Since 1 July 2026, real estate agents have been inside Australia’s anti-money laundering rules for the first time. The industry calls it “Tranche 2”. In practice it means any agency that sells property now needs a written compliance program, someone in charge of it, and a proper process for checking who its clients are before settlement day.
For most of us, compliance has always meant state legislation: the Property and Stock Agents Act in NSW, the Estate Agents Act in Victoria, the Agents Financial Administration Act in Queensland. Keep the money separate, receipt it properly, reconcile every month, get audited once a year. None of that has gone away. What’s new is a second, federal layer sitting on top of it.
If your agency hasn’t started yet, you’re not alone, and it’s fixable. This article covers who’s caught, what the rules actually ask of you, the dates that matter, and why a well-run trust account does a surprising amount of the work for you.
Updated September 2026, now that the regime has started.
The short version
- Agents who sell, buy or transfer property for clients have been regulated by AUSTRAC since 1 July 2026. Property management and leasing on their own aren’t covered.
- AUSTRAC enrolment closed on 29 July 2026 for agencies already trading. If you missed it, enrol now.
- You need a risk assessment, a written AML/CTF program, a compliance officer, client checks, ongoing monitoring, seven years of records and staff training.
- The first annual compliance report is due by 31 March 2027.
- A trust account that’s reconciled and documented already gives you most of the records the program relies on.
What is Tranche 2?
AML/CTF stands for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing. AUSTRAC is the federal agency that enforces the AML/CTF Act. Banks, casinos and remittance providers have answered to it since 2006. That was “Tranche 1”.
Tranche 2 brings in the professions that sit at the gate of the financial system: real estate agents, lawyers, accountants, conveyancers, and trust and company service providers. Property has long had a reputation as an easy place to park dirty money, because a lot of cash can move through one transaction without many questions asked. The reform is meant to close that gap, and real estate is squarely in it.
Does it apply to my agency?
It applies if you provide a “designated service”. For real estate, that means any service connected with the sale, purchase or transfer of property, whether you act for the buyer or the seller, and whatever the price. A related-party transfer between family members counts just as much as a sale on the open market.
Property management and leasing aren’t designated services, so an agency that only manages rentals isn’t caught. Most agencies sell as well as manage, though, and the moment you list a property for sale, you’re in.
Key dates
- 31 March 2026. AUSTRAC enrolment opened for Tranche 2 businesses.
- 1 July 2026. AML/CTF obligations started for real estate agents.
- 29 July 2026. Enrolment deadline for agencies already providing designated services. A new business has 28 days from its first designated service.
- 31 March 2027. First annual compliance report due to AUSTRAC, covering the period from 1 July 2026.
If you sell property and haven’t enrolled, that’s the first thing to fix. Enrolment itself is a straightforward online process, but being late carries civil penalties.
What agencies actually need to do
The obligations aren’t a single form to fill in. They’re an ongoing framework with several parts.
1. Enrol with AUSTRAC. The starting point, with a hard deadline attached.
2. Assess your risk. Before you can write a program you need to understand your own exposure: the kinds of transactions you handle, the clients you deal with, the locations involved, and any third parties who add risk.
3. Write your AML/CTF program. It has two parts. The first is a governance and risk framework, which is how the business identifies and manages the risk of money laundering. The second is a customer due diligence procedure: how you verify identity, screen for politically exposed persons and sanctions matches, and apply extra checks where the risk is higher. AUSTRAC publishes starter templates for smaller businesses, and for most agencies that beats starting with a blank page.
4. Appoint a compliance officer. Someone at management level has to own this. In most agencies that’s the principal or a director.
5. Verify your clients. Know your customer (KYC) checks on buyers and sellers before you act for them, including identity verification and screening. Plenty of agencies already do a version of this. The gap is usually consistency and paperwork, not a total absence of process.
6. Monitor and report. The check isn’t a one-off at the start of a relationship. You’re expected to keep an eye on transaction patterns and flag anything out of step, such as unusual payment sources or large cash transactions, with a suspicious matter report to AUSTRAC where it’s warranted.
7. Keep records for seven years. Transaction records, verification documents and the program itself all need to be kept and easy to find.
8. Train your staff. Everyone involved in client-facing transactions needs training suited to their role.
What getting it wrong costs
AUSTRAC’s powers are broad. They run from written notices and enforceable undertakings through to civil penalty proceedings in court and, in serious cases, referral for criminal prosecution. Civil penalties can reach tens of millions of dollars for a body corporate, and individuals can be held personally liable.
AUSTRAC has said it will take an educative, risk-based approach in the early transition period. That’s a grace period for tone, not a pass on having a program in place.
Why this sits so close to trust accounting
The overlap with trust accounting is no accident. Trust money is, by definition, someone else’s money moving through your systems. That’s exactly the flow AML rules exist to watch, and a sales deposit sitting in your sales trust account is the textbook example.
None of this replaces your trust accounting obligations under state law. But a well-run trust account already produces most of the audit trail an AML/CTF program depends on: a clean record of who paid what, when and through which channel, reconciled ledgers, and a documented history you can hand to a regulator or auditor without a scramble. If every dollar already ties back to a person and a property, you’ve got the raw material the program needs.
The uncomfortable flip side is that agencies with messy, manual trust processes have more work ahead, because they’re building two systems from scratch at the same time.
What to do now if you’re behind
- Enrol first. If you sell property and aren’t enrolled, do it today.
- Map your money flows. Know exactly where funds enter your trust accounts, from whom, and for what. That’s the foundation of any due diligence program.
- Check your current client checks. Most agencies already verify identity for new vendors and buyers. Look for the gaps in consistency and documentation.
- Talk to your trust account auditor. They already understand your business and can help scope a program that fits an agency your size.
- Get your record-keeping to trust-account standard. If receipting, reconciliations and ledger notes are already clean and auditable, adding the AML documentation is a matter of adding fields, not rebuilding. Our guide to preparing for a trust account audit is a good place to start.
The upside of getting on top of it
The agencies that treated this as an afterthought found it landed as a scramble in June. The ones that treat trust accounting and AML readiness as one connected system, rather than two separate headaches, have found the new obligations slot in with far less fuss.
It’s also a fair moment to ask whether your current trust accounting setup, whatever platform it runs on, actually gives you the clean, exportable transaction history that both your state regulator and AUSTRAC are going to want to see. The AUSTRAC dates sit alongside every state audit deadline in our trust account compliance calendar.
Where to go for more detail
This article is general information, not legal advice. AUSTRAC’s website has sector-specific guidance and starter program templates for real estate agents. If you haven’t started, it’s worth having a lawyer or compliance specialist look over your program.
Trust Account Solutions provides outsourced trust accounting for real estate agencies across Australia and New Zealand. Get in touch if you’d like to talk through how your trust accounting fits into the bigger compliance picture.