AML/CTF Act designated services in plain English

People search “aml ctf act designated services” when they have heard the phrase and want the statute in ordinary words. AUSTRAC's front door is who and what AUSTRAC regulates. The professional items are professional designated services, which points at table 6 of the Act. Real estate brokering is real estate designated services. Checked on 2 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce the Act or those pages. The sector map is /tranche-2.

The idea, in one pass

• The Act names services. It does not regulate the job title on the door. Accountant, agent, and lawyer are not designated services.
• You test the file. The same practice can be inside the regime on Monday and outside it on Tuesday. The service on this matter is the test.
• A yes makes you a reporting entity for that service. What that status means when the rest of the practice is quiet is reporting entity Australia.
• Tranche 2 adds services. From 1 July 2026, firms that sat outside the older financial, bullion, and gambling tables can be in. The new work includes brokering real estate and the professional services in table 6. Dealer items are separate and often turn on a threshold. Read AUSTRAC before you treat a retail sale as in or out.

Tables, not a slogan

There is no single sentence that lists every designated service. The Act uses tables. Older tables cover businesses AUSTRAC has regulated for years. Table 6 is the professional list: assisting a real-estate or entity transaction, holding property in a deal, arranging finance, a shelf company, creating or restructuring an entity, a specified role or nominee shareholder, and a registered office or principal place of business. The nine questions, asked of the file, are already on Table 6 designated services. This page does not repeat that table.

A house does not put every profession on the same item. Brokering the sale is a real estate designated service. Assisting the transfer, as a conveyancer or lawyer, is the professional item. The customer can differ. The order of questions, including that split, is the designated services decision tree. AUSTRAC's summary of obligations for tranche 2 entities is the official list of what follows a yes. This article does not reproduce it.

This page is the Act overview

This page is the Act overview. It is not a job map. If you want Monday's work lined up against the items — the conveyancer on a transfer, the agent brokering a sale, the accountant forming a company — that map is AML/CTF designated services mapped to real jobs. Exemptions, the court-order fork, and the precise customer column stay on AUSTRAC's pages. This article does not copy them.

If the service is in, the check is the next ops step

A yes means enrolment, a written program, and customer due diligence on that service. They are not this definition. On FreeAML the firm suite is A$0. The firm emails the client a link. Verification is client-pays. On the public list a personal KYC check is A$20 and a company or trust KYB check is A$40. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. The product does not decide that the file is a designated service, and it does not enrol the firm.

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