If your accountant, lawyer or real estate agent has started asking for your ID, who really owns your company and where your money came from, they haven’t become nosy overnight. Since 1 July 2026, the law has required them to ask.
And the regulator has now started fining businesses that haven’t caught up.
What changed on 1 July
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Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws used to apply mainly to banks, casinos, remitters and bullion dealers. On July 1, they were extended to what the industry calls “tranche 2”: accountants, conveyancers, dealers in precious metals and stones, lawyers, real estate professionals, and trust and company service providers.
AUSTRAC, the regulator, says that takes the number of businesses it oversees from around 19,000 to close to 100,000.
Newly covered businesses had until July 29 to enrol. On September 30, AUSTRAC confirmed it had started issuing infringement notices to accounting, jewellery and real estate businesses that hadn’t enrolled. The notices are $21,840 for companies and $4,368 for individuals, and they can accrue daily.
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So yes, your accountant is taking this seriously. They don’t have much choice.
It’s about the job, not about you
The obligations attach to specific services, which AUSTRAC calls designated services.
For accountants, the main ones are helping clients:
- buy, sell or transfer real estate;
- buy, sell or transfer a business, company or trust;
- hold or manage money or property as part of a transaction;
- raise equity or debt finance for a company or trust; and
- set up or restructure a company or trust.
The list also covers selling shelf companies, acting as (or arranging) a director, secretary or trustee for someone else, and providing a registered office address.
Your annual tax return and BAS aren’t on that list. The checks kick in at the big moments: setting up a new trust, selling the business, buying an investment property through a company, or bringing in an investor.
What you’ll be asked for
Before a regulated business can start one of these services, it has to complete what AUSTRAC calls initial customer due diligence.
In plain English, it needs to establish on reasonable grounds:
- Who you are, checked against reliable and independent sources;
- Who is acting on your behalf, and their authority to do so;
- Who the beneficial owners are, if you operate a company or trust. That means the people who ultimately owns or controls the entity, which isn’t always the names on the ASIC extract;
- Whether anyone involved is a politically exposed person or subject to sanctions;
- What the work is for; and
- Where the money came from, in higher-risk cases. Source of funds means how you got the money (wages, business income, a property sale, an inheritance), rather than which bank account it’s sitting in.
Here’s the part that slows things down. If the business can’t establish these matters, the law says it must not start the work. So a client who sends their ID in dribs and drabs is now a client whose restructure hasn’t started.
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The same applies elsewhere. When an agent sells a property, AUSTRAC treats both the seller and the buyer as the agent’s customers. Your conveyancer or lawyer is doing their own checks too, so you may hand over the same documents more than once. Annoying, but each business has to meet its own obligations.
Why some questions won’t get an answer
There’s one more rule worth knowing. If a regulated business reports a concern to AUSTRAC, it’s a criminal offence to disclose information where that could reasonably be expected to prejudice an investigation. This is called tipping off, and the maximum penalty is two years’ imprisonment, 120 penalty units, or both.
So if a professional declines a job or pauses work and won’t go into detail, that may be why.
The cost is real
None of this comes free. COSBOA chair Matthew Addison told SmartCompany it’s “absolutely an administrative burden for a small firm”, and some smaller practices are reconsidering whether to keep offering the services that trigger the rules.
Expect onboarding forms, ID verification apps and, in some practices, a compliance fee on transactions and restructures.
What to do before your next big transaction
- Build in lead time. Engage your advisers early, not the week before settlement;
- Have your ID ready. A current passport or driver’s licence, preferably both;
- Know your structure. Who owns the shares, who the trustee is, who the beneficiaries are. If you’re not sure, dig out the trust deed and company register now;
- Keep a paper trail for large amounts. Think sale contracts, settlement statements, loan approvals and inheritance letters; and
- Answer once, properly. Partial answers create more questions and more delay.
My take
I’ll be honest: this has added work for every practice, mine included. Rules built for the big banks have landed on firms with a handful of staff, and the compliance cost will find its way into fees. But the reasoning is sound. Property, trusts and companies are where dirty money goes to look clean, and professional advisers have been the gap for a long time.
So when your accountant asks for your passport, it isn’t personal and it isn’t a sign of mistrust. It’s the new price of doing a deal. Have the documents ready and your next one will move a lot faster.