A new Rehabilitation Cost Estimation Tool (RCE Tool) was introduced on 31 October 2025 to enable industry calculate the cost of rehabilitating a mine site and the amount of the security deposit to be provided to government. This followed an extensive benchmark review of the current rates and consultation with industry stakeholders.
A staged rollout of the new RCE tool is planned from 31 October 2025 acknowledging that some mines may be in the process of preparing and submitting RCEs using the previous RCE Tool. To enable a timely transition, all mining lease holders must use the new tool for all rehabilitation cost estimates submitted with forward programs from 2 March 2026 onwards.
The following has been prepared to assist mine transition to the new RCE Tool:
- Help videos
- Rehabilitation Cost Estimation Tool User Manual (PDF, 4.08 MB)
- Guideline: Rehabilitation Cost Estimate (PDF, 260.63 KB) (updated).
On 19 November 2025 the Regulator will be conducting a webinar to further assist industry with the transition. Please click on this link to register for the webinar.
A link to our previous webinar held with industry on 28 May 2025 can be viewed here.
Updated rehabilitation objectives and rehabilitation completion criteria guidelines
Guideline: Rehabilitation objectives and rehabilitation completion criteria (PDF, 566.58 KB) has been updated following consultation with various stakeholders.
The updated guideline will assist industry in the development of site specific rehabilitation objectives and rehabilitation completion criteria for approval by the Resources Regulator. The key updates can be summarised as follows:
- Update to explanatory note 3 to include how to define final land use domains over a tailings storage facility.
- Clarifying that submission of a rehabilitation completion criteria statement to the Regulator may need to include justification as to why the criteria are appropriate in the context of the final land use – particularly where knowledge gaps may exist (such as groundwater or landform stability criteria). This may include technical reports from suitably qualified experts, approvals/advice from other agencies, reference to analogue sites monitoring data, etc.
- Further guidance on groundwater and surface water criteria, particularly consultation with other agencies.
- Further guidance on approaches to erosional stability and geotechnical stability values.
- Further guidance on the completion criteria for older / already established native vegetation rehabilitation, to ensure the ecological criteria remain consistent with the development consent requirements.
- Further guidance on the use of analogue / reference site as the basis for the development of rehabilitation completion criteria.
- Corresponding updates to Table 1: Example rehabilitation objectives and rehabilitation completion criteria for large mines.
Updated guidelines - Annual rehabilitation reports and forward programs
All mines are required to prepare annual rehabilitation reports and forward programs in accordance with the departmental guidelines and submit these via the NSW Resources Portal (refer clause 9 in Schedule 8A of Mining Regulation 2016).
The guidelines for both large and small mines have now been updated to further assist industry. Links to the updated guidelines, and a summary of the changes, are provided below:
Guideline: Form and way for annual rehabilitation report and forward program for large mines
- Added details under the ‘Publication’ headings that the ‘Finalise’ tab of the online form includes a section where the website details for publishing of documents are to be provided.
- Included additional information about generating a Rehabilitation KPI Report in ‘Explanatory note 1: Disturbance and rehabilitation reporting categories’ (to reflect changes made to the mine rehabilitation portal).
- Updated ‘Table 5 Disturbance and rehabilitation reporting categories’ to provide further clarification about how values are calculated.
- Updated ‘Section 1.7.2 Rehabilitation key performance indicators (KPIs)’ and ‘Explanatory note 2: Rehabilitation reporting statistics’ to provide further information about how values are calculated.
- Updated ‘Table 7: Disturbance and rehabilitation reporting categories’ to provide further clarification about how values are calculated.
- Included a new ‘Explanatory note 4: Amending a forward program’.
Guideline: Form and way for annual rehabilitation report and forward program for small mines
- Added details under the ‘Publication’ headings that the ‘Finalise’ tab of the online form includes a section where the website details for publishing of documents are to be provided.
- Included a new ‘Explanatory note 3: Amending a forward program’.
