
The names most people recognise are residential lenders. Much of what we arrange runs through funders that do not advertise to the public. Accreditation with a lender is not an endorsement by it, and which lender suits you is decided by your file rather than by who is on this list.
Check the Bike Before You Pay a Deposit
Fifteen minutes. Tell us the machine and your licence stage and we will tell you where you stand.What Actually Decides It
The Bike You Are Allowed to Ride Decides the Bike You Can Finance
Every Australian state and territory restricts learner and provisional riders to approved machines, and the tests are close enough to look identical while differing in ways that matter. One limit is genuinely national. The other is not. And in several places meeting both limits still is not enough on its own. All of that is settled before a lender is ever involved.
Two numbers decide it and only one of them is national
A power-to-weight ratio of 150 kilowatts per tonne or less is stated by every state and territory. The 660 capacity ceiling is not: NSW and six others state one, and the ACT states no engine capacity limit at all. If you have learned the rule as a capacity rule, you have learned seven eighths of it.
Power to weight is calculated rather than looked up
The weight in the ratio is not the bike’s weight. Tasmania’s regulation defines the prescribed weight as tare weight plus 90 kilograms. The ACT uses tare plus 90 below 660cc and tare plus 68 above it, which is the only thing 660 does there. So a light bike with modest power can fail while a heavier one with more power passes.
Being under the limits is not the same as being approved
In several jurisdictions the machine also has to appear on the published list. NSW states that motorcycles cannot be modified or restricted in order to be reclassified. Queensland excludes machines modified other than by an allowable modification. South Australia names five specific 250s that are out despite meeting the capacity test.
Two jurisdictions do not publish a list of their own
Western Australia and the Northern Territory both direct riders to the NSW list. That is worth knowing for two reasons. A decision made in Sydney reaches riders in Perth and Darwin, and the NT states plainly that machines not on the list cannot legally be ridden by novice riders and there are no exemptions.
How long you are held to a novice machine is a lottery of address
NSW keeps the restriction all the way through the P2 stage. The ACT applies it only during the first 12 months of a provisional licence. Queensland requires two years on the restricted class before the open one, and South Australia and Western Australia each require about two years as well. Same rider, same bike, very different waiting periods.
Electric machines are handled unevenly
NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania’s regulation each set an electric threshold of 25 kilowatts. Victoria treats currently available electric motorcycles as approved. The ACT and Northern Territory pages we checked state no electric criterion at all. On an electric bike, checking your own jurisdiction matters more than usual.
Checked 1 September 2026. Licensing rules from each authority: NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and its licensing regulations, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Rules change and each authority is the only current source for its own. Everything else on this page is described in the important information at the foot of the page.
We are finance brokers rather than a licensing authority, and nothing above replaces checking your own state’s current list and conditions. It is on this page because the machine has to be legal before the loan is worth structuring, and almost nobody does those two things in that order. Tell us the bike and we will check it with you.
The Honest Comparison
Finance the Novice Bike or Ride Out the Restriction First?
The real question for most first-time riders, and it is not one a page selling motorcycle finance is supposed to raise.
Finance an approved machine and start riding
- You are riding now rather than in two years
- Experience on a smaller machine is the point of the restriction
- A modest loan repaid on time builds a credit history for the next one
- You may still be paying for it long after you have stopped riding it
- Two loans across the same period cost more than one
Ride something cheap and finance the bike you actually want
- One loan on one machine rather than two in succession
- The term can match how long you will actually keep the bike
- No risk of owing money on a machine your licence has outgrown
- It only works if you can buy something modest outright in the meantime
- Waiting has a cost too if you need the bike to get to work
If you are within a year of coming off restrictions, think hard before taking a long term on a novice machine. The arithmetic is not complicated. A five year loan on a bike your licence outgrows in twelve months means four years of payments on something you are no longer riding, and a second loan on top if you buy the bike you actually wanted. We would rather say that in the first conversation than write it.
Check the machine against your own state’s list before you pay a deposit, and we will do that with you whether or not you finance through us. It takes minutes, it is free, and it is the single most expensive thing to get wrong on this page. No finance structure rescues a bike you are not licensed to ride.
We cannot tell you what a used bike will be worth later and we will not pretend to. Resale on novice machines gets talked about a great deal and none of it is something we can promise. If the plan depends on selling the bike for a particular figure in two years, that is a plan with a guess inside it, and the guess belongs to a dealer rather than to a broker.
And if the repayment only works over a term longer than you will keep the bike, it is the wrong bike. Stretching a term to make a number fit is the same mistake on a motorcycle as it is on anything else, and on a machine this size the amounts are small enough that the honest answer is usually a cheaper bike rather than a longer loan.
Ask Us Whether You Should Wait
If you are close to an unrestricted licence we will tell you so and we will check the machine either way. Fifteen minutes. No obligation.The Difference
We Ask About Your Licence Before We Ask About Your Income
On a bike the legal question comes first and the credit question second. Doing it the other way round is how people end up approved for a machine they cannot ride.
Legally Required to Act in Your Best Interests
A bike for personal use is regulated consumer credit, so Best Interests Duty applies to us and the responsible lending obligations apply to the lender. Under ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 we must act in your best interests and put your interests ahead of ours where they conflict. That is a legal duty rather than a promise.
We Check the Machine First
Your licence stage, your state and the specific model, against that authority’s current position, before anything goes near a lender. We do it free whether or not you use us for the finance, because the alternative is watching someone lose a deposit on a bike they cannot legally ride.
No Fee. Not Even Clawback.
We do not charge you for the check, the comparison or the application, and a small loan gets the same treatment as a large one. If a facility is paid out early we wear the clawback ourselves rather than invoicing you for it. Lenders pay a commission on settlement, disclosed to you in writing before any work begins.
We Will Tell You to Wait
If you are months from an unrestricted licence, a long loan on a novice machine is usually the expensive path and we say so. It costs us the deal and it is the correct advice. A broker who never tells a first-time rider to wait is not weighing the question.
The Process
How a Bike Purchase Comes Together
Four steps. The first one is free and it is the one that stops the expensive mistakes.
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Minutes
The machine and the licence
Which bike, your licence stage and which state you ride in. We check it against that authority’s current position. No documents, no applications, and no obligation to go further.
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We work it out
Whether to finance it at all and over what term
How long until your restriction lifts, how long you expect to keep the machine, and whether the term should match that rather than the smallest repayment. If the answer is to wait or to buy something cheaper outright, you get it here.
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You gather
Documents
Less than most people expect. The panel is narrower on bikes than on cars, so we confirm exactly what your chosen lender wants before you go looking for any of it.
- Photo identification and rider licence
- Recent payslips or income evidence
- Recent bank statements
- Living expenses and existing commitments
- An invoice or sale details for the machine
- Make, model, year and kilometres on a used bike
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We manage
From approval through to delivery
We deal with the lender and the seller, whether that is a dealership or a private sale. You get the written disclosure of how we are paid and why we recommended what we did before anything is signed.
Track Record
Independent Since 2005
Motorcycle and personal finance sits with Chantelle, who does this work every day, rather than with whoever happens to be free that afternoon.
Related Options
Other Ways to Fund a Vehicle
A bike is one line in a bigger picture. One of these is here because a small loan now changes what you can borrow later.
Car loans
The same secured structure on four wheels, plus what to check at the point of sale before you hand over money.
Electric vehicle loans
Where the tax treatment of an electric car changes the arithmetic in a way it does not on a bike.
Borrowing without the bike as security
An unsecured loan leaves the machine out of it, which costs more in rate and suits an older or cheaper bike lenders will not secure against.
Buying a home in the next few years
A new consumer loan reduces what a home lender will advance you. If a purchase is coming, that trade is worth understanding first.
A machine bought for business use
A courier bike or a work machine sits outside consumer credit and under a different set of rules entirely.
Every asset we finance
Back up to the full range, including the financing structures set out side by side and how each one is treated.
Send Us the Bike and We Will Check It.
Free, in minutes, whether or not you finance it through us.Questions Answered
Motorcycle Financing FAQs
The questions riders ask us most often before getting in touch.
Can I finance a motorcycle the same way as a car?
Broadly yes, and the panel is narrower. A bike loan is an ordinary secured consumer loan with the motorcycle as security, and where it is for personal use it is regulated consumer credit. Fewer lenders write motorcycles than write cars, and those that do apply their own limits on age, capacity and rider experience. That is policy rather than law.
What is a learner approved motorcycle?
A machine a novice rider is legally permitted to ride. Every Australian state and territory restricts learner and provisional riders to approved machines. The common test is a power-to-weight ratio of 150 kilowatts per tonne or less, and in most jurisdictions an engine capacity of 660 mL or less as well. Being under the limits is not by itself enough in several states.
Is the 660 limit the same everywhere?
No, and this is the one most people get wrong. Seven jurisdictions state a 660 capacity ceiling. The ACT states no engine capacity limit at all: it uses 660cc only to decide which figure goes into the power-to-weight formula, adding 90 kilograms to tare weight below that mark and 68 kilograms above it. The 150 kilowatt per tonne test is the part that is genuinely national.
How do I know if the bike I want is approved?
Check your own authority’s list before you pay a deposit. NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT each publish one. Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not publish their own and direct riders to the NSW list. Several states also require the machine to be unmodified and, in South Australia, exclude a handful of specific models that otherwise meet the limits.
How long am I restricted to a novice bike?
It depends where you live and the range is wide. NSW keeps the restriction through the P2 stage. The ACT applies it only during the first 12 months of a provisional licence. Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia each require about two years on the restricted class first. Confirm the current position with your own licensing authority, because these differ in kind and not only in length.
Can I ride a scooter on a car licence?
In some places, if it is a moped. South Australia and Western Australia both state that a person holding a driver’s licence of another class may ride a moped, defined by performance rather than shape: broadly an engine up to 50 mL and a maximum speed of 50 km/h. Anything above that is a motorcycle. Other jurisdictions set their own rules and should be checked directly.
Do the electric vehicle tax rules apply to an electric motorbike?
Not the ones people usually mean. The Australian Taxation Office’s electric vehicle home charging rate expressly cannot be applied to motorcycles or scooters, and the fringe benefits tax exemption people ask about is written in terms of cars. Whether anything else reaches a particular machine is a question for a registered tax agent. Our electric vehicle loans page covers the car position.
Does Best Interests Duty apply to a motorcycle loan?
Yes, where the bike is for personal, domestic or household use. That makes it regulated consumer credit, and under ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 we are legally required to act in your best interests and to put your interests ahead of our own where they conflict. A machine acquired for business use sits outside that framework and is a different conversation.
Visit Us
Penrith Based.Clients Australia-Wide.
Penrith is our head office and the one you can walk into without an appointment. We also meet clients at Parramatta and in the Sydney CBD by arrangement. Motorcycle finance runs almost entirely by phone and email, and we arrange and settle for riders in every state and territory.
Parramatta
Suite 23, Level 1, 181 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
Commercial finance broker Parramatta →Sydney CBD
Level 18, 25 Bligh St, Sydney NSW 2000
Commercial finance broker Sydney CBD →Ready When You Are
Send Us the Bike and Your Licence Stage.
Fifteen minutes with Chantelle. Tell us which machine you are looking at, your licence stage and your state, and we will tell you whether you can legally ride it, whether financing it is the right call and which lenders will write it.
No paperwork, no obligation. Penrith based, clients Australia-wide. Intellect Finance Pty Ltd, ACL 390611.
Where a motorcycle is acquired for personal, domestic or household use, the credit is regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and the Best Interests Duty applies to us. We disclose how we are paid in writing before any work begins. The licensing rules described on this page are published by each state and territory road authority, they differ between jurisdictions and they change. We are not a licensing authority. Nothing on this page is credit assistance, legal advice or an offer of credit, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member
Important information General information only. Not credit assistance or tax advice. We charge you no fee. Every caveat and source on this page is collected here. Tap to read.
General information only. The content on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not credit assistance, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice, and it is not an offer of credit. You should consider whether it is appropriate for you and seek your own advice before acting on it.
Best Interests Duty applies to consumer credit. Where a motorcycle or scooter is acquired for personal, domestic or household use, the credit is regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, the Best Interests Duty under Part 3-5A applies to us, and the responsible lending obligations apply to the lender. Where a machine is acquired wholly or predominantly for business purposes it sits outside that framework and different protections apply. If you are unsure which framework your arrangement sits in, ask and we will confirm it in writing before you sign.
The licensing rules on this page are summaries and they are not legal advice. Approved-machine criteria, licence stages, minimum holding periods and the conditions attached to each stage are set by each state and territory road authority. They differ between jurisdictions, they carry conditions and exceptions this page does not reproduce, and they change. Your own authority is the only current source for its own rules. We are finance brokers, not a licensing authority, and nothing here confirms that a particular machine is approved for you.
Where this page could not verify a position it says nothing. Several jurisdictions do not publish, on the pages we checked, how long a machine restriction lasts beyond the provisional stage, whether scooters are treated separately from motorcycles, or an electric-motor criterion. Where that is the case this page is silent rather than inferring from what another state does. Silence here means unverified, not permitted.
Check the machine before you commit money to it. Deposits, holding fees and private sale payments are matters between you and the seller. Nothing on this page, and no check we run for you, creates an obligation on any authority or seller, and a machine’s status can change.
Tax treatment of electric machines. Where this page notes that the Australian Taxation Office’s electric vehicle home charging rate cannot be applied to motorcycles or scooters, that is a statement of that guideline’s scope. It is not advice on the tax position of any machine. We are not registered tax agents. Confirm anything of that kind with a registered tax agent or the ATO.
Much of what surrounds this decision is lender and provider policy rather than law. Rates, terms, deposit expectations, vehicle age limits, what a lender will fund on a used electric car and how it treats battery condition and residual value are individual lender policy. Policy varies and changes over time. Nothing on this page sets a rule and none should be inferred.
The car is the security on a secured loan. If a facility is not met the lender can take and sell the vehicle, and any shortfall remains payable. Read what you are being asked to sign before you sign it.
Nothing here is a guarantee. Approval, borrowing capacity, pricing, terms, deposit requirements, which cars a lender will finance, age limits and how long anything takes are determined by individual lenders, not by us. They differ between lenders and change over time. Any range or timeframe on this page is indicative and is not a quote, an offer, or a prediction of your outcome.
How we are paid, and the conflict on this page. Intellect Finance does not charge borrowers a fee for arranging finance, and does not charge a clawback fee where a facility is paid out early. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement. We can arrange both a secured car loan and a novated lease, and those routes do not remunerate us identically. The basis of our remuneration on whichever route is recommended is disclosed to you in writing before any work begins, together with the options considered and the reason for the recommendation, and we will tell you which route pays us more if you ask.
Third-party information. Where this page refers to legislation, regulatory guidance or authority publications, that information is sourced from the relevant authority and was correct to the best of our knowledge at the date shown on this page. Those rules change, sometimes without notice. Always confirm the current position with the issuing authority or with us before relying on it.
Found something wrong? If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate or out of date, tell us at joe@intellectfinance.com.au and we will review and correct it.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member