If you're a real estate agent, property developer, conveyancer, accountant or lawyer in Australia and you've heard you're now caught by AML/CTF obligations, here's what that actually means: from 1 July 2026, AUSTRAC's reforms brought these sectors into the regime for the first time — tens of thousands of newly captured businesses, on AUSTRAC's own enrolment counts — with a transitional enrolment deadline of 29 July 2026. If you're reading this after that date and haven't enrolled, the transitional deadline has passed but the underlying obligation hasn't — the standing rule is that you must enrol within 28 days of starting to provide a designated service, so the exposure is backdated, not waived.
The single biggest myth: "Part A and Part B"
If anyone has described your obligations to you as needing a "Part A and Part B" AML/CTF program, that's outdated terminology from the pre-reform regime. AUSTRAC is direct about the change:
"The reforms replace independent reviews of Part A of your AML/CTF program with independent evaluations of your entire AML/CTF program."
Under the current regime, an AML/CTF program is exactly two things: a ML/TF risk assessment, and the AML/CTF policies built on it. If a template, consultant or software product is still selling you "Part A/Part B," it's working from the old structure.
Are you actually captured?
Real estate has two distinct designated services under the Act, and which one applies (or whether either does) depends on how you transact, not just that you're "in real estate":
- Item 1 — brokering. Acting as intermediary or agent, in the course of carrying on a business, to sell, purchase or transfer real estate on behalf of a buyer, seller, transferee or transferor. Crucially, the customer here is both sides of the same transaction — the seller/transferor and the buyer/transferee — so your obligations run to both parties, not just your listing client.
- Item 2 — non-brokered sale. Selling or transferring real estate in the course of a business selling real estate, where the sale isn't brokered by an independent agent. This captures property developers, including those selling through their own in-house agents or sales and marketing staff — house-and-land packages, off-the-plan apartments, vacant subdivision blocks. Here the customer is the buyer.
"Real estate" for these purposes means an Australian land interest that's fee simple, a leasehold of more than 30 years, or a land-use entitlement. Leases of 30 years or less, easements and other incorporeal interests, mortgagee interests, and dwellings not attached to owned land (caravan parks, some retirement villages) are excluded. Private, incidental sales — a business owner selling their own premises directly — aren't captured either.
When the service starts matters, because it sets when due diligence must begin. For a seller's agent, the obligation to the seller begins when the agency agreement is signed; to the buyer, when the transaction is reasonably expected to proceed (typically offer acceptance and contract signing). At auction, initial due diligence can be delayed for the short gap between the fall of the hammer and contract signing, where completing it immediately would disrupt the ordinary course of business.
Lawyers and conveyancers assisting a real estate transaction are captured under the separate professional services items, not the real estate items. The relevant test AUSTRAC applies there is whether your service is "sufficiently linked" to the transaction — active steps that move it forward, not general advice or incidental involvement. One carve-out worth knowing: the professional-services real estate items exclude sales or transfers made pursuant to, or resulting from, an order of a court or tribunal — a family-law property transfer under court order, for example, is outside them.
Enrolment — the process facts
Enrolment happens through AUSTRAC Online, and requires multi-factor authentication. You can save your progress and return within 14 days. On submission you receive a receipt number and an AUSTRAC Account Number (AAN), followed by a further confirmation once you're actually registered on the Reporting Entities Roll. If your business already provides another designated service, a new business under a different ABN is typically added under the same account.
Two separate clocks worth keeping straight: enrolment updates must happen within 14 days of any change to your business or designated services, and — separately — you must appoint an AML/CTF compliance officer within 28 days of starting to provide designated services, with AUSTRAC notified of that appointment within 14 days. For newly regulated entities, AUSTRAC has published the transitional worked example: "if you enrolled with us on 29 July 2026, you would have until 12 August 2026 to notify us."
Most reporting entities in this sector don't need to separately register — AUSTRAC's own guidance: "Generally you won't need to register if you are a lawyer, accountant, real estate agent, conveyancer or dealer in precious metals and stones. Registration is an extra process that typically only applies to money remitters and people providing specialised virtual asset services."
The compliance officer doesn't need to be an AML expert
This surprises a lot of small firms. AUSTRAC's own position: the officer must be at management level (for a small business, that can simply mean the owner or a director — it's about authority, not headcount), a resident of Australia if you operate through a permanent establishment here, and a fit and proper person — assessed on competence, character, and the absence of serious misconduct or conflicts of interest. AUSTRAC states plainly:
The officer "does not need to be an AML/CTF expert" — a small business appoints someone at management level with the general skills to learn the risks, building expertise through training and experience.
They also don't need to be an employee — an external compliance officer is permitted, provided they have the authority, resources and expertise to do the job, and report to your governing body at least once every 12 months.
What the program actually has to contain
The risk assessment covers four mandatory factors — the kinds of designated services you provide, your customer types, your delivery channels, and the countries you deal with — plus any planned changes to those, and any risk information AUSTRAC itself has communicated to your sector. Two starting-point risks AUSTRAC says you must specifically consider: high-value transactions, and legal structures that could help a customer stay anonymous or disguise the source of funds. For real estate specifically, AUSTRAC's own rationale is direct: property is "a widely exploited asset type for money laundering in Australia," through changing declared value or using complex ownership structures to hide who actually owns it.
The policies built on that assessment must be targeted, proportionate, ongoing and effective, covering everything from customer due diligence triggers through to sanctions screening, reporting obligations, and — for a real estate business relying on someone else for part of its due diligence — verifying the KYC information that third party provides. The program must exist before you provide your first designated service, be approved in writing by a senior manager, and be reviewed at least every three years or sooner if risk factors change materially.
The annual compliance report — a fixed window, not an anniversary
This is one of the more commonly misunderstood points, and AUSTRAC's own page settles it directly:
"The annual compliance reporting period is changing to financial years. The next reporting period will be 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. You must submit your compliance report within 3 months of a reporting period ending. The submission period will be 1 July and 30 September of each year."
For a newly regulated real estate business or professional services firm, that means your first compliance report covers 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, and is filed between 1 July and 30 September 2027 — not on the anniversary of when you enrolled.
AUSTRAC's free starter kits — the honest version
AUSTRAC publishes complete, free, editable program starter kits for real estate, accountants, conveyancers, legal professionals and jewellers — a risk assessment template, policy document, process document, and around 25 supporting forms. It's a genuinely useful resource, and it's worth using where you qualify.
Where it stops being useful is the eligibility gate. For real estate, the kit is only appropriate if you: provide only the brokering designated service; have 15 or fewer personnel including admin staff; deal mostly with individual Australian-resident customers; don't regularly deal with high-risk customers; don't broker overseas property; only handle customer funds directly tied to real estate transactions; offer no fully remote self-service; don't sell property you own (this rules out developers under Item 2 entirely); and aren't part of a large reporting group or foreign branch. AUSTRAC's own words on missing any of these: "You cannot rely on the starter kit to meet our regulatory expectations of an appropriate AML/CTF program for your business" — you'd have to assess and adapt it rather than use it as-is. The accounting kit's criteria are near-identical, gated on the same 15-or-fewer headcount.
Glossary
- Designated service — the specific activity (e.g. brokering a real estate sale) that brings you into the AML/CTF regime; being "in real estate" generally isn't itself a designated service.
- Enrolment — registering your business with AUSTRAC on the Reporting Entities Roll; distinct from the separate "registration" process, which most real estate and professional services businesses don't need.
- AAN (AUSTRAC Account Number) — the identifier issued on successful enrolment.
- AML/CTF program — now just two documents: the ML/TF risk assessment and the AML/CTF policies built on it. "Part A/Part B" is retired terminology.
- Independent evaluation — the periodic external check (minimum every three years) on how your risk assessment and policies were built and whether you're actually complying with them.
- Compliance officer — the management-level individual responsible for AML/CTF oversight; doesn't need to be an AML expert or an employee.
- Brokering (Item 1) — acting as intermediary for both sides of a real estate transaction; distinct from Item 2, non-brokered sales by developers.
- KYC (know your customer) — customer identification and verification information, whether you gather it yourself or rely on another party's.
FAQ
We missed the 29 July 2026 enrolment deadline. What now? The transitional deadline has passed, but the underlying obligation applies from when you started providing the designated service — the standing rule is enrolment within 28 days of starting. Enrol as soon as possible; delay compounds the exposure, it doesn't reduce it.
Do residential real estate agents and property developers have the same obligations? No — they sit under different designated services (Item 1 brokering versus Item 2 non-brokered sale), with different customers and different program requirements. A developer selling through its own sales team is captured under Item 2 even without using an external agent.
Can we just use AUSTRAC's free starter kit instead of paying for a program? Only if you meet every one of the eligibility criteria — 15 or fewer personnel, brokering only, no overseas property, not a developer, no high-risk or remote-only customers, and not part of a larger group. If you miss any one of them, AUSTRAC says directly that the kit alone doesn't meet its expectations.
Does our compliance officer need AML/CTF qualifications? No. AUSTRAC states explicitly that the officer doesn't need to be an AML/CTF expert, provided they're at management level, resident in Australia (where relevant), and a fit and proper person who will build expertise through training.
When is our first annual compliance report actually due? For a newly regulated business, the first reporting period is 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, filed between 1 July and 30 September 2027 — a fixed financial-year window, not tied to your enrolment date.
We're a small conveyancing firm using an accountant to prepare documents. Are we still responsible for the program? Yes. Anyone providing a designated service is responsible for having a compliant program in place, even where preparation work is outsourced. The person developing your program also can't be the one who independently evaluates it later.
What's an "independent evaluation" and how often do we need one? A periodic external review checking how your risk assessment and policies were developed and whether you're complying with your own program in practice. The standard minimum is once every three years; newly regulated entities have staggered first-evaluation deadlines under transitional rules based on the last two digits of their AUSTRAC Account Number.
Are lawyers who handle conveyancing captured the same way as real estate agents? No — they're captured under the professional services designated services (Table 6), not the real estate items, and the test is whether their service is "sufficiently linked" to the transaction through active steps, not general advice.
Does proliferation financing risk apply to a small residential real estate business? It has to be considered and documented in your risk assessment regardless of size — but AUSTRAC notes a business operating only in Australia with no customers connected to high-risk jurisdictions is less likely to face material PF risk, and a dedicated PF policy isn't required where that risk is low and your existing policies manage it.
Getting the risk assessment, policies and compliance officer appointment right from day one is far cheaper than fixing them after an evaluation flags a gap. Deplexify's AU AML/CTF service builds your program to your actual designated services — not a generic template, and not the retired Part A/Part B structure.