Victoria's blind cord rule for rentals: what changed on 1 December, and what it costs

The rule, exactly

The requirement sits in Schedule 4 of the Residential Tenancies Regulations 2021 (Vic), the schedule that lists the rental minimum standards, as a new clause inserted by amending regulations made in 2025 (S.R. No. 63/2025). Consumer Affairs Victoria's minimum standards page states the obligation plainly: all corded internal window coverings must have an anchor installed to secure the cords and prevent them forming loops. The geometry of a compliant anchor is spelled out in the government's regulatory impact statement, and it is the same test the federal installation standard uses: the covering secured so that a loose cord cannot form a loop of 220 mm or longer that is less than 1,600 mm above floor level, with the anchor installed against a wall or structure at least 1,600 mm above floor level.

Those numbers are not new inventions. They mirror the federal installation standard that has applied to coverings installed since 2015 (more on that below). What is new is who must act: in a rental, meeting them is now the rental provider's standing obligation, regardless of when the blind went in.

What a rental provider or property manager must do

• Secure every corded internal covering, in every rental, now. The standard applies to existing coverings, not just new installations. A blind fitted in 2009 is covered the same as one fitted last week.
• Do not advertise or offer a non-compliant property. From 25 November 2025, it also became an offence for a rental provider or agent to advertise or offer a property to let that does not meet minimum standards, per the government's announcement.
• The hardware is cheap and available free. CAV distributes a free safety kit of five securing devices to Victorian addresses through its curtain and blind cord safety page. The government's regulatory impact statement assumes $7.10 a window in materials and 15 minutes' installation per window.

What a renter can do

Two things, both worth knowing before an email exchange starts. A renter whose blind or curtain cords are not secured can request an urgent repair, the same category as a failed hot water service, because an unmet minimum standard is an urgent repair under Victorian tenancy law. And under section 64(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, a renter may install cord anchors or guides themselves, without the rental provider's permission, unless the property is heritage-listed; it is one of the prescribed minor modifications a provider cannot refuse. CAV's pages set out both routes.

The gap this closes

Australia has had national cord-safety law for over a decade, but it was built in two pieces that both look forward, not back. The Trade Practices (Corded Internal Window Coverings) Regulations 2010 govern what can be supplied since 30 December 2010: warning labels and safety components in the box. The Competition and Consumer (Corded Internal Window Coverings) Safety Standard 2014 governs installation, but only for coverings installed from 1 January 2015. Anything hung before those dates, and any cord whose anchor was never fitted or has since come off the wall, sat outside both. Victoria's minimum standard is the first Victorian rule that reaches back into existing rental stock and requires the retrofit. Owner-occupied homes remain outside it; the federal instruments are still the only rules there.

Why the rule exists

The government's regulatory impact statement is explicit about the origin: a Coroners' Court of Victoria finding (Finding into Death Without Inquest: Master J, 27 June 2022) recommended mandating blind cord safety anchors in all residential rental properties. The same document records that From 2010 to 2020, the Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit reported 26 presentations to Victorian emergency departments due to injuries from blind cords, with two deaths in Victoria over that decade and two more nationally; CAV's product safety page records at least 21 young children's deaths nationally since 2001. That is the fact the rule stands on, stated once. Everything else about it is practical: a cleat, two screws, above 1,600 mm.

What it costs, on the government's own assumptions

That ordering is worth a landlord's attention. Of the recent wave of Victorian minimum standards, this is the one with the smallest bill, the free hardware programme, and the clearest test of compliance: stand at the window, and check that no loose loop of 220 mm can form below 1,600 mm.