If you have engaged a lawyer, accountant, conveyancer or real estate agent recently, you may already have been asked for more identification than usual. From 1 July 2026, those asks become standard practice across the profession. Your advisers will need to verify who you are. They will also ask about the source of funds in your transactions and about how your business, company or trust is structured.
This is part of the biggest expansion of Australia’s anti-money laundering rules in almost twenty years. It changes how a lot of professional services are delivered. If you own a business, hold investments, or act as a trustee, the change will affect how your advisers engage with you. The same goes if you are in the middle of a property or business sale.
Here is what you need to know.
What is changing
The Federal Parliament passed reforms in November 2024 that expand Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime. From 1 July 2026, the regime will cover a new set of professions. The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) is the regulator. AUSTRAC has overseen banks, casinos and remittance providers for years; the difference now is that everyday professional services are being added to the list.
The reforms align Australia with international standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). They bring our regime closer to the rules already in place in the UK, US, EU, and New Zealand. Australia has been an outlier on this. The reforms bring us into line.
Who is now regulated
From 1 July 2026, the following professions will fall within AUSTRAC’s regulatory scope:
- Lawyers;
- Accountants and tax agents;
- Real estate agents and property developers;
- Conveyancers;
- Dealers in precious stones, metals and products; and
- Trust and company service providers.
Most established firms in these professions will be affected – sole practitioners, mid-sized firms, and national groups alike.
Which services are caught
Not every service these professionals provide is in scope. The rules apply only to what the legislation defines as ‘designated services’: services that help a client advance a specific transaction. In practical terms, that includes:
- Forming companies, trusts and other entities;
- Preparing transaction documents and contracts;
- Holding or transferring client funds;
- Acting on the sale or purchase of property or businesses; and
- Acting on certain corporate restructures and asset transfers.
Routine advice that does not involve advancing a transaction sits outside the regime. Where the line falls in practice is a judgement your adviser will need to make on each file.
What firms now have to do
Every regulated firm will need to:
- Enrol and register with AUSTRAC, and appoint an internal AML/CTF Compliance Officer;
- Carry out a money laundering and terrorism financing risk assessment;
- Develop and maintain a written AML/CTF policy;
- Conduct initial and ongoing customer due diligence on clients;
- Report suspicious transactions, threshold transactions and certain international transfers to AUSTRAC;
- Keep secure records of customer identification and transaction activity; and
- Ensure their board or senior management takes active oversight responsibility.
This is a substantial body of compliance to build from scratch. Most affected firms are still working out how they will do it.
What this means for you
The change you will notice most is at the start of a new engagement. When you engage a lawyer, accountant, real estate agent or conveyancer after 1 July 2026, expect to be asked to:
- Provide more identification than you may have in the past, often through a digital identity verification service
- Answer questions about the ownership structure of any company or trust involved
- Confirm the nature and purpose of the work you want your adviser to do
- In some cases, confirm the source of the funds being used in a transaction
If you operate through a trust, a company group, or a layered structure, expect more questions than someone transacting in their own name. The compliance task scales with the complexity of the structure.
The other practical change is that a firm will sometimes need to pause an engagement. That happens if it cannot satisfy itself about who you are, or where the funds are coming from. This will be rare. It is now a legal requirement, not a discretionary judgement.
How we are preparing
We started preparing for these reforms in 2025. Our priority has been to meet the new obligations without putting the cost of that compliance onto our clients in the form of friction, delay, or duplicate paperwork.
We worked with our technology partner Syntaq to build an AML/CTF compliance module directly into our existing practice management platform. The same client record, the same workflows, no separate logins. We have set out the detail of how that works in our companion piece: How we built our AML/CTF compliance into the way we already work.
Many of you work with multiple professional advisers across the same transaction. We are also working with our colleagues in accounting, conveyancing and financial services. The aim is to keep the new compliance process from doubling up. Where we can pre-populate a verification, share data with consent, or remove a step you have already completed elsewhere, we will.
Speak to us
If you would like to understand how the new AML/CTF regime affects your business, your trusts, or a transaction you have in the pipeline, we are happy to talk it through. Book a free initial consultation. Call us on 1300 654 590 or emailus.
The information contained in this post is current at the date of editing – 29 June 2026.
