---
title: "Pet rabbits are illegal in Queensland, Australia, where feral rabbits cost about $200 million a year"
url: https://badiyaa.com/queensland-pet-rabbits-illegal-biosecurity/
published: 2026-11-14T19:15:00+00:00
modified: 2026-11-14T19:15:00+00:00
section: Pets & Animals
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# Pet rabbits are illegal in Queensland, Australia, where feral rabbits cost about $200 million a year

Keeping a pet rabbit is illegal in Queensland, where the Biosecurity Act lists rabbits as a restricted invasive animal and penalties may apply.

You can keep a dog, a cat, a guinea pig or even an axolotl in Queensland. You cannot keep a rabbit. The Queensland Government says plainly that introducing, keeping or supplying rabbits anywhere in the Australian state is illegal, and that penalties apply, even for a single fluffy house pet.

It surprises a lot of people, especially newcomers from the rest of Australia or from overseas, where rabbits are among the most ordinary family pets. Here is how one of the world’s cuddliest animals ended up on the same banned list as foxes and Burmese pythons.

## The law in plain terms

Under Queensland’s Biosecurity Act 2014, the rabbit is listed as a restricted invasive animal in categories 3, 4, 5 and 6. In practice, owning, feeding, transporting, selling, gifting or releasing one is off the table. Every person also carries a “general biosecurity obligation” to take reasonable steps to limit the risks from any rabbit under their control.

The state’s official list of prohibited pets puts rabbits alongside ferrets, gerbils, hamsters, iguanas, ball pythons, red-eared slider turtles and squirrels. Cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rats, mice and axolotls have no restrictions at all.

There are narrow exceptions. Biosecurity Queensland can issue permits for domestic rabbits used in research, public display, magic acts and circuses, but only after strict guidelines are met. Ordinary pet ownership is not on that list.

## Why a pet rabbit counts as a threat

The reason is Australia’s long, expensive history with feral rabbits. The animals are native to Europe and arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 as a food source. The modern plague is usually traced to October 1859, when Thomas Austin released rabbits for hunting at his Barwon Park property in Victoria. Within about ten years, two million a year could be shot or trapped with no visible dent in numbers, the fastest spread recorded for any mammal.

Today the Queensland Government calls rabbits one of Australia’s major farm and environmental pests, at a cost of roughly $200 million a year. They eat down crops and grazing land, crowd out native wildlife, loosen soil until it erodes and keep native bush from growing back.

Their breeding speed is the real worry. A female can start breeding at four months, carry a litter for 28 to 30 days and produce five or six litters in a good season, averaging three or four kittens each. Do the math on a single escaped pair: at those averages, one female alone could produce 15 to 24 young in a single good year, and her daughters could be breeding before it ends.

That is why Queensland built a rabbit-proof fence starting in 1893, later joined to the Dingo Fence in 1997. Australia’s battles with introduced and native animals have a strange history; Badiyaa has covered [the Great Emu War of 1932](https://badiyaa.com/great-emu-war-australia-1932/) and [the last film of a living thylacine in Hobart](https://badiyaa.com/thylacine-footage-hobart-zoo-1933/).

## What to do if you already have one

The government’s advice is firm on one point: never release a pet rabbit into the wild. Owners can hand it in to their local council or to Biosecurity Queensland, ask the RSPCA about rehoming it interstate, or phone the Darling Downs-Moreton Rabbit Board, which can collect the animal.

Anyone moving to Queensland has a gentler option. Rabbits are legal pets in New South Wales, and the state government itself suggests leaving a pet rabbit with a friend there before you cross the border. For more animal stories, visit our [Pets & Animals section](https://badiyaa.com/category/pets-animals/).

## Further reading

- [Wikipedia: Rabbits in Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia)

- [Wikipedia: European rabbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_rabbit)

*Image: Acabashi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*