Australia guides

What EBITDA multiple do Australian mid-market businesses sell for?

Australian mid-market transactions reached a median 10.1x EBITDA in FY26, up 36.6% from 7.4x in FY25, which Moore Australia reports as a 6-year high. It is measured from deals with a total enterprise value up to A$300 million, and only those whose financial terms were published. If your business is smaller than that, it is the wrong number to plan around: Australian advisers put owner-operated businesses under about A$1 million of EBITDA nearer 1.5 to 4 times normalised EBITDA — that is, earnings after deducting a market wage for the owner's own work. This page explains what the mid-market figure measures, why the two are not competing estimates, and which applies to you.

By the bizflip team · Published 15 September 2026 · Facts checked 15 September 2026 · Sources listed below

If you have seen a headline about Australian business valuations hitting a six-year high, it came from mid-market transaction data. The figure is genuine and recent. The population it describes is narrow, and applying it to a smaller business will overstate the price badly — so both halves are worth understanding before you set an expectation.

What the FY26 data actually says

Moore Australia's APAC Mid-Market M&A Report for FY26, published on 2 September 2026, draws its transaction data from Acuris Mergermarket, accessed on 14 July 2026, and its listed-company comparisons from S&P Capital IQ Pro, accessed on 3 July 2026. The deal criteria are stated in the report: Australasia and Asia, and a total enterprise value of A$300 million or less where reported.

Every row below names the population it was measured in, because that is the only way a multiple means anything. The last row is not from this dataset at all — it is there so the comparison is in front of you rather than two screens away.

The most useful thing in that table is not the year-on-year move everyone is reporting. It is the sector spread: leisure at 5.4x against IT at 15.7x is nearly three times, which dwarfs the 36.6% rise. Which industry you are in, and how a buyer reads its risk, moves a multiple far more than the market cycle does.

Why this is probably not your multiple

Two limits on the dataset decide who it applies to.

• It covers deals up to A$300 million of enterprise value, and the Australian median within it was A$26.0 million. A business worth several hundred thousand dollars is not a small example of that population — it is a different market, with different buyers, different finance and a different sale process.
• It covers only transactions whose financial terms were published. Moore says so directly: deal values and multiples are not always published because of the private nature of some transactions, and the report is based on the availability of transaction metrics. Disclosure correlates with size and with institutional involvement, so the deals that produce a published multiple are not a random sample of the deals that happen.

"Mid-market" is used two ways, and they are far apart

This trips people up, including in our own library, so it is worth separating plainly. Moore uses mid-market for transactions up to A$300 million of enterprise value — the whole dataset on this page. Australian SME advisers use the same word for businesses with roughly A$1 million to A$5 million of EBITDA, and quote those at about 3.5x to 6x. Both usages are standard in their own context, and they overlap at the edge rather than sitting apart: A$5 million of EBITDA at 6x is about A$30 million of enterprise value, which is roughly Moore's median deal. Even there the two do not meet, because a A$26 million transaction reached through a disclosed, advised and usually institutional process is priced differently from a A$3 million owner-managed business sold to one buyer.

So when you read that mid-market multiples are at a six-year high, the first question is whose mid-market. If a figure is not accompanied by a size band, it is not yet information you can use.

What a smaller Australian business actually sells for

There is no public register of Australian private sale prices, so for smaller businesses what exists is adviser-published ranges rather than measured transaction data. Those ranges put businesses under about A$250,000 of EBITDA at roughly 1.5x to 2.5x, and A$250,000 to A$1 million at roughly 2.5x to 4x, rising with size. Our guide on what EBITDA multiple a small Australian business sells for names each publisher and shows how the bands are built, and a companion page explains why no free table of Australian sale prices exists.

Which earnings figure the multiple applies to

This matters more than the multiple, and it is where most expectations go wrong. The ranges above are quoted on normalised EBITDA — earnings after deducting a market wage for the work the owner actually does. If your profit figure still includes your own labour, a multiple applied to it prices the business plus a free full-time employee, and no buyer pays for that.

You may also be quoted a multiple of seller's discretionary earnings, which deliberately adds the owner's wage back. That is a different basis, and the multiples attached to it are lower for the same business. A multiple is only comparable to another multiple when both sit on the same earnings definition, so ask which one you are being given before you compare two numbers.

Where the gap between the tiers comes from

Moore explains the step from listed companies down to the mid-market directly, and the reasoning is the useful part. Listed companies command higher multiples because of superior liquidity, stronger governance standards and lower risk. For smaller companies a lack of marketability arising from those same factors produces a discount for lack of marketability and size, applied to mid-market valuations, and that discount outweighs the control premium a buyer pays for outright ownership. The result is the spread between the two.

That is measured for the step from the ASX 200 to the mid-market. Extending it further down is reasoning, not measurement, and worth labelling as such: a business with one owner, a handful of customers and no second layer of management is harder to sell, harder to finance and riskier to run than a A$26 million company, so the same three forces should press harder, not less. Moore does not measure that step and nobody publishes reliable data on it. The direction is not seriously disputed, and it is consistent with where the adviser ranges sit.

What actually moves your own number

Within whatever range applies to your size and sector, what a buyer prices is specific and mostly improvable over a couple of years.

• How much of the business runs through you personally — the customers who deal only with you, the quoting, the supplier relationships.
• Customer concentration. One client at 40% of revenue is a discount, and a visible one.
• Whether the earnings are demonstrable from the accounts rather than explained in conversation.
• Recurring or contracted revenue against one-off work.
• Whether the lease, licences and key contracts can actually transfer, and on what notice.
• The quality of the records a buyer's accountant will ask for.

None of those move the market's median. All of them move where you sit inside your own range, which is the only part you control.

How to check this yourself

Every figure on this page is in the sources listed below, and the Moore report is published in full and free to download. Two habits are worth keeping when you read any multiple, from us or from anyone else: find out what population it was measured in, and find out which earnings figure it applies to. A multiple quoted without both is not information you can use.

If you want a figure for your own business rather than for the market, the free business valuation calculator works from your own figures and shows its workings. Every guide on the estate is on the Australian guides hub.

Sources

Every load-bearing claim in this guide, and where it comes from:

• Australian mid-market EBITDA multiples grew by 36.6% from 7.4x in FY25 to 10.1x in FY26, and "mid-market M&A EBITDA multiples reached a 6-year high" — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26
• APAC mid-market median deal sizes increased 2.6% from A$23.2m in FY25 to A$23.8m in FY26; Australian deal size saw larger growth, increasing 8.6% to a median of A$26.0m — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26
• The ASX 200 EBITDA multiple climbed 5.8% in FY26 to 12.4x, and "FY26 showed the spread compressed to an 18.6% ASX200 to mid-market M&A valuation discount, from the 36.9% FY25 discount" — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26
• Median EBITDA multiples for the IT sector were 15.4x in FY25, rising to 15.7x in FY26; the largest backward movement was in leisure sector deals, which declined 15.6% to a median multiple of 5.4x, the lowest sector multiple observed in FY26 — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26
• Deal criteria: geography Australasia and Asia; total enterprise value less than or equal to A$300m where reported. Deal data accessed from Acuris Mergermarket on 14/07/2026; index data from S&P Capital IQ Pro on 03/07/2026 — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26, sources and considerations
• "Deal values and multiples are not always published due to the private nature of some transactions. This report is based on the availability of transaction metrics." — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26, sources and considerations
• Listed companies command higher multiples due to superior liquidity, stronger governance standards and decreased risk; a lack of marketability for smaller companies results in a discount for lack of marketability and size being applied to mid-market valuations, outweighing the control premiums offered and creating the spread between ASX 200 and mid-market EBITDA multiples — Moore Australia — APAC Mid-Market M&A Report FY26
• Australian adviser bands on normalised EBITDA: under A$250,000 at 1.5x–2.5x, A$250,000 to A$1 million at 2.5x–4x, and A$1 million to A$5 million (which these advisers call mid-market) at 3.5x–6x — creditte — described by its publisher as indicative and based on market observation
• Those bands, each attributed to its publisher, and why no measured Australian dataset exists for businesses of this size — bizflip — what EBITDA multiple does a small Australian business sell for

Ready for your own number? The valuation calculator is free and ungated, and its methodology is public.