The News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC, or News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) is a law designed to have large technology platforms that operate in Australia pay local news publishers for the news content made available or linked on their platforms. The law's definition of news is broad, including "content that reports, investigates or explains ... current issues or events of public significance for Australians at a local, regional or national level." Originating in April 2020, when the Australian Government asked the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to begin drafting it, it achieved broad support in the Australian Parliament but staunch opposition from Facebook and Google.

Due to Australia taking the lead pushing for sustainability of the news industry, the News Media Bargaining Code greatly influenced the legislation in other countries.

Under the law, there are two ways for the eligible news organisations (the ones registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) to extract fees from the platforms:

As of November 2024, no platforms were designated and no designations were pending.

The Act seeks to "address a bargaining power imbalance that exists between digital platforms and Australian news businesses" which the ACCC identified in its Digital Platforms Inquiry report. The Australian government hopes it "will ensure that news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to sustain public interest journalism in Australia".

It requires stakeholders to agree to a dollar value of the news content distributed by the platforms, pay that revenue to registered news publishers, and agree to final offer arbitration in the case of a dispute between a publisher and a platform on the value of the news content. The Bill defined making "content available" by "if the content is reproduced on the service, or is otherwise placed on the service, or if a link to the content or an extract of the content is provided on the service." Nine Network estimated this amount to be $432 million. The code would also require digital platforms give 28 days notice to Australian news publishers about algorithm changes that could affect links to their news content.

Proponents of the law argue that the profitability of social media companies is partly attributable to the fact that users can receive news updates even when they do not view the ads on the page of the original publisher.

The code was supported by media companies based outside Australia The Guardian, the Daily Mail, and News Corp. The bill was also supported by the Australian Press Council.^{[citation needed]} The Bill also saw support from public broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service, following their amended inclusion in the remuneration stages of the code. The bill also saw support from Microsoft, which issued a statement suggesting that the code would be made to work with its search engine Bing. This followed a comment from Google Australia which said the company would pull out of the Australian market if the code was enacted.