New South Wales agent licences: class 1, class 2 and CPD in 2026-27

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Kooky

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Anyone who sells a home, signs up a landlord or negotiates a purchase for a client in New South Wales does so under a credential issued by NSW Fair Trading, the state regulator. The system looks simple from outside: a certificate for beginners, a licence for agents. In practice it has three rungs, and the rung a person stands on decides what they may sign, whose money they may handle and how much training they owe each year.

That matters to more people than the agents themselves. A vendor who signs an agency agreement is entitled to know that the person across the table is allowed to sign it. A principal who hires an assistant needs to know what that assistant may do alone. And since 29 June 2026, according to NSW Fair Trading, missing the annual training has carried a court penalty that did not exist before.

This guide sets out the New South Wales rules as the regulator publishes them: the credentials, the two licence classes, the route from one to the next, the checks on every applicant, and the continuing professional development (CPD) required for the year that runs from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. Every rule below belongs to New South Wales only; the other states and territories run their own schemes.

NSW Fair Trading, CPD requirements for property professionals and changes to property and stock agents laws; the penalty applies from 29 June 2026.

Who needs a credential, and who does not

NSW Fair Trading states the basic rule in one line: to work in the state's property industry as an agent, a person needs either a certificate of registration or the licence required for the work. There is no third way in. A person with neither may still work in an agency, but only in a support role.

The regulator lists what those support roles are. No licence or certificate is needed to answer the phones and respond to basic customer queries, to coordinate appointments for agents, or to give logistical support at an open home, such as setting up the signs. The same goes for issuing keys or access devices to existing tenants, receiving rent from existing tenants under a property manager's instruction, and sending work orders to contractors when a licence or certificate holder has authorised them.

The line is drawn by the function, not the job title. A real estate agent licence is what Fair Trading requires to sell, lease and manage real estate for clients, to negotiate the buying, selling, exchanging or leasing of property, and to collect rent and provide property management services. A receptionist who starts negotiating a rent or a price has crossed from the first list into the second.

Crossing it without a licence became more expensive in 2026. According to Fair Trading's summary of the changes to property and stock agents laws, from 29 June 2026 the maximum court penalty for acting as an agent without a licence is A$55,000 for an individual and A$110,000 for a corporation.

The credentials Fair Trading issues

The regulator's page on becoming a property agent lists seven credentials. Three are licences by field of work: the real estate agent licence, the strata managing agent licence and the stock and station agent licence. A dual licence combines real estate with stock and station work. A corporation licence is held by a company rather than a person. The assistant agent certificate of registration is the entry credential. Auctioneer accreditation sits apart from all of them.

The real estate agent licence is broader than its name suggests. Before 23 March 2020, Fair Trading explains, real estate agent, business agent and on-site residential property manager were separate licence categories. They now sit within the single real estate agent licence, and people who held one of the old categories were moved to a restricted licence. A restriction narrows the licence to certain functions: the regulator gives the example of a licence restricted to business agent functions, which covers the sale or purchase of a business.

This is why the CPD rules described later speak of work categories inside one licence: residential salesperson, residential property manager, buyers agent, commercial agent, business broker and onsite manager all hold, or work under, the same real estate agent licence.

Class 2 and class 1: what each allows

A real estate agent licence comes in two classes, and Fair Trading notes that they differ in both the qualification needed and the CPD owed. Either class can be issued for one, three or five years.

A class 2 licence is the working agent's licence. Its holder may act as an agent to sell, buy or exchange property, businesses or professional practices, may negotiate with clients and vendors, and may collect rent, deposits, bond payments and lease-related fees. What a class 2 holder may not do is open or manage a trust account, or be nominated as the licensee in charge of an agency.

A class 1 licence allows everything class 2 does and adds three things: acting as licensee in charge, working independently as a sole trader, and, when the holder is a licensee in charge, opening a trust account and authorising its transactions. The regulator is specific on the last point: only a class 1 agent nominated as licensee in charge may authorise trust account withdrawals.

Below both sits the assistant agent, who holds a certificate of registration and not a licence. Fair Trading's guidance on agency agreements says an assistant agent cannot enter into an agency agreement. The agreement must be signed by a class 1 or class 2 licence holder. The assistant may prospect for clients and help prepare the document.

For a vendor or a landlord, the practical reading is short. The person who signs the agency agreement must hold a licence of either class. The person who controls the trust account, where a deposit or a month of rent is held, must be a class 1 licensee in charge. An agency of any size therefore needs at least one class 1 holder, and a class 2 agent who wants to open their own office has to move up a class first.

Qualifying for a class 2 licence

The qualification and experience requirements are set by a legal instrument that Fair Trading names on its licence page: the Property and Stock Agents (Qualifications) Order 2019. The regulator describes several pathways into each class, depending on what the applicant has held before.

The standard route for a newcomer has three parts. The applicant must have held an assistant agent certificate of registration for at least 12 months. They must have completed the Certificate IV in Real Estate Practice, which carries the national course code CPP41419. And they must have completed work experience over 12 months.

The Certificate IV is defined unit by unit: 5 core units, 5 units from Group A, which covers residential sales, 5 units from Group B, which covers residential property management, and 3 electives. That makes 18 units in all. The mix is deliberate: a class 2 licence covers both selling and managing, so the course requires both sides whichever one the applicant intends to practise.

The work experience is recorded in a logbook divided into Part 1 and Part 2 tasks. For class 2, the applicant must complete at least 9 Part 1 tasks and at least 5 Part 2 tasks over the 12 months. Each task is carried out under a licensee in charge, who signs it off as it is achieved. The completed logbook is scanned and submitted with the application, and Fair Trading tells applicants to keep a copy.

Two shorter routes exist for people returning to the industry. A person who held an unrestricted class 2 licence within the 12 months before applying may qualify on that basis. A person who held a restricted class 2 licence within the same 12 months may qualify by adding the Certificate IV units and the work experience described above.

Moving up to class 1

Class 1 is reached from class 2, not directly. The standard route requires the applicant to have held an unrestricted class 2 licence for at least two years. On top of that comes a diploma: the Diploma of Property (Agency Management), under either of the course codes CPP51119 or CPP51122, or the older Diploma of Property Services (Agency Management), CPP50307. The third element is two years of work experience, in which the applicant completes all of the Part 1 logbook tasks and at least 8 Part 2 tasks.

Added together, the two minimum holding periods give the shortest possible timetable. A worked example, assuming a person receives a certificate of registration on 1 July 2026, is granted a class 2 licence exactly 12 months later and a class 1 licence exactly two years after that, with no time lost to processing: the class 2 licence would start on 1 July 2027 and the class 1 licence on 1 July 2029, three years after the first day. The dates are illustrative. Fair Trading's licence page gives no processing time, so a real timetable runs longer.

As with class 2, there are routes for people with earlier licences. A person who held an unrestricted class 1 licence within the 12 months before applying may rely on it. A person who held a restricted class 1 licence within those 12 months needs the Certificate IV units and the two years of logbook work. And a person whose two years on class 2 were restricted for some or all of the time needs the logbook work, the Certificate IV units and one of the three diplomas.

One exception stands out. The restricted class 1 licence for on-site residential property managers requires no certificate of registration, no class 2 licence and no work experience, according to the regulator. It is reached through prescribed units of study alone. It is also the narrowest form of class 1, limited by its restriction to that one kind of work.

The checks every applicant faces

Qualifications are only one of the conditions. Fair Trading lists five more. The applicant must be at least 18 years old. They must be a fit and proper person. They must hold the required qualifications and have completed the required work experience. They must not have a previous licence or certificate that has been disqualified. And they must have a registered office in New South Wales.

The office rule has one stated variation. Under section 28 of the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002, as the regulator cites it, the registered office may instead be within 50 kilometres of the New South Wales border, but only where the applicant holds a current licence or authority from that neighbouring jurisdiction.

The fit and proper test is checked, not declared. Fair Trading says it runs financial and police checks. An applicant must not have been found guilty of an offence involving fraud or dishonesty in the last 10 years, and must not be a member of a declared criminal organisation or regularly associate with its members.

Where a person trained matters too. Overseas qualifications are not approved for licensing in New South Wales. For agents already licensed elsewhere in Australia, the regulator describes a scheme called automatic mutual recognition, under which the holder of an equivalent interstate licence may work in New South Wales after notifying Fair Trading, without taking out a New South Wales licence. Fair Trading adds two limits: the scheme stops applying if the person moves their primary residence to New South Wales, and not every state takes part, so the starting point for an interstate agent is whether their home jurisdiction is in the scheme. It does not apply to New Zealand licences.

Applying, renewing and staying on the register

New applicants apply online through Service NSW, and Fair Trading estimates the form itself at about 20 to 30 minutes. A paper form lodged in person at a Service NSW centre is the alternative. The documents the regulator asks for are proof of identity, the qualification certificates and transcripts, the signed logbook, the details of any previous licence, and the fee. The fee amounts are published on a separate Fair Trading fees page and are not covered here. A successful applicant is added to the public register, which is where a client can confirm that an agent is licensed.

Three deadlines govern the life of a licence after that.

1. Changes to a name, an address or other details must be reported to Fair Trading within 14 days.
2. A renewal form is sent 30 days before the licence expires, with a reminder by text message. Renewal calls for evidence of professional indemnity insurance among other items.
3. An expired licence can be restored within 3 months of its expiry. After that the person must apply again, and cannot trade until a new licence is issued.

CPD in 2026-27: the hours by type of work

Continuing professional development is the annual training every credential holder must complete to keep their knowledge current. Fair Trading's rule is that class 1 holders, class 2 holders and certificate of registration holders must each complete the CPD specified for their category every CPD year. The CPD year runs from 1 July to 30 June, so the current one opened on 1 July 2026 and closes on 30 June 2027.

For licence holders the requirement is expressed as hours spent on compulsory topics, and both the hours and the topics depend on the work the person does.

The topics show what the regulator wants refreshed this year. A residential salesperson's four are auction laws and practice, contracts, a rules of conduct refresher, and a topic titled Supervision Guidelines and AML CTF in agency practice, which deals with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing. A buyers agent shares three of those and replaces the conduct refresher with a topic on marketing services, scope of practice and licensing obligations. A commercial agent studies fire safety regulations and GST in commercial property transactions alongside the conduct refresher and the supervision and AML CTF topic.

Residential property managers have a different list: repairs, maintenance and habitability; residential tenancy, revisiting the reforms and common mistakes; and domestic and family violence. The last must account for at least 4 of the 7 hours, and Fair Trading says such a course may be delivered only where it has reviewed the content and the assessment.

Holders of a dual licence add the categories together. For real estate with strata, the regulator sets the real estate hours for the person's area of practice plus 6 hours on the three strata topics. For real estate with stock and station, it is the real estate hours plus 7 hours on the four stock and station topics. A topic the two lists share need not be taken twice if all the learning outcomes are met for each category. Fair Trading also expects anyone who holds several licence categories to keep their knowledge current in all of them, including those they are not actively working in.

How the training is delivered, and what class 1 adds

The hours cannot be collected by watching recordings. Compulsory topics must be delivered by an approved provider, and delivery must be interactive: either face to face, with a maximum of 40 attendees, or by interactive webinar, with a maximum of 25. Each topic must include an assessment activity. Providers are approved by the Strata and Property Services Commissioner, and Fair Trading publishes the approved list for 2026-27.

Class 1 holders owe two things more. The first is at least 5 hours at a forum accredited by NSW Fair Trading and relevant to the holder's licence category. These hours come on top of the core hours, some sessions may carry a fee, and a dual licence holder needs to attend only one forum. The second applies to class 1 holders working as residential salespeople, buyers agents, commercial agents, business brokers or stock and station agents: they must complete a course from AUSTRAC, the federal financial intelligence agency, called the Smart real estate agent's guide to AML/CTF. It is separate from the approved-provider topics, and the holder keeps the completion certificate.

A worked example shows how the layers add up. Take two agents in the same residential sales team for 2026-27, one class 2 and one class 1. The class 2 agent owes 7 core hours. The class 1 agent owes the same 7 core hours plus 5 forum hours, 12 hours in all, and the AUSTRAC course besides, for which the regulator's page states no fixed length. A class 2 agent with a dual real estate and strata licence, working in sales, would owe 7 hours plus 6, or 13 hours, before any allowance for shared topics.

The licensee in charge carries one further duty: Fair Trading says they must make sure all of the agency's CPD appears in the agency's training plan.

Assistant agents, records and late starters

Assistant agents are counted differently, because their training is the qualification itself. Each CPD year, a certificate of registration holder must complete at least 3 units from a valid Certificate IV of the kind required for a class 2 licence, whether in real estate, strata or stock and station work. Any units from that qualification count.

This is the only place where the scheme allows a carry-over. An assistant who completes more than 3 units in one CPD year may carry the extra units forward. Licence holders cannot do the same with hours.

The arithmetic links back to the licence pathway. The Certificate IV for a class 2 real estate licence has 18 units. At the minimum pace of 3 units a year, it would take six CPD years to finish, while the class 2 pathway can be completed after 12 months on a certificate. An assistant who intends to become licensed therefore studies well above the CPD minimum. How long a certificate of registration may be held before its holder must progress is set out on Fair Trading's separate assistant agent page and is not covered in this guide.

Proof of training stays with the individual. Licence holders of both classes must keep their CPD records for 3 years. Certificate of registration holders must keep theirs for 4 years, including the statements of attainment issued by their training organisation. The records are handed to Fair Trading when it asks for them.

New entrants are not asked to squeeze a year of training into a few weeks. A licence or certificate that commenced less than 90 days before the end of the CPD year is exempt for that year, where it was newly issued, or restored after expiry. Fair Trading turns that into a date for the current year: licences and certificates commencing on or after 1 April 2027 are automatically exempt for 2026-27. The regulator adds that exempt holders remain responsible for keeping their knowledge current, and that the exemption does not cover a licence recommenced after a suspension or cancellation where a CPD condition was imposed.

Certificate holders have an intermediate rule. A certificate of registration that commenced between 3 and 9 months before the CPD year ends carries a reduced requirement of at least 1 unit from that year's valid Certificate IV. Beyond these cases, Fair Trading may grant other exemptions by written notice.

Penalties and the regulator's new powers

Fair Trading says a failure to complete CPD may lead to a penalty, or to the suspension or cancellation of the licence or certificate. What the 2026 changes added is a court penalty. The Property and Stock Agents Amendment (Underquoting and Other Agent Conduct) Act 2026 introduced, from 29 June 2026, a maximum court penalty of A$11,000 for not complying with CPD requirements.

The same Act widened what the regulator can do short of court. From 29 June 2026, according to Fair Trading's summary, it can direct an agent or an assistant agent to complete specified further training by a set date, suspend an agent from certain activities such as property sales, and require a person to publicise their own misconduct.

The rules of conduct are the other half of what a credential binds its holder to. Fair Trading counts 21 core rules that apply to every licence and certificate holder, set out in Schedule 1 of the Property and Stock Agents Regulation 2022, with further rules for particular categories in Schedules 2 to 4. Agents must also hold professional indemnity insurance that meets the regulations. The maximum court penalty for breaching the rules of conduct is A$110,000 for a corporation and A$22,000 in any other case, and on-the-spot fines are A$1,100 for an individual and A$2,200 for a corporation.

One part of the 2026 Act was still to come when Fair Trading published its summary on 8 July 2026. It describes a second stage, expected towards the end of 2026, that creates a new framework for its approval of CPD providers, with a maximum court penalty of A$11,000 for a provider that breaches the conditions of its approval.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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