Key points
- From 1 July 2026, accounting and professional services firms are regulated under Australia’s AML/CTF laws.
- Only some accounting work, known as designated services, is covered, not everything we do for you.
- General tax return preparation, bookkeeping and payroll are generally not designated services.
- You may notice extra questions or documentation before we begin a designated service, even if we’ve worked together for years.
From 1 July 2026, thousands more businesses, including accounting and professional services firms, are regulated under Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws. As your accountant, we want you to know what that means, so nothing about our process comes as a surprise.
The short version: the rules add some checks to how we start certain pieces of work. For most of what we do for you day to day, very little changes.
Who the new rules cover
The reforms bring several new sectors under the regulator, AUSTRAC. Alongside accounting, they now cover real estate, conveyancing, legal services, and dealers in precious stones and metals. Firms in these sectors have to meet obligations that include running an AML/CTF program, carrying out customer due diligence, reporting suspicious matters, and keeping the relevant records.
Not every service is regulated
This is the part that matters most for you: the rules apply to some accounting services, not all of them. Only work classed as a designated service is regulated. Some examples of when the AML/CTF rules may apply are when we:
- help create or restructure a company,
- assist in planning or carrying out the sale, purchase or transfer of a company,
- receive, hold, control or manage your money to help plan or carry out a transaction, or
- provide a registered office or principal place of business address.
That list isn’t exhaustive. As a general rule, everyday work like tax return preparation, bookkeeping and payroll is not a designated service. For the full list of designated services, AUSTRAC’s website is the authoritative source.
What changes for you
Some of our onboarding and engagement steps may look a little different from 1 July. Before we start a designated service, we may ask some additional questions or need extra documentation to confirm details we’re now required to verify. These steps are what keep us compliant with the AML/CTF laws, and they apply no matter how long we’ve worked together. They’re now the standard across the whole profession, and every client goes through the same process.
If you’re also a financial planning client of ours, much of this will feel familiar. Financial planners have operated under AML/CTF obligations for many years, so the identity checks and due diligence are already a routine part of that side of our business. What’s changed is that similar checks now extend to certain accounting services.
We’ll keep these checks as straightforward as we can, and we’ll only ask for what the rules require.
Questions are welcome
If anything about these changes is unclear, or you’d like to know whether a particular piece of work is affected, please get in touch with your usual AGS contact. As ever, we’re happy to talk it through.