Who is responsible for lodging an NLIS transfer?

On a private (paddock-to-paddock) sale, the buyer — the person the cattle are moving to — is responsible for recording the transfer onto their PIC in NLIS. When cattle sell through a saleyard, the saleyard records the movement. When cattle go to an abattoir, the processor handles the final movement. The receiver lodging the 'transfer in' is the step most private buyers forget.

How long do I have to record a cattle movement on NLIS?

The deadline is set by your state or territory legislation and is commonly within 2 days to 7 days of the animals arriving. The safest rule is to lodge it as soon as the cattle are on the ground. Check your state's exact timeframe with your state department or Integrity Systems — the timeframe is a legal requirement, not a guideline.

What is the difference between a transfer-in and a transfer-off?

A transfer-in (transfer onto) records cattle arriving on your PIC — you become responsible for lodging it on a private purchase. A transfer-off records cattle leaving your PIC. In a private sale between two producers, the movement is a single event but it is the receiving PIC that must appear in NLIS, so the buyer lodges the transfer in. Saleyards record both the in (to the saleyard) and out (to the buyer).

How do I record a death on NLIS?

On the NLIS portal, go to Manage transfers and movements, choose Record death, enter the RFID or NLIS ID, the death date and optional cause, and submit. Recording deaths keeps your NLIS holdings accurate so reconciliation and your holdings reports match what is actually on the property. In Tagline on a connected property, recording a death auto-lodges it to NLIS.

How to transfer cattle on & off your PIC (NLIS)

Every time cattle move — you buy them, sell them, send them to the works, or one dies — the NLIS database has to be told. It's the backbone of Australia's livestock traceability, and it's a legal requirement, not a nicety. This guide covers the four movements you'll actually do: a transfer onto your PIC, a transfer off, cattle through a saleyard, and recording a death — who's responsible for each, the deadline, and exactly how to lodge them.

First: what a "transfer" actually is

NLIS tracks a lifetime location history for every electronic tag (RFID). A transfer is simply telling the database that an animal has moved from one Property Identification Code (PIC) to another. Get the movements recorded accurately and the animal stays lifetime traceable — the status that underpins EU eligibility and most premium programs. Miss them, and your NLIS account drifts out of step with your paddocks, which is exactly what an LPA audit catches.

There are only a handful of movement types, and the one that trips people up is knowing who lodges it.

Who is responsible for lodging what

Movement	Who records it in NLIS
Private (paddock-to-paddock) sale	The buyer records the transfer onto their PIC. This is the one most private buyers forget.
Sale through a saleyard	The saleyard records the movement in and out. You don't lodge it, but you should verify it happened.
Sale direct to an abattoir	The processor records the final movement to the works.
Death on your property	You record the death against your PIC.

The rule of thumb: the PIC that ends up holding the animal is the PIC that must appear in NLIS. On a private sale that's the buyer, which is why a buyer who assumes "the vendor will sort it out" ends up with cattle NLIS still shows at the seller's place.

The deadline

How long you have is set by your state or territory legislation — commonly somewhere between 2 and 7 days of the animals arriving. Rather than memorise a number that varies by state, treat it as: lodge it as soon as the cattle are on the ground. It's a legal requirement, and leaving it means the record is harder to reconstruct later. Confirm your state's exact timeframe with your state department or Integrity Systems.

Recording a transfer — the manual way (nlis.com.au)

Without a direct integration, transfers are lodged on the NLIS portal. There are two routes:

One or a few animals — enter them on the portal

Log in at nlis.com.au with your NLIS account (linked through your MyMLA account).
Go to Manage transfers and movements and choose the movement — a transfer onto your PIC (for a purchase) or off it.
Enter the RFID or NLIS IDs, the source and destination PIC, and the movement date.
Submit, and note the Upload ID — you'll need it if you have to correct the batch.

A truckload — upload a movement file

For a mob, a Movement CSV is faster. It's five columns, no header row, one animal per row:

RFID,SourcePIC,DestinationPIC,MovementDate,MovementTime
951000123456789,ND511588,ND251026,15/06/2026,09:00

RFID — the 15-digit electronic tag number, no spaces
Source PIC — the 8-character PIC the animal is coming from
Destination PIC — the 8-character PIC it's going to
Movement date — DD/MM/YYYY
Movement time — HH:MM in 24-hour; approximate is fine (09:00 for a morning movement)

Once the file processes, its status tells you whether it worked — COMPLETE, or ERROR / WARNING with a "View errors" link. The most common rejection is "device not authorised for this PIC", which usually means the previous owner hasn't lodged their outgoing transfer yet. Our NLIS status & error codes guide decodes each one.

Recording a death

Deaths keep your holdings honest — an animal that's died but is still "on" your PIC will surface as a discrepancy at reconciliation. On the portal:

Manage transfers and movements → Record death
Enter the RFID or NLIS ID
Enter the death date (cause is optional)
Submit

Deaths are entered individually rather than by CSV. If you've lost a lot at once (a flood, a lightning strike), phone the NLIS helpdesk on 1800 654 743 about batch options.

Correcting a mistake

Wrong source PIC or wrong date on a submitted batch? You can correct it once, while the batch is still open, using its Upload ID: go to Transaction History, find the batch, and click Correct transfer. You can edit specific records, remove some, or withdraw all of them to resubmit fresh. Only one correction is allowed per batch — after that, it's a call to the helpdesk.

Where Tagline fits

Everything above still works — but it's a second system to remember, at a second website, after you've already recorded the sale in your own books. On a property connected to the NLIS database, Tagline collapses that:

Record Sale / Record Purchase lodges the movement directly, with the NLIS receipt back in seconds — no CSV, no logging into nlis.com.au.
Record Death auto-lodges to NLIS the moment you enter it against the animal.
Every lodgement writes a row to a receipts table with the NLIS receipt ID and the accept/reject outcome, so the round-trip is audit-ready without you keeping Upload IDs in a notebook.
If the property isn't connected, Tagline still queues an NLIS Action reminding you to lodge it by hand, so nothing slips.

The point isn't fewer clicks for their own sake — it's that the movement, the sale and the animal's record are the same event instead of three you reconcile later. More on that in how NLIS sync works.

The transfer most people miss isn't hard — it's the private-purchase transfer-in, because everyone assumes the other party lodged it. On NLIS, the buyer owns that step.

How to transfer cattle on and off your PIC (NLIS)