Staff training for Real estate agents — 2026 AUSTRAC Guide

For a real estate agency, staff training must be built around the actual jobs people do. Your training needs to cover your AML/CTF policies, the ML/TF risks in your business, and each person’s responsibilities under the program. That means front-desk staff who collect ID, sales agents handling buyer and seller interactions, staff involved in deposits or trust-related processes, and anyone reviewing unusual activity need different training depth. AUSTRAC expects training to be accessible and understandable for the person receiving it, so one generic online module for everyone is not enough on its own.

For real estate, the most useful training is scenario-based. Use examples your team will actually see: a buyer using a shelf company with a vague controller, a purchaser insisting on urgency while resisting ID checks, a family member paying part of a deposit without a clear reason, a sanctioned name match, or a client trying to split physical cash to avoid the $10,000 threshold. Staff need to know that physical cash of $10,000 AUD or more can trigger a threshold transaction report within 10 business days, that suspicious matter reports must be lodged within 3 business days of forming a suspicion or within 24 hours for terrorism financing, and that telling the client about an SMR is a criminal offence.

A practical approach for a small agency is to build short role-based modules: one for principals and senior managers, one for sales and buyer’s agents, one for onboarding and admin staff, and one for trust or payments staff where relevant. Use AUSTRAC’s e-learning as a supporting tool, then add your own process steps, escalation contacts, scripts for asking clients for documents, and examples from your market. Keep attendance logs, copies of materials, quiz results and version control with your AML/CTF program documents, and retain those records for 7 years after the relationship ends.