CPD for Accountants: CPE Hours and Records

CPD for accountants can count towards TPB continuing professional education when the learning meets both sets of rules. Standard tax agents need 120 hours over three years. BAS agents need 90 hours. Both need at least 20 hours each year.

The TPB’s CPE Requirement for Tax and BAS Agents

The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) sets CPE requirements for individual registered agents, including agents who belong to a professional body. CPE means continuing professional education. Professional bodies generally use CPD, meaning continuing professional development.

Registration	Three-year minimum	Annual minimum
Standard tax agent	120 hours	20 hours
Standard BAS agent	90 hours	20 hours
Tax agent with tax (financial) advice or Australian financial services condition	60 hours	7 hours
Tax agent with quantity surveying or fuel tax credit specialty condition	6 hours	2 hours
BAS agent with fuel tax credits condition	6 hours	2 hours
Other conditional tax or BAS agent	45 hours	5 hours

These figures come from the TPB’s CPE requirements. A narrower service offering does not, by itself, change the hours attached to your registration category.

For a tax agent preparing company returns, learning about company deductions and Division 7A can address a service-related knowledge gap. A BAS agent handling payroll and activity statements can use learning about GST treatment, payroll reporting and correcting BAS errors.

A new agent’s three-year CPE period generally starts at registration. Annual registration renewal does not turn that into a one-year CPE period. A period other than three years requires proportionate CPE.

Members of a recognised professional association can elect to match their association’s CPE period. Record the election in your log. You generally cannot change it unless you move to another recognised association and finish the existing period.

The current guidance is TPB(GS) 37/2021. The higher standard-agent hours form part of the policy introduced in 2022. The TPB renamed the explanatory paper a Guidance Statement in 2026. Its document history contains the commencement boundaries and subsequent changes.

What Counts as CPD for Accountants

Learning counts when it maintains or improves the knowledge and skills you need for your work. For TPB CPE, the connection must be to the tax or BAS services you provide.

The TPB’s accepted activity types include courses and webinars, seminars, structured conferences, relevant tertiary study and in-house training. Preparing technical publications or presenting structured training can also qualify when the activity develops your own relevant knowledge.

Ordinary client work does not become CPE because it takes research or judgement. Completing a course used to obtain registration generally does not count either. Subsequent higher-level study can qualify where it meets the relevance test.

Technical or professional reading is capped at 25% of your CPE period. A standard tax agent can therefore count 30 reading hours. The corresponding limit for a standard BAS agent is 22.5 hours. Self-directed research falls within that cap.

Passive audio or visual learning can fall within it too. The activity’s substance determines its treatment, not whether you watched a screen.

The TPB’s practical CPE answers distinguish learning from research undertaken while delivering a client service. Keep that distinction in your log.

Borderline Learning Activities

Activity	When it can count	Evidence to keep
Software vendor webinar	Training improves accurate use of software for your tax or BAS work	Agenda, attendance evidence and the skill you learnt
Practice marketing course	Content develops relevant practice-management skills that help you provide competent services	Learning objectives and notes connecting the training to your practice responsibilities
General investment webinar	Content relates to the services your registration permits and you actually provide	Relevant session content, learning notes and time spent

A sales presentation with no learning content is a weak basis for a CPE claim. A marketing course about handling misleading claims has a different connection to professional work from a session about advertising trends alone.

Choose Training for a Competence Gap

Choose Excel training when you need to improve reconciliations or check calculations used in client work. The TPB expressly recognises relevant Excel learning. A Power BI course needs the same service-related explanation, such as learning to identify GST coding exceptions in transaction data.

SMSF training can suit a tax agent advising or preparing returns for self-managed super funds. An SMSF audit webinar needs audit-related objectives if you are claiming it for your audit role. A BAS agent cannot assume a specialist fund-tax session is relevant simply because accountants attend it.

Communication and business-writing training can help you explain client obligations and request missing information accurately. Ethics learning can address conflicts, confidentiality or reasonable care. For each activity, name the skill gap and record what changed in your understanding.

Professional Body CPD Beside TPB CPE

One learning activity can count towards your professional body’s CPD and TPB CPE when it meets both requirements. You do not need to attend it twice. The periods, relevance criteria and evidence requirements can differ.

Body or registration	Total and annual requirement	Additional requirement or distinction
TPB standard tax agent	120 hours over three years, minimum 20 annually	Relevant to tax agent services, with the reading cap
TPB standard BAS agent	90 hours over three years, minimum 20 annually	Relevant to BAS services, with the reading cap
CPA Australia	120 hours per triennium, minimum 20 annually	Includes 10 verifiable ethics hours per triennium, minimum 2 annually
CA ANZ: CA, Affiliate or Non-Member Principal	120 hours per triennium, minimum 20 annually	At least 90 verifiable hours, including 6 ethics hours under the applicable triennium rules
IPA members subject to Pronouncement 7	40 hours each financial year	At least 30 verified hours, with competency-area requirements
Recognised BAS agent associations: membership baseline	At least 15 hours annually for voting members under the recognition rules	Membership hours alone do not satisfy a standard BAS agent’s 90-hour TPB total

CPA Australia’s ethics rules include ethics within the 120-hour total. CA ANZ’s requirements differ for Associate Chartered Accountants and Accounting Technicians. Its six-hour ethics requirement applies to trienniums meeting the commencement boundary stated on that page.

IPA Pronouncement 7, version 5.0 specifies annual periods. The competency areas are technical and product knowledge, management and professional skills and professional and ethical standards. Each area has a seven-hour minimum for the relevant annual period, including five verified hours. New-member and transition rules apply.

For a bookkeeping association, use the requirement attached to your membership category as well as your TPB registration. The recognition-rule minimum in the table is a membership floor, not a uniform claim about every association’s policy.

For example, a fictional tax agent logs 120 body-approved CPD hours. If 30 hours concern work unrelated to their tax services, the 120-hour record does not establish 120 relevant TPB hours. Assess the activities before relying on the total.

TPB CPE supports knowledge of the Code but does not impose the same fixed ethics allocation as CPA Australia or CA ANZ. For the standards an ethics activity can address, use the APES 110 guide.

Free CPD, Webinars and Ethics Courses

Free CPD can qualify when the content meets your learning need and you retain evidence. Paying for a course does not make it more recognisable, and attendance alone does not establish every claimed hour.

TPB webinars are free and can count towards CPE. The TPB issues attendance certificates. ATO open forums are another free option for tax practitioners, with ATO and TPB speakers.

Professional bodies also provide member learning. CPA Australia lists complimentary ethics learning in its ethics guidance. Use member-session listings to identify the topic and access conditions before booking. A free ethics course can support knowledge of your Code obligations when its learning matches your role.

CPD points and CPE hours are different units. Record the actual relevant learning time, excluding breaks. If a provider awards points, obtain the duration and conversion basis. A fictional 45-minute webinar is 0.75 hours of learning, regardless of how many points its provider awards.

The TPB does not accredit or approve CPE providers. A claim that a course is TPB-approved cannot replace your assessment of its relevance or the presenter’s qualifications.

For an SMSF audit conference, compare the programme with the work you perform. Separate audit methodology and independence sessions from unrelated tax, investment or promotional sessions. Keep the programme and attendance evidence with notes showing the audit skill learnt. A full-day ticket does not mean every hour qualifies for every registration or specialist obligation.

Recording CPE and Keeping Evidence

Keep a CPE log as you complete each activity, with enough detail to show both the learning and its relevance. A professional body’s log can also serve the TPB when it contains the required information.

Record the following fields for each activity.

• Completion date and provider.
• Topic and learning objective.
• Actual hours and activity type.
• Services the learning supports and a short relevance explanation.
• Evidence location, such as a certificate or attendance record.
• Reading hours, ethics hours or another category used by your body.

Keep certificates, agendas and learning notes together. For self-directed reading, identify the material and record the time you actually spent. Notes can explain learning, while attendance evidence establishes that you completed a session.

TPB records must be kept for five years from the end of your CPE period. At registration renewal, you confirm that you meet the CPE requirement. The TPB can ask for your log and supporting evidence during registration as well as during renewal.

If You Are Short Before Renewal

If your record shows a shortfall, calculate the missing relevant hours and complete suitable learning within the applicable period. First remove duplicated activities and hours that fail the relevance test. Check each annual minimum separately from the three-year total.

Structured online learning can help you close a gap quickly, provided you finish the learning and keep completion evidence. Watching the same webinar again does not create a second claim for the same activity. Keep the actual completion date, even if that reveals a missed period.

Where illness, caring responsibilities, hardship or another exceptional circumstance prevented completion, record the circumstances and their effect on your learning. Retain evidence of how you used the flexibility of the three-year period. Ask the TPB to consider relief when the circumstances justify it.

The TPB assesses circumstances individually. Its guidance includes relief where an agent misses an annual minimum through illness but completes the total through later learning. That example does not give every shortfall automatic relief. A continuing competence obligation remains under the TPB Code of Professional Conduct.

Accounting Resources for Relevant Professional Learning

Choose accounting resources by the duty you need to perform. A saved bookmark is a way to find material. Your learning record must show what you studied and learnt.

Practitioner duty	Official material to use	What a learning note can record
Apply tax rules and manage lodgments	ATO guidance, rulings and regulator webinars	A rule change and its effect on work you perform
Maintain registration and follow the Code	TPB guidance and webinars	How you assess competence or meet a Code obligation
Prepare company changes	ASIC company guidance	The difference between a company decision and the required notification
Assess designated services and client checks	AUSTRAC guidance	Which service creates an obligation and the evidence needed
Apply professional standards	APES standards and guidance	How you resolve an ethics or engagement issue

The ASIC Form 484 guide connects company-change learning to the notification task. The AUSTRAC enrolment guide explains the service-based starting point. Use APES 305 for engagement terms and documentation.

Here is a fictional reading record for a tax agent learning about the Code.

Field	Recorded learning
Service involved	Accepting and advising new tax clients
Rule consulted	TPB guidance on maintaining competence and relevant CPE
Learning outcome	Distinguished relevant education from ordinary client-service research
Time recorded	30 minutes, or 0.5 hours, in technical reading
Evidence	Saved source reference and notes explaining the distinction
Completion date	The actual date entered in the agent’s log

A worked case note can support the record when it explains genuine learning from the material. Keep client-service research separate from education. Before renewal, total the eligible hours in your own elected period and identify the next skill gap your learning must address.