Plain English
Glossary of CPD and compliance terms
Every state uses slightly different language for the same ideas. This is the plain-English reference for the terms you'll run into across the regulators, licence classes and schemes covered in our guides.
General CPD terms
The vocabulary that shows up in almost every state’s requirements, even though the details differ.
- CPD year (or CPD cycle)
- The 12-month window your requirement is measured against. It can be a shared financial year (NSW, ACT), a fixed window on a different date (Tasmania runs to 30 April), or a window unique to your own licence anniversary (QLD).
- Industry, compulsory or mandatory hours/points
- The portion of your requirement covering core legal, ethical and regulatory knowledge. Often the topics themselves are set or approved by the regulator, and this portion is rarely optional.
- Elective, general or external hours/points
- The more flexible portion of your requirement, where you generally choose the topic and provider — though some states cap how much of this kind of learning can count toward the total.
- Accredited or approved provider
- A training provider the regulator has recognised as suitable to deliver CPD activities. Training from a provider that loses or never had this status typically won’t count, even if the content was relevant.
- Certificate of completion / attendance record
- The documentary evidence a provider issues once you finish an activity. It should show your name, the activity, the date, the delivery method and the hours or points it carries — see our evidence and audits guide for the full list.
- Carryover
- Using surplus hours or points from one CPD year to cover a shortfall in the next. Most Australian states do not allow it — your requirement resets each cycle regardless of how much you over-delivered previously.
- Interactive delivery
- Training with live engagement — face-to-face or webinar-style — as opposed to self-paced, non-interactive online modules. Some compulsory topics (notably in NSW) only accept interactive delivery.
State regulators and schemes
Who actually sets and enforces the requirement in each jurisdiction.
- NSW Fair Trading
- Sets and enforces CPD requirements for real estate, stock and station, and strata agents in New South Wales.
- Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV)
- The Victorian regulator responsible for the new mandatory CPD regime for estate agents and agents’ representatives starting 1 April 2027.
- REIV (Real Estate Institute of Victoria)
- An industry membership body, not the government regulator. Its CPD scheme for members runs separately from — and isn’t a substitute for — Victoria’s upcoming statutory CPD requirement.
- Queensland Office of Fair Trading
- Administers property industry licensing and CPD in Queensland, including the personal licence-anniversary CPD year.
- WA Consumer Protection
- Oversees real estate licensing in Western Australia, including the points-based CPD model phasing in from April 2026.
- Consumer and Business Services (CBS) SA
- South Australia’s regulator for land agents and sales representatives. Does not currently publish a universal CPD points or hours target.
- Property Agents Board of Tasmania
- Sets the CPD requirement for Tasmanian property agents — 12 points by 30 April each year, weighted toward industry-specific and external-provider learning.
- Access Canberra
- Administers agent licensing and the 12-point CPD requirement in the Australian Capital Territory.
- NT Agents Licensing Board
- Oversees property agent licensing in the Northern Territory, which does not currently have a universal CPD points or hours target.
Licence classes and roles
Your exact requirement often depends on which of these applies to you.
- Class 1 agent (NSW)
- The higher NSW licence class, which adds a requirement to attend a NSW Fair Trading-accredited event on top of the standard core hours.
- Class 2 agent (NSW)
- The standard NSW real estate licence class, with core hours set by category but without the Class 1 Fair Trading-event add-on.
- Assistant agent (NSW)
- An entry-level NSW authority that follows a unit-based qualification pathway (core and elective units) toward a Class 2 licence, rather than the licensed-agent hour matrix.
- RA / RR licence prefixes (WA)
- Licence-number prefixes used in Western Australia’s legacy hours-based model to separate real estate agent and sales representative categories for CPD purposes.
- REIV member vs non-member (VIC)
- REIV membership currently carries its own CPD expectations, separate from Victoria’s upcoming universal statutory scheme — membership status doesn’t change what the government scheme will require once it starts.