Allocation trade involves transferring a volume of water allocation from a seller to a buyer. Allocation trade is only permitted when the volume of unused allocation available in the seller’s allocation account is greater than or equal to the volume of the trade.

Holders of water allocation are able to make an application to their water corporation to trade it. The water corporation will approve the application if it is complete and meets local trading rules.

Permitted trades include allocation trades between trading zones within Victoria and interstate. Trading rules are assessed based on the source of the water allocation. This may be different to where the allocation is used depending on whether the allocation is tagged to a different location.

Prior to unbundling the concept of allocation did not exist, although temporary trade of entitlement is often used as a comparable measure for historic trade of allocation in declared systems in Victoria.

Allocation trading history

You can get summary information here about the trading of water allocations for a given trading zone within the regulated water systems.

For example, you can find volumes traded within, into and out of the trading zone in the current season, the number of trades, price statistics on those trades, and a list of all trades.

Allocation trade opportunities and limits

This table indicates available opportunities for trade and back-trade in Victoria as set by the Victorian Trading Rules. 

Select the trading zone INTO WHICH you may wish to trade.

Click here for the data that leads to the limits above. This data may be up to 15 minutes older than the data from the above report.

If you plan to trade water through the Barmah Choke (from trading zones 6 or 10), you or your broker will need to keep an eye on available opportunity under the Barmah Choke trade limit by visiting the MDBA’s website.

If you plan to trade water out of the Murrumbidgee (from trading zone 13), you or your broker will need to keep an eye on available opportunity under the Murrumbidgee trade out limit by visiting WaterNSW’s website.

Allocation trade from New South Wales to Victoria is limited to a net annual volume of 200 GL, or the volume that keeps the risk of spill in the Murray system below 50%, whichever is the lesser.

The revised Goulburn to Murray trade rule, which commenced on 1 July 2022, applies to allocation trade from the Goulburn, Campaspe, Loddon or Broken systems to the Victorian Murray and interstate. Trade opportunity is made available annually through three specific announcements on 1 July, 15 October and 15 December. After 15 December, when net trade is capped for the year, it is only back-trade that will create more trade opportunity. More information about this trade rule is available here.

Goulburn-Murray Water also publishes up to date information about water deliveries from inter-valley trade accounts, which can affect opportunities for trade out of the Broken system and for back-trade into Victorian tributaries.

Understanding Trade Limits

The 'Where can I trade?' tool is now available to help you better understand and visualise trading limits and the available trade opportunities in northern Victoria, and how these may affect your allocation trades.

You can also use this Trade Limits tool to help you to understand current and historic trading opportunities and how they applied to your previous trades.

An instructional video is also available below on how to use this 'Where can I trade?' tool.

Trading Rules generally permit trade of allocation from one trading zone to other trading zones provided that the traded water can readily flow to the destination trading zone. The trading rules also permit trade in the opposite direction ("back-trade") if previous forward trade has opened up an opportunity.

Click here for a map of the trading zones

In order to protect third parties and the environment, some trade limits apply. You can also find some information on limits on trade between valleys in the fact sheet and explanatory note available below.

If you would like more information on how trade opportunities are calculated, please see the calculation of trade opportunities explanatory note below.

Allocation Trade Data

Here you can access a list of all allocation trades which occurred within the regulated water systems for a selected region and year.

The data includes the Deal date and one of eight “Reason for trade” definitions. This is to provide more context as to the nature of the transaction. The eight Reason to trade definitions are;

1. Standard commercial trade
2. Related party Trade
3. Carryover parking
4. Carryover parking return
5. Private lease arrangement
6. Allocation trade as part of a water share transfer
7. Forward contract
8. Other

All trades submitted prior to 27 August 2020 or, on a paper form, will show reason for trade as “N/A” and the Deal date field will be blank. This is because no data is available for those trades.

You can use this data for your own analysis. For example, to analyse the volumes of trade which occurred between private water holders, environmental water holders and water corporations; or, to assess the total volume of commercial trades in a particular year.

Seasonal determination outlooks are updated on the Northern Victoria Water Resource Manager website here: https://nvrm.net.au/seasonal-determinations