AUSTRAC regulates reporting entities and uses their reports

People ask what AUSTRAC is when a letter, a bank, or a professional body uses the name as if it were self-explanatory. Checked against AUSTRAC's “what we do” page and AUSTRAC's enrolment overview on 5 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. The reform that brought more firms into this system is what Tranche 2 is. When the new services started is 1 July 2026. The enrolment clock is enrol within 28 days. The sector map is /tranche-2.

Two jobs in one agency

AUSTRAC describes itself as Australia's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulator and financial intelligence unit. The regulator side is the one a small firm feels first. If you provide a designated service with a geographical link to Australia, you enrol. You keep your enrolment details current. You have a program, an officer, customer due diligence, reporting and records. AUSTRAC publishes the guidance those duties are read against, and it can ask you questions about them.

The financial intelligence side is why the reports exist. AUSTRAC says it collects information from reporting entities and analyses it to identify transactions linked to crime. A suspicious matter report is an input to that work. It is not a note you send so that AUSTRAC will write back with a yes or a no about your client. The agency's “what we do” page, read on 5 October 2026, does not promise the reporting entity an outcome letter. Your job ends, for that report, when you have lodged what you formed a suspicion about and you have not told the customer. Their job of analysis is not your file.

What a firm actually does with AUSTRAC

• Enrol in AUSTRAC Online if you provide a designated service. New designated services that commenced on 1 July 2026 had an enrolment date of 29 July 2026. The standing rule on the enrolment page is no later than 28 days after you start providing the service.
• Name the services and the people. Enrolment asks about the business, the designated services and key personnel. Keep it current within 14 days of a change.
• Keep a program and do the customer work yourself. AUSTRAC does not complete initial customer due diligence on your clients.
• Report suspicions, and threshold transactions where those rules apply, through AUSTRAC Online. A software vendor is not a substitute for that login.
• Do not enrol “just in case” and then forget. If you enrol and later decide you do not provide a designated service, AUSTRAC says you can apply to be removed from the Reporting Entities Roll. While you remain on it, obligations such as the annual compliance report continue.

What AUSTRAC is not

AUSTRAC is not the bank that asked your client for source of funds. That bank is a reporting entity of longer standing, doing its own customer due diligence. AUSTRAC is not the police, though its intelligence is used in the fight against serious crime, which is how AUSTRAC describes the purpose of the work. AUSTRAC is not a product. A website that says it is “AUSTRAC compliant” has not been issued a badge by this page, and FreeAML does not claim to be AUSTRAC. FreeAML is a way for a firm to have a client complete a KYC or KYB check. Enrolment, the program and the reports remain the firm's.

If you are a real estate agency, a conveyancer, a law firm, an accounting practice, or a dealer in precious metals or stones, and you provide a designated service, AUSTRAC is now the agency in your compliance year. The new reporting regime page AUSTRAC published on 1 July 2026 said those sectors are among the newly regulated businesses, and that they must enrol by 29 July 2026. That sentence is about businesses that provide the services. It is not about every person who buys a house.

Where this page stops

This page is the agency. It is not the enrolment form field by field. That walk-through is the AUSTRAC enrolment form guide.

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. There is no subscription. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. Enrolment with AUSTRAC is not a FreeAML product. The check the firm emails to a client is client-pays. FreeAML does not lodge reports to AUSTRAC.

Frequently Asked Questions