CPD Requirements by Profession in Australia: Hours, Points and Rules

Continuing professional development is one of those obligations that sounds simple — keep learning, keep records — until you try to pin down exactly what your profession requires. Every regulated profession in Australia sets its own rules: some count hours, some count points or units, some run on calendar years, others on registration years or rolling three-year periods. Some mandate specific topics; others leave the content entirely to you.

This guide maps the CPD landscape profession by profession for six of the largest regulated workforces in Australia: nurses and midwives, teachers, accountants, lawyers, building practitioners, and financial advisers. For each, we cover who sets the rules, roughly what is required, how the cycle works, and where to confirm the current details. If you want the broader picture of what CPD is and why it exists, start with our overview of continuing professional development in Australia.

One caution before we begin: CPD rules change. Regulators adjust hour requirements, introduce mandatory topics, and restructure cycles. The figures below reflect the long-standing published requirements of each regulator as at late 2026, but your registration renewal is governed by whatever the regulator’s current standard says — always confirm against the official source listed for your profession.

Nurses and Midwives

Regulator: Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), administered through Ahpra. Official sources: nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au and ahpra.gov.au.

Registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives must complete a minimum of 20 hours of CPD per registration year under the NMBA’s Registration standard: Continuing professional development. The registration year runs to 31 May, when annual renewal falls due.

Key features of the scheme:

Dual registrants do more. A practitioner registered as both a nurse and a midwife must complete 20 hours for each profession, though the Board’s standard allows some activities relevant to both to be counted toward both, subject to the rules in the standard.
Endorsements add hours. Nurses and midwives with scheduled medicines endorsements or nurse practitioner endorsement have additional CPD hours attached to the endorsement.
Relevance to context of practice. CPD must be relevant to your actual area of practice. The NMBA expects a cycle of identifying learning needs, planning activities, doing them, and reflecting on the outcome.
Documentation. You self-declare compliance at renewal, but Ahpra audits a sample of practitioners each year. You must keep a CPD portfolio — dates, hours, descriptions, reflections and evidence — and the standard requires records to be retained for a period specified by the Board (keep at least five years to be safe).

The same Ahpra framework covers the other 15 national-scheme health professions — doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists, psychologists and others — each with its own board-specific standard. Medical practitioners, for instance, now complete CPD through an accredited “CPD home” with an annual program of 50 hours structured across required activity types. If you work in health, our guide to healthcare credentials in Australia covers how registration, endorsements and CPD fit together.

Teachers

Regulators: state and territory teacher registration authorities. There is no single national CPD rule for teachers — requirements vary by jurisdiction, although all are anchored to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

The main schemes:

New South Wales (NESA — educationstandards.nsw.edu.au): teachers maintaining accreditation at Proficient Teacher level complete 100 hours of professional development per five-year maintenance period (seven years for casual and part-time teachers). NESA has moved between models over the years for how PD is categorised and approved, so check the current maintenance requirements on the NESA site.
Victoria (VIT — vit.vic.edu.au): registered teachers declare at least 20 hours of professional learning per registration year, referenced against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
Queensland (QCT — qct.edu.au): teachers complete at least 20 hours of CPD per calendar year, recorded against the standards, with reduced expectations available for teachers who taught little or not at all during the year.
Other states and territories: Western Australia (TRBWA), South Australia (TRB SA), Tasmania (TRB Tas), the ACT (TQI) and the Northern Territory (TRB NT) each run their own renewal declarations, generally requiring ongoing professional learning across a renewal cycle — commonly in the order of 20 hours per year or 100 hours per five years. Check your own board’s published requirement.

Practical points for teachers:

Keep your own records. Some jurisdictions provide online logging portals; others rely on declarations backed by your records. Audits occur in all jurisdictions.
What counts is broad. Formal courses, school-based professional learning, conferences, mentoring and structured professional reading can all count, provided you can link the activity to the professional standards.
Moving interstate? Teacher registration is mutually recognised between jurisdictions, but your CPD obligations follow the board you are registered with. If you hold registration in two states, you report to both.

Accountants

Regulators: accounting is unusual — CPD is enforced primarily by the professional bodies rather than a government registration board. The three main bodies are CPA Australia (cpaaustralia.com.au), Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (charteredaccountantsanz.com) and the Institute of Public Accountants (publicaccountants.org.au).

The headline requirement is strikingly consistent across all three: 120 hours of CPD per rolling three-year period (a “triennium”), with a minimum of 20 hours in any single year. Each body has its own detail around what proportion must be formal or verifiable learning versus informal activities such as professional reading, and each requires members in public practice or holding specialist designations to tailor CPD accordingly.

Beyond the member bodies, government registrations add their own CPD obligations on top:

Registered tax agents and BAS agents must meet the Tax Practitioners Board’s continuing professional education requirements (tpb.gov.au). The TPB’s published policy requires a minimum number of CPE hours over a three-year registration period — 120 hours for tax agents under the current policy — with annual minimums.
Registered company auditors and SMSF auditors have CPD obligations under ASIC’s requirements, generally 120 hours over three years with annual minimums.
Financial planning work by accountants triggers the adviser CPD regime described below.

The practical consequence: a partner in a suburban accounting firm might be simultaneously tracking CPA Australia CPD, TPB CPE and ASIC auditor CPD. The activities can largely overlap — one quality tax seminar counts toward all three — but the record-keeping must satisfy each regulator’s format and audit.

Lawyers

Regulators: legal profession admission and practising certificates are state-based. The law societies and bar associations (and in Victoria, the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner) administer CPD under the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW, Victoria and WA) and corresponding legislation elsewhere.

The requirement is highly consistent nationally: 10 CPD units (points) per CPD year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March, as a condition of holding a practising certificate. One unit generally corresponds to one hour of eligible activity, with caps on how many units can be claimed for certain activity types (such as private study of audiovisual material, writing, or committee participation).

The distinctive feature of legal CPD is its mandatory fields. Solicitors must complete at least one unit in each of four compulsory areas:

Ethics and professional responsibility
Practice management and business skills
Professional skills
Substantive law

Barristers’ schemes, administered by the bar associations, mirror the structure with their own compulsory strands. Newly admitted practitioners typically face additional requirements in their first years of practice.

Non-compliance has teeth: practising certificate renewal requires a CPD declaration, and the regulators conduct audits. A practitioner who falls short can be required to complete a rectification plan, and misleading declarations are treated as conduct matters. Check your own body’s rules — for example, lawsociety.com.au (NSW), lsbc.vic.gov.au (Victoria) or qls.com.au (Queensland).

Building Practitioners

Regulators: entirely state and territory based, and this is the area with the greatest variation — and the most change over the past few years. There is no national CPD rule for builders. The pattern across jurisdictions:

Victoria (Victorian Building Authority / the state building regulator — vba.vic.gov.au): Victoria introduced a mandatory CPD scheme for registered building practitioners in the mid-2020s, with practitioners required to complete a set number of CPD points each year, weighted toward matters such as regulatory knowledge, technical standards and business practice. The scheme was phased in by practitioner class, so check the regulator’s site for your class and the current annual points requirement.
New South Wales (NSW Fair Trading / Building Commission NSW — nsw.gov.au): NSW has a layered system. General contractor licence CPD rules have shifted over the years, while practitioners registered under the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (those doing class 2 and related work — design practitioners, building practitioners, professional engineers) have their own CPD obligations tied to registration renewal. If you work on multi-storey residential buildings in NSW, assume you have CPD obligations and verify the current requirement for your registration class.
Queensland (QBCC — qbcc.qld.gov.au): the QBCC licensing system has historically not imposed a broad mandatory CPD regime across all licence classes, though specific categories (such as certifiers, and pool safety inspectors) carry CPD requirements, and reforms in this space have been repeatedly flagged. Check the QBCC site for your licence class.
Building surveyors and certifiers have mandatory CPD in effectively every jurisdiction, administered by the state regulator or through accreditation bodies.
Plumbers, electricians and other licensed trades face jurisdiction-specific rules; some states require safety-focused refresher training at renewal for certain licences. Our guide to trade licensing requirements in Australia covers the licensing architecture these CPD rules hang off.

Because the building CPD landscape is both fragmented and actively changing, the only safe advice is specific: identify the regulator that issued your licence or registration, find its CPD page, and work from that. Industry associations such as Master Builders and HIA run extensive CPD-eligible programs aligned to each state’s rules.

Financial Advisers

Regulator: the Commonwealth, with the rules set under the Corporations Act framework for relevant providers. The professional standards originally developed by FASEA are now administered by the Treasury, with ASIC maintaining the Financial Advisers Register (check it via moneysmart.gov.au).

Financial advisers have the most prescriptive CPD regime of any profession in this guide: 40 hours of CPD per CPD year, of which at least 70% must be approved by the adviser’s AFS licensee, with mandated minimums across four categories:

Technical competence: minimum 5 hours
Client care and practice: minimum 5 hours
Regulatory compliance and consumer protection: minimum 5 hours
Professionalism and ethics: minimum 9 hours

The balance of the 40 hours can be spread across those categories or qualifying general professional development. A maximum number of hours (under the standard, up to 30 hours over a cycle in defined circumstances) can be met through formal study toward an approved qualification. Part-time arrangements can be approved by licensees in limited circumstances but the adviser must still meet the mandatory category minimums.

Licensees must have a CPD policy, approve and track adviser CPD, and report non-compliance, which is recorded on the Financial Advisers Register — meaning a CPD failure is publicly visible to clients and future employers. Advisers who are also tax agents or accountants again face overlapping regimes.

Honourable Mentions: Engineers, Architects and Other Professions

Six professions cannot cover the whole field, and two more deserve a brief note because readers ask about them constantly.

Engineers. Engineering registration has expanded significantly, with registration schemes for professional engineers now operating in Queensland (BPEQ), Victoria, and New South Wales for certain classes of work, alongside the long-standing National Engineering Register. Engineers Australia’s benchmark for Chartered members and NER registrants is 150 hours of CPD over a rolling three-year period, with rules about the spread across technical and non-technical areas. State registration schemes generally accept CPD aligned to that benchmark, but each scheme publishes its own policy — check engineersaustralia.org.au and your state registration body.

Architects. Architect registration is state-based through the architect registration boards, coordinated nationally by the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia. The widely applied standard, reflected in most boards’ requirements, is 20 points of CPD per year, with a minimum proportion in formal activities and coverage of required competency areas. Check your state board (for example, the NSW Architects Registration Board at architects.nsw.gov.au).

Veterinarians, surveyors, pharmacists, migration agents, real estate agents, security licence holders — the pattern repeats across dozens of occupations: a registration or licence, an annual or multi-year CPD quota, mandatory topic strands in some schemes, declarations at renewal, and audits. If you hold any registration, assume there is a CPD standard attached and find the regulator’s current version before planning your year.

Common Threads: What Every Professional Should Do

Across all six professions, the same practical disciplines separate stress-free renewals from last-minute scrambles:

1. Know your cycle. Registration years differ — 31 May for nurses, 1 April to 31 March for lawyers, calendar years for some teacher boards, rolling trienniums for accountants. Put the dates in your calendar at the start of each cycle, not the end.

2. Spread the load. Most regulators impose annual minimums precisely because cramming three years of CPD into the final months produces poor learning. Twenty hours a year is roughly two hours a month.

3. Record as you go. Every audit regime asks for the same things: date, activity, provider, duration, relevance to your practice, and evidence (certificate, attendance record, or reflection notes). A simple spreadsheet or your professional body’s logging tool, updated the week you do the activity, is enough.

4. Check what counts before you pay. Some regimes require accredited or licensee-approved activities for part of the quota; others accept self-directed learning with limits. An expensive conference that doesn’t meet your scheme’s definitions is just a holiday with name tags.

5. Keep evidence for at least five years. Audit windows typically reach back several years, and retention requirements vary; five years covers almost every scheme.

6. Watch for rule changes. Regulators publish updated standards with lead time. The shift to CPD homes in medicine, the Victorian building scheme, and periodic reviews of adviser standards all show how quickly a settled regime can be restructured.

CPD and Your Broader Credential Strategy

CPD is a compliance obligation, but it is also an opportunity. Hours you must spend anyway can be directed toward credentials that compound: a micro-credential that stacks toward a formal qualification, a specialist certification that moves you up the pay scale, or study that supports a career change built on transferable credentials. Many of the most in-demand certifications in Australia can be earned largely through activity that doubles as CPD.

And if you are an employer or client checking whether a professional is actually registered and compliant, most of the registers mentioned in this article — Ahpra’s register of practitioners, state teacher registers, the Financial Advisers Register, state building licence registers — are free and public. Our guide to verifying your own credentials walks through them.

Finally, remember that CPD sits on top of a base qualification, and the qualification’s level shapes what development makes sense next. To see how Australia’s qualification levels relate to each other — and what sits above the credential you hold now — try our interactive AQF Explorer.

Sources and further reading: nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au and ahpra.gov.au (nursing and midwifery CPD registration standard, audits), educationstandards.nsw.edu.au, vit.vic.edu.au and qct.edu.au (teacher accreditation and professional learning), cpaaustralia.com.au, charteredaccountantsanz.com and publicaccountants.org.au (accounting body CPD policies), tpb.gov.au (tax practitioner CPE), lawsociety.com.au and lsbc.vic.gov.au (legal profession CPD rules), vba.vic.gov.au, nsw.gov.au and qbcc.qld.gov.au (building practitioner CPD), moneysmart.gov.au (Financial Advisers Register) and treasury.gov.au (adviser professional standards).