TPB Compliance Guide · Updated 18 May 2026
TPB Continuing Professional Education, in plain English
A plain-language guide to the Tax Practitioners Board CPE policy , the 90-hour rule, acceptable activities, the technical proportion, and the eight-year recordkeeping window. Written for sole practitioners and small-firm tax and BAS agents who want to stay audit-ready without overthinking it.
Section 1, The Headline Numbers
The 90-hour rule (and 45 for BAS agents)
The TPB sets CPE requirements over a three-year registration cycle. The headline numbers are simple, but the apportionment and distribution rules trip up agents who leave compliance to the last quarter.
90 hours
Over a three-year registration period
Averages to 30 hours/year. You don't have to split it exactly 30/30/30, but you can't leave the whole 90 to year three.
45 hours
Over a three-year registration period
Averages to 15 hours/year. Tax agents who also hold BAS registration meet both with one consolidated program.
Apportionment if you registered partway through
If registration was granted partway through your first cycle, the requirement is pro-rated by the number of full months registered. The TPB confirms the figure on your registration certificate or in the online portal, don't guess it.
Even distribution, no front-loading or back-loading
CPE must be reasonably distributed across the three years. Completing 90 hours in the final year (or final quarter) is non-compliant even if you hit the total, the intent is continuous currency, not a one-off cram.
The CPE period follows your TPB registration cycle
Your CPE period is tied to your TPB renewal cycle, not the financial year (1 July to 30 June) and not the calendar year. Two agents in the same firm may sit on different cycles. Track your dates from your TPB online services account.
Section 2, Acceptable Activities
What counts as CPE
The TPB takes a broad view, provided the activity is relevant to your tax-agent or BAS-agent services and you can produce evidence. Eight categories cover almost everything practitioners record.
Formal structured education
Accredited degree, diploma, or graduate-certificate units in tax, accounting, or commercial law. Full course time counts, lectures, tutorials, assessments.
Keep: enrolment confirmation, transcript, and provider handbook hours.
Tax conferences and seminars
Events run by the Tax Institute, CA ANZ, CPA Australia, IPA, ATO public seminars, or RTOs. Actual attendance hours count.
Keep: tax invoice, agenda with session times, certificate of attendance.
Webinars (verifiable attendance)
Live webinars with log-in/log-out records or interactive polling. Actual viewing time counts, leaving early reduces eligible hours.
Keep: confirmation email, viewing log, or completion screenshot.
Technical reading
Tax Institute journals, Taxation in Australia, ATO speeches, TPB practice notes, technical commentary. Capped at roughly 25% of total CPE.
Keep: reading log with article, date, hours, and a brief reflection note.
In-house training
Firm-internal CPD with a formal program, case-law updates, tax-effect accounting, ATO ruling debriefs. Must be structured.
Keep: agenda, presenter-signed attendance register, session materials.
Authorship
Writing tax articles, training material, technical updates, or chapters for professional publications. Preparation hours count.
Keep: published piece, declaration of preparation hours, editor confirmation.
Lecturing or examining
Teaching tax at a university, TAFE, or RTO, or examining/marking. Preparation plus delivery time both count.
Keep: engagement letter, timetable of hours, declaration of prep time.
Mentoring registered agents
Formal mentoring of another registered tax or BAS agent under a documented arrangement. Casual chats do not qualify.
Keep: mentoring agreement, session log, mentee acknowledgement.
Section 3, The Technical Proportion
At least one-third must be core technical
Volume alone isn't enough. The TPB also requires a minimum proportion of your CPE to cover core technical content directly relevant to the services you provide.
Minimum 1/3, Core technical
Technical CPE topics
- Taxation law, rulings, and ATO determinations
- Accounting and bookkeeping (especially for BAS agents)
- Other relevant law, commercial, corporations, financial-services regulation
For tax agents, at least 30 hours of core technical content across the cycle. For BAS agents, at least 15.
Up to 2/3, Adjacent / supporting
Non-technical CPE topics
- Practice management and risk
- Professional ethics and the TPB Code of Conduct
- IT systems, cybersecurity, data protection
- Communication, client engagement, and soft skills
These count toward the total, but can't make up more than two-thirds. Practice management is not a substitute for tax-law currency.
Section 4, Records
The 8-year recordkeeping window
Records must be kept for the three-year CPE cycle plus a further five years after the registration period ends, up to eight years total. The TPB can request your records at any time, including during renewal.
| Field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Activity name and provider | Exact title of the seminar, webinar, course, or reading; issuing body or publisher. |
| Date(s) of activity | Start and end dates, particularly for multi-session courses or self-paced units. |
| Duration in hours | Actual hours, not advertised duration. Rounding to 0.25 or 0.5 is acceptable for short activities. |
| Topic covered | Brief description plus a technical / non-technical classification so the proportion test is easy to evidence. |
| Evidence | Certificate of attendance or completion where issued; receipts, agendas, or enrolment letters otherwise. |
| Reflection note (self-study) | For reading and self-paced learning, a brief note on what you learned and how it applies. Two or three sentences is enough, but it must be there. |
The TPB conducts both targeted CPE reviews and random spot-checks at renewal. A clean, contemporaneously-kept register beats a year-end reconstruction every time.
Section 5, Consequences
What happens if you fall short
The TPB's response is proportional. Minor, well-documented gaps are usually managed administratively; material or repeated shortfalls can put your registration itself at risk.
Administrative warning
Minor shortfall, first occurrence, well-documented reason. The TPB issues a written warning and expects the gap to be closed quickly.
Conditions on registration
The TPB may impose conditions, mandatory remedial CPE within a set timeframe, or restrictions on the work you can perform until conditions are met.
Suspension
A material shortfall or repeated non-compliance can lead to suspension. You cannot legally provide tax-agent or BAS-agent services while suspended.
Cancellation / refusal to renew
Serious or repeated CPE failures are grounds for cancellation of registration, or refusal of the next three-year renewal application.
Documented reasons protect you
If you have a genuine reason for a shortfall, illness, parental leave, carer responsibilities, document the period and reason in writing. The TPB has scope to reduce or adjust your CPE obligation, but only if you raise it. Silence followed by a renewal shortfall is much harder to remediate.
Practical tips for staying audit-ready
Log CPE the day you complete it
Year-end reconstruction is where errors multiply, forgotten webinars, lost certificates, vague duration estimates. Add the entry the same day while the confirmation email is fresh. A two-minute habit that saves a half-day at renewal.
Cloud-store certificates with a backup
Records must survive an eight-year window. A laptop that dies in year four leaves you with no evidence. Use cloud storage (Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive) with a second backup and a consistent file name: YYYY-MM-DD_Provider_Topic.pdf.
Balance technical and non-technical proactively
It's easy to over-index on practice-management webinars, they're shorter and easier to fit in. Track your technical-versus-other split each quarter; if technical drops below one-third, book a tax-law masterclass before the gap becomes structural.
Run a six-month CPE health check
Twice a year, spend 30 minutes reviewing your register: hours to date, technical proportion, evidence gaps, missing reflection notes for self-study. Catching a problem in month 18 is trivial; in month 35 it's renewal drama.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my CA ANZ, CPA Australia, or IPA CPD count toward TPB CPE?
Often yes, but not automatically. CPD that's relevant to your tax-agent or BAS-agent services, tax law, accounting standards, ethics, practice management, generally counts for both your professional body and the TPB. CPD that's not relevant (e.g., audit-specific training for a tax agent who doesn't audit) may count for your body but not the TPB. You still need TPB-compliant records: provider, hours, topic, technical/non-technical classification.
Can I count webinar replays and on-demand recordings?
Yes, provided the recording has a verifiable completion mechanism, log-in records, end-of-session quiz, or system-generated certificate showing viewing duration. Passively running a recording in the background doesn't count. The TPB looks for evidence the learning was active and complete.
What about coursework I enrolled in but didn't finish?
Hours actually attended or completed before withdrawing can count, with appropriate records. Hours you paid for but never attended do not. If you complete an assessment partway through and then withdraw, the assessment plus attended-class hours count, the unattended remainder does not.
How does the TPB CPE audit actually work?
The TPB routinely spot-checks at renewal and may also run standalone reviews. Selection is partly risk-based, partly random. If selected, you'll be asked to produce your CPE log plus underlying evidence (certificates, agendas, reading notes) for the full cycle. Vague entries without supporting documents are the most common cause of adverse findings.
What if I'm on parental leave or seriously ill during the cycle?
The TPB has discretion to reduce or adjust CPE where an agent has been genuinely unable to undertake it, parental leave, serious illness, carer responsibilities. Document the period and reason in writing, either at renewal or by contacting the TPB beforehand. Don't wait until you've already fallen short.
Do I need separate CPE for both tax agent AND BAS agent registrations?
No, the higher requirement (90 hours over three years for tax agents) absorbs the 45-hour BAS obligation, provided the content is appropriate. One consolidated program that meets the tax-agent threshold and the technical proportion satisfies both registrations. Keep one CPE register, not two.
Get your CPE register off the spreadsheet
OneBookPlus logs each activity with provider, hours, technical classification, and evidence attachment, and flags imbalance and shortfall before renewal. Built for Australian tax and BAS agents who want one less thing to reconstruct at year-end.
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Reviewed by Bishal Shrestha
About the author
Bishal Shrestha
Founder & CEO, OneBookPlus
Bishal spent a decade running digital projects for Australian small businesses before founding OneBookPlus. He writes and maintains these pages, and publishes what OneBookPlus does not do alongside what it does.
Read the founder bioHow this page was researched
The compliance and licensing statements above are taken from the bodies this page links to, including the Tax Practitioners Board, so you can read the rule rather than take our word for it. Plan prices come from the OneBookPlus price registry, so the page and the checkout cannot disagree. Everything said about OneBookPlus describes what the product does today, and the page says so where it does not do something.
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