Check if you will be regulated: using AUSTRAC's tool properly

People search “AUSTRAC check if regulated tool” when a small firm opens AUSTRAC’s tool and is about to answer for the client’s business instead of its own. Checked against AUSTRAC’s page on who and what it regulates on 4 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. What a reporting entity is sits on reporting entities in Australia. Enrolment after a yes is on the AUSTRAC enrolment guide. The sector map is /tranche-2.

Answer for your services

The useful way to use the tool is to list the services the business actually provides, then answer those. Job titles mislead it. “Accountant,” “agent,” and “lawyer” are not items. A service you provide twice a year still counts if it is a designated service.

A service you never provide should be answered as absent, not as a fear. Answer the firm’s business. A practitioner who clicks through as if they were the client will get a result about the wrong person. Keep a PDF or a note of the answers and the date; if the result says you are not regulated, and you can see that you do provide a designated service, the Act is not amended by the click; this page does not reproduce the tool’s questions.

• List services before you click. Write what you did last quarter. Then answer. Do not answer from the logo.
• Include the occasional file. Rare is not the same as never.
• Save the result. Date it. A later staff member needs to see what was asked, not a memory of “we were fine.”
• Do not stop at the tool. A yes still needs enrolment, a program, and an officer. A no still needs a human to check it against the items.

Clicks that waste the afternoon

The compliance officer can review the click path in ten minutes. The mistakes are repetitive. They are also how a firm later says it was told it was out.

Where the tool page stops

This page is how to use the tool without answering the wrong business. It is not the definition of a reporting entity and it is not the enrolment steps. Those are reporting entities in Australia and the AUSTRAC enrolment guide. FreeAML does not run the tool and does not enrol you.

The firm suite is A$0. Checks start only when your program says a customer must be verified, and the client pays.

What the client pays

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. Use KYB when the customer is a company or a trust. The firm suite does not include running AUSTRAC’s tool or lodging an enrolment. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. FreeAML does not tell you the result of AUSTRAC’s tool or enrol the firm.

Frequently Asked Questions