For those operating in the financial services industry – particularly those operating under an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) or Australian Credit License (ACL) – you’ll know all-too-well how important the end of financial year period is for your business.
Ensuring your continued compliance and building ongoing trust and market confidence with regulators, auditors, and customers is key.
With EOFY fast approaching, the Source Compliance team has put together a useful summary of your key end-of-year obligations and the important deadlines you need to know.
Compliance obligation: CPD requirements for relevant providers
Due date:
30 June 2026 (for AFSLs whose CPD year is the financial year)
Who it applies to:
A relevant provider is an individual who is an AFS licensee or its authorised representative, and is authorised to provide personal advice to retail clients on relevant financial products.
Provisional relevant providers (i.e., advisers still completing their professional year) do not have to meet the CPD requirements as they have their own target to meet which relates to their provisional year.
What you need to do:
Ensure all relevant providers have completed the required 40 hours of CPD. Those 40 hours must include at least:
- 5 hours in technical competence
- 5 hours in client care and practice
- 5 hours in regulatory compliance and consumer protection
- 9 hours in professionalism and ethics, and
- If the relevant provider is authorised to provide tax (financial) advice, 5 hours in tax (financial) advice.
How do you do it?
Ensure your relevant providers have accurately recorded their CPD hours in the AFSL approved format/system.
Why do you need to do it?
CPD is one of the five professional standards that all relevant providers must meet under the Corporations Act 2001.
Where a relevant provider does not meet the minimum CPD requirements the AFSL must document this failure on the relevant provider’s Financial Adviser Register records. The relevant provider may then be subject to a reprimand or other sanction from the FSCP or face other regulatory action/scrutiny.
Compliance obligation: AFCA membership fee
Due date:
30 June 2026 (renewal period 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027)
Who it applies to:
AFSLs applicable to retail authorisations only, ACLs, RSEs.
What you need to do:
Pay AFCA membership fee.
How do you do it?
Log onto AFCA membership portal.
Why do you need to do it?
It is a mandatory licence condition and provides consumers with an independent, free and fair avenue to pursue complaints. Decisions on members are legally binding and allows AFCA to monitor for systemic issues.
Compliance obligation: APRA Form 701
Due date:
28 July 2026 (reporting period 1 Jan 2026 – 30 June 2026)
Who it applies to:
AFSLs – general insurance intermediaries who place or arrange insurance with APRA insurers, UFIs or Lloyd’s underwriters and AFSLs whose general insurance authorisation is part of operating a managed investment scheme (to insure scheme assets).
What you need to do:
Submit APRA 701 form.
How do you do it?
Submissions are made via APRA Connect or by completing the APRA 701 form, ensuring it is signed by a Director or Secretary and emailed to uficollection@apra.gov.au
Why do you need to do it?
These reports need to be submitted by law even if submitting a nil return. APRA uses the data to monitor the nature and levels of insurance business conducted by insurance intermediaries including overseas insurance placements not prudentially regulated in Australia and to provide industry wide transparency on insurance market trends. Nil returns also help APRA understand inactive players in the market.
Compliance obligation: AUSTRAC enrolment for Tranche 2 entities
Due date:
29 July 2026 (obligations commence 1 July 2026)
Who it applies to:
Newly regulated Tranche 2 entities: Entities providing advice or assistance in connection with equity or debt financing for a company or other legal structure, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and others.
What you need to do:
Enrol and notify AUSTRAC of designated fit-and-proper AML/CTF Compliance Officer.
How do you do it?
Enrol with AUSTRAC Online
Why do you need to do it?
Newly regulated Tranche 2 entities must enrol with AUSTRAC and designate a fit-and-proper AML/CTF Compliance Officer as a condition of operating as a reporting entity.
Compliance obligation: IDR data report
Due date:
31 August 2026 (submission window open 1 July 2026 – 31 August 2026)
Who it applies to:
AFSLs (applicable to retail client authorisations only*).
ACLs, and RSE licensees (applicable to all complaints received).
What you need to do:
Submit IDR report of all complaints received including resolved and open complaints from prior periods for the reporting period 1 Jan 2026 – 30 June 2026.
How do you do it?
Log onto the ASIC regulatory portal.
Why do you need to do it?
Submissions include nil complaints.
*If your AFSL IDR policy includes wholesale clients you must include these complaints in your submission.
Refer to the IDR Data reporting handbook for more information.
Compliance obligation: ASIC Financial Adviser Exam
Due date:
Cycle 34
Booking closes: 7 August 2026
Exam date: 20 August 2026
Cycle 35
Booking closes: 16 October 2026
Exam date: 5 November 2026
Who it applies to:
These booking deadlines apply to persons currently undertaking their professional year (quarters 1 or 2) who have not yet passed the exam, and who need to do so in order to progress to quarter 3.
What you need to do:
Book and sit the ASIC Financial Adviser Exam, administered by ACER if you are currently in the first two quarters of your professional year and have not yet passed the exam. The financial adviser exam must be passed before a person undertaking a Professional Year can progress to quarter 3. Check which cycle fits your professional year timeline, then register before the booking close date.
Responsible licensees should check their register of provisional relevant providers and confirm who is approaching the quarter 2 / quarter 3 transition point, as the licensee also carries obligations around the professional year and notifications to ASIC.
How do you do it?
Visit this site and sign up to an exam: ACER Adviser exam
Why do you need to do it?
The exam is a mandatory gateway to quarter 3 of the professional year: a person must not start to undertake work activities or structured training for quarter 3 of their professional year unless they have passed the exam.
Compliance obligation: Annual financial report lodgement
Milestones for those whose financial year ends on 30 June 2026:
AFSL licensees that are a disclosing entity and a responsible entity of a registered scheme:
30 September 2026 is the due date to lodge annual financial report, directors’ report and auditor’s report with ASIC (Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act). Lodge Chapter 2M financial reports online via Form 388 at the ASIC company officeholder, registered agent or auditor portal (unless entity lodges directly with ASX, NSX, Cboe Australia). Lodge the AFS licensee annual profit and loss statement and balance sheet (Form FS70) and auditor’s report (Form FS71) separately via the ASIC Regulatory Portal.
Registered schemes only:
30 September 2026 is the due date to lodge the compliance plan auditor’s report (Form 5111) via email: lodgement@asic.gov.au.
AFS licensees that are a disclosing entity:
30 September 2026 is the due date to lodge the FS70/71 (profit and loss statement, balance sheet and auditor’s report).
AFS licensees that are individuals:
31 August 2026 is the due date to lodge the FS70/71 (profit and loss statement, balance sheet and auditor’s report).
AFSLs holding derivative retail client money:
31 October 2026 is the due date to lodge the annual client money data report including total account balances, transaction volumes, account record metrics and aggregate money held. The client money reporting obligation does not apply to derivatives traded on a fully licensed domestic exchange (such as ASX).
All other entities that are not a disclosing entity:
31 October 2026 is the due date for all other entities to lodge their financial report (Chapter 2M) and the FS70/71 for AFSL Licensees that are a non-disclosing entity.
All AFS licensees:
Lodge the FS70/71 via the ASIC Regulatory Portal using the transaction named ‘Submit Australian financial services licensee annual financial statements’. Form FS71 must be completed and signed by the auditor before being attached to the portal transaction.
Why do you need to do it?
These are statutory obligations under the Corporations Act and AFS Licensee conditions. Failure to lodge with ASIC by the applicable statutory deadline is a strict liability offence.
Compliance obligation: ASIC business activity metrics
Due date:
25 September 2026 (window open 24 July 2026 – 25 September 2026).
Who it applies to:
AFSLs, ACLs, RSEs and other entities regulated by ASIC.
What you need to do:
Submit your business activity metrics for the financial year ending 30 June 2026 to ASIC via the ASIC Regulatory Portal.
Between July and September each year, leviable entities must provide ASIC with their business activity metrics for the previous financial year via the ASIC Regulatory Portal.
How do you do it?
Log onto the ASIC regulatory portal and submit your metrics before the 25 September 2026 deadline.
Do not confuse this step with paying the levy. The metrics submission is a data-reporting obligation, not a payment. The actual invoice comes later in January 2027.
Why do you need to do it?
ASIC recovers its regulatory operating costs from the sectors it regulates. Your metrics submission is the mechanism by which ASIC calculates your share of those costs.
Failure to submit accurate metrics by the deadline can attract civil and criminal penalties, and ASIC may substitute its own estimate of your metrics for the purpose of calculating your levy – which could result in a higher invoice than if you had submitted accurate data yourself.
