TPB Compliance Guide · Updated 18 May 2026
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 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.
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.
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.
Your CPE period is tied to your TPB renewal cycle — not the financial year (1 July – 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Writing tax articles, training material, technical updates, or chapters for professional publications. Preparation hours count.
Keep: published piece, declaration of preparation hours, editor confirmation.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Minor shortfall, first occurrence, well-documented reason. The TPB issues a written warning and expects the gap to be closed quickly.
The TPB may impose conditions — mandatory remedial CPE within a set timeframe, or restrictions on the work you can perform until conditions are met.
A material shortfall or repeated non-compliance can lead to suspension. You cannot legally provide tax-agent or BAS-agent services while suspended.
Serious or repeated CPE failures are grounds for cancellation of registration, or refusal of the next three-year renewal application.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last reviewed and updated: by Bishal Shrestha
About the author
Founder & CEO, OneBookPlus
Bishal has over a decade of experience in digital marketing, web development, and small business consulting across Australia. Bishal has helped Australian tax and BAS agents structure CPE logs to TPB-audit standard — 90hr/45hr triennium tracking, technical proportion, and eight-year recordkeeping.
More in this guide
Tax agent vs BAS agent, education + experience pathways, four ongoing standards, 14-item Code of Conduct.
Read →ReferenceBAS/IAS, ITR, company/trust/SMSF, FBT, TPAR, STP — self vs tax-agent program dates plus penalty tiers.
Read →Operator GuideAPES 305 mandatory elements, scope-creep defence, termination clauses, six fee structures.
Read →From the blog
Practical guides and explainers from the OneBookPlus blog, grouped by topic.
A practical guide to every tax deduction Australian sole traders can claim — from home office and vehicle costs to super contributions, depreciation, and the small business deductions most people miss. Updated for 2025–26 with worked examples and ATO record-keeping rules.
A practical guide to choosing between sole trader, partnership, company, and trust structures in Australia — covering ABN registration, tax implications, liability, GST obligations, and when to switch structures as you grow.
A practical guide for entrepreneurs in India and Nepal — covering business registration, GST/VAT compliance, invoicing requirements, and digital tools to manage your business from day one.
Everything Australian small business owners need to know about lodging a Business Activity Statement — from GST reporting to PAYG, deadlines, and common mistakes to avoid.