New AML/CTF laws · from 1 July 2026
Tell us the day you start providing a designated service. We will tell you the day AUSTRAC needs you enrolled by.
Not a law firm. Not a software subscription. One compliance officer who writes the program and then carries the role, with every fee on this page.
AUSTRAC, quoted as published: “From 1 July 2026, new anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws will apply to designated services commonly provided by:”
What we do
Fixed fees, published. Two of the six are free, because they are a phone call and a form and we are not going to invoice you for either.
A written program for the designated services you actually provide — risk assessment, customer due diligence procedures, record keeping, staff training, and the governance around it. Drafted from your files, not a template with your name in the header.
We carry the AML/CTF compliance officer role: the reporting inbox, the escalations, the board paper, the annual compliance report, and the phone call when a settlement looks odd at 4pm on a Friday.
An outside read of a program you already have — often one written by a vendor as part of a subscription. We tell you what is thin, what is missing, and what is fine and should be left alone.
For the transaction that will not resolve: an offshore buyer, a trust with no visible controller, a company that was registered last month. We build the file and write the decision down so the decision is defensible later.
It is a form. If you have a program and you know your designated services, you can lodge it yourself in an afternoon. Ring us and we will talk you through the fields while you fill them in.
Fifteen minutes on whether the regime reaches you at all, what your first date is, and whether you need any of the five services above this year. If the answer is no, we will say no.
Every figure above is ours and applies to our own work. We do not publish anyone else’s rates, and we do not present ours as a market benchmark.
Four answers, in order: are you in scope, your enrol-by date, what you must have in place, what it costs. Dates checked against Wed, 16 Sep 2026.
In scope
Apply to enrol no later than
Wed, 29 Jul 2026
What you must have in place
How it runs
Most of what is being sold right now is an annual subscription. A program is a document and a habit; neither of those is software.
Fifteen minutes. We work out which of your services are designated services, when the first one was or will be, and whether you need anything from us at all. Free, and it ends in a written note either way.
Two to four weeks. We read your listing agreements, your trust account procedure and your onboarding forms, then write the program around them. Fixed fee, agreed before we start.
The AUSTRAC form, lodged inside the 28 days. Included in a build; free if you have your own program and just want someone on the phone while you fill it in.
We carry the compliance officer role month to month — reports, escalations, training, and the annual compliance report. Month to month means you can stop when it stops being useful.
What principals say
We had three vendors telling us we were three months late. Meridian Line worked out our first listing agreement was signed on 6 July and gave us the date in one call. The program came in under the quote.
I run a rent roll and nothing else. They would not tell me I was clear, which annoyed me for about a day, and then I understood why. We did the scope call, wrote down the answer, and I have it on file.
The independent evaluation found four things wrong with a program we had already paid a subscription for. They also told us two of our risk controls were fine and to leave them alone, which nobody had ever done.
Demonstration copy on a demonstration site — written to show what a real client quote would look like here, not attributed to any real person or business.
Where we work
On-site work across the metro at no travel charge. Bunbury, Busselton, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and Karratha are done by video and a courier satchel, at the same fee — a program build does not need us in the room, and we will say so rather than bill you for the drive.
Ask about your suburbAsked most weeks
AUSTRAC publishes it as a list. Quoted in full: From 1 July 2026, new anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws will apply to designated services commonly provided by:
— legal professionals
— accountants
— conveyancers
— real estate professionals
— dealers in precious metals, stones and products.
The Department of Home Affairs, in its overview of the AML/CTF Amendment Act, states: These entities will be able to enrol with AUSTRAC from 31 March 2026.
It is the specific activity the Act regulates — not your industry, and not your ABN. For real estate, AUSTRAC writes: Designated services relating to real estate regulate the sale, purchase and transfer of these interests whether or not there was payment or other consideration involved in the transfer. For example, a conveyancer who helps a parent transfer ownership of the family home to their child without consideration will provide a designated service.
That last sentence is the one most principals have not read. A transfer with no money in it is still a transfer.
After you start, within a window. AUSTRAC: You must apply to enrol no later than 28 days after the day you start providing a designated service.
For an agency, AUSTRAC also fixes when the clock starts: A person acting as a seller’s agent starts providing a designated service to a seller or transferor when an agreement to broker the sale or transfer of a property is signed.
That is why the estimator above asks for a date rather than a month — the date is in your own file.
It is one of the obligations that follows enrolment. AUSTRAC: If you stay enrolled, you’ll have obligations you need to meet, such as submitting an annual compliance report.
We will not describe its contents here, because we would be paraphrasing a form we would rather you read on AUSTRAC’s own site. If we carry your compliance officer role, preparing it is included in the monthly fee.
No. We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice. If your question is whether a particular transaction is legally a designated service in a contested case, that is a lawyer’s answer and we will tell you to go and get one — we are not going to pretend otherwise to keep the file.
We are also not a software vendor, which is the other thing most of page one is. What we sell is a written program and a named person who answers the phone.
Not necessarily, and most 3–10 person practices do not, in year one. A verification tool earns its place when you are onboarding enough customers that manual identity checks stop being reliable — typically a busy sales office, a conveyancer doing volume, or anyone dealing regularly with companies and trusts rather than individuals.
If you are a sole practitioner doing twenty matters a year, a subscription is an expensive way to store PDFs. We would rather build you the program and let you decide about tooling in year two, when you know your own volumes.
Book it
The call ends with a written note saying what applies to you and what does not, whether or not you engage us. If the answer is that you need nothing this year, that is what the note will say.