# CPD for Queensland property agents: who must do it and what counts
Two approved training sessions a year have been compulsory for Queensland agents, salespeople and auctioneers since 6 June 2025. How the CPD year, session types and exemptions work.
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For most of its history, a Queensland real estate licence was something a person qualified for once. The training came at the start, the licence followed, and after that the only regular obligation was to pay the renewal fee. That changed on 6 June 2025, when continuing professional development, usually shortened to CPD, became compulsory for the property industry.
The rule is short to state: two approved sessions in each CPD year. Applying it raises more questions than the sentence suggests. When does a person's CPD year start? What makes a session approved? Does a property manager need to do it, or a salesperson who has just been registered? What happens at renewal if the sessions were missed?
This guide answers those questions from the published rules of the Office of Fair Trading, which regulates property agents in Queensland, and from the material of approved providers, including the Real Estate Institute of Queensland and the Residential Tenancies Authority. It describes the general scheme. How it applies to one person depends on that person's licence, its date of issue and any time spent away from work.
2approved sessions in each CPD year
6 June 2025the day the requirement began
5 yearshow long certificates are kept
Office of Fair Trading CPD pages; Real Estate Institute of Queensland CPD program page.
## Why Queensland introduced compulsory training
Property law in Queensland has moved quickly in the past few years. Tenancy law has been amended in stages, a new seller disclosure regime began on 1 August 2025, and national anti-money-laundering rules extend to real estate agents on 1 July 2026. A person who qualified a decade ago learned a body of rules that has since been rewritten in several places.
The Office of Fair Trading describes CPD as an annual requirement for Queensland property professionals, and its licensing pages now carry the same reminder on every page about holding or renewing a licence: agents and auctioneers must complete annual CPD training to maintain their licence or registration.
The industry's main professional body had asked for it. In a media release of 4 March 2025, three months before the start date, the chief executive of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, Antonia Mercorella, said: "We advocated long and hard for CPD to raise the levels of professionalism of all practising real estate professionals." The same release notes that the institute sat on the Office of Fair Trading's advisory panel on the subject. Trade coverage at the time, including Real Estate Business on 3 March 2025, summarised the aim as keeping professionals up to date with changes in legislation, best practice and industry trends.
Queensland was not inventing the idea. Other professions that hold clients' money or advise on large transactions, such as solicitors and accountants, have long had yearly training obligations. What is specific to Queensland is the design: a small number of sessions, a list of approved topics, and a training year tied to each person's own licence date.
## Who has to complete CPD
The requirement attaches to the licence or the registration certificate, not to a job title. The Residential Tenancies Authority, which is an approved provider, lists the groups on its CPD page: real estate salespeople, including property managers; real estate agents; auctioneers of real property; and resident letting agents, who manage and let units from inside a building complex.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland's program page describes the same population by the work they do: residential and commercial sales agents, residential and commercial property managers, buyer's agents, real estate auctioneers and business brokers. All of these roles are carried out under a property licence or a salesperson registration, which is why they are all caught.
Two consequences follow. First, a property manager is covered. A person who manages rentals in a Queensland agency holds either a full agent licence or a salesperson registration, because letting and managing property for others is licensed work. Second, seniority makes no difference. A principal with thirty years in the business and a salesperson in a second year have the same two sessions to complete.
The requirement does not extend to people in an agency who hold no licence or registration, such as reception or administrative staff who do not carry out licensed work.
## When a CPD year starts and ends
The scheme does not run on a calendar year or a financial year. Each person has an individual CPD year, and it is anchored to the date the licence or certificate was first issued.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland's program page puts the rule this way: from 6 June 2025, a person's first CPD year begins on the anniversary of the date the licence or certificate was issued. It gives the example of a licence issued on 1 August, whose holder has a CPD year running from 1 August each year.
Two worked examples show how the start date falls differently for different people. They are illustrations of the published rule, not statements about any particular licence.
A salesperson whose registration was issued on 20 June in an earlier year reached an anniversary on 20 June 2025, two weeks after the scheme began. That person's first CPD year started that day and ends on 19 June 2026.
An agent whose licence was issued on 10 March in an earlier year had already passed the 2025 anniversary when the scheme began on 6 June 2025. The next anniversary was 10 March 2026, so that agent's first CPD year started then and runs to 9 March 2027.
The practical result is that, one year after the start of the scheme, the industry is spread across the calendar. Some people are closing their first CPD year this month; others are only a few months into theirs. Because the date is personal, the Office of Fair Trading published an online calculator that works out a person's CPD year from the issue date, as both the institute's release and Real Estate Business noted in March 2025. The institute offers its own tracker for the same purpose.
Check the date
The CPD year follows the licence, not the calendar
Two colleagues at neighbouring desks can have CPD years that end eight months apart. The date that matters is the anniversary of the day the licence or registration certificate was issued, and the first CPD year began on the first such anniversary on or after 6 June 2025.
## Type 1 and Type 2 sessions
Approved sessions come in two kinds, and the rule about combining them is the part most often misremembered.
A Type 1 session is competency-based. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland describes these as courses on technical skills aligned with the national Property Services Training Package, the same framework that sets the units a person studies to qualify. Its examples include trust account management, property appraisal, safety procedures and auction processes.
A Type 2 session is professional development in a broader sense. The institute's examples are ethics, legislation, consumer protection and best practice, with topics such as the rental law reforms, anti-money-laundering obligations and social media marketing.
In each CPD year a person must complete two approved sessions, in one of two combinations: one Type 1 and one Type 2, or two Type 1. Two Type 2 sessions do not satisfy the rule.
The two kinds of approved session
Kind
What it is
Examples given by providers
Type 1
Competency-based, aligned with the national training package
Professional development on law, ethics and practice
Tenancy law changes, anti-money-laundering, dispute handling
Real Estate Institute of Queensland CPD program page; Residential Tenancies Authority CPD page.
The logic of the combinations is that every person refreshes at least one technical competency each year. The second session can be another technical one or a session on changes in the law and conduct expected of the profession.
As for length, the institute's page reports that a duration of two to three hours for each compulsory session is considered sufficient. The Residential Tenancies Authority's sessions fit that description: its page gives two hours for the online format and two to two and a half hours in person.
## What makes a session approved
Not every seminar, conference talk or in-house training afternoon counts. A session counts when it has been approved under the Office of Fair Trading's scheme and is delivered by an approved provider.
The regulator's CPD pages include a section for organisations that want to deliver training, addressed to registered training organisations, industry bodies and government departments. An organisation applies, puts forward its session proposals, and the approved sessions are given a code. The codes are visible in providers' material. The three sessions offered by the Residential Tenancies Authority, for example, carry the codes QLDCPD20250168, QLDCPD20250169 and QLDCPD20250170.
The code is the simplest test for a licence holder. A session advertised as CPD for Queensland property agents should state whether it is Type 1 or Type 2 and should be traceable to an approval. A course approved for another state's scheme, or a general business seminar, does not become Queensland CPD because its content is useful.
Sessions can be delivered in several ways. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland lists online self-paced learning, live and recorded webinars, video resources and face-to-face training. That range matters outside the south-east, where a day's travel to a classroom is a real cost for a small office.
## Who provides the training, and what it costs
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland is the largest industry provider, and its March 2025 release set out the formats it planned: face-to-face events, live online courses and on-demand recordings, together with tools for tracking what has been completed. Its program page lists 33 courses under Type 1 and 30 under Type 2.
Public bodies have joined the list of providers. On 3 February 2026 the Residential Tenancies Authority announced that it had become an approved CPD provider, with three Type 2 sessions on tenancy subjects: communication and resolving disputes in a tenancy, rental law changes and Queensland's tenancy laws, and the lifecycle of a tenancy and its legislative requirements. The authority said the content draws on legislation, case studies and the patterns it sees in enquiries and dispute resolution.
Its reason for stepping in was the weight of agents in the rental system. The acting chief executive officer, Cassie Broomfield, said the authority's data showed 87.6 per cent of Queensland rental properties are managed by real estate agents, property managers and other managing providers.
Cost varies with the provider. The Office of Fair Trading does not set a price for sessions. The Residential Tenancies Authority's page says its sessions are free, with the note that a small fee may apply to in-person sessions. Private training companies and industry bodies set their own prices, and members of an institute may find sessions bundled with membership. A session's price has no bearing on whether it counts; approval does.
## Who is exempt
The scheme has a short list of exemptions, set out on the Real Estate Institute of Queensland's program page.
The first covers newcomers. No CPD is required within 12 months of the initial issue of a licence or certificate. A person who has just completed the qualifying units has, in effect, done the training already, and the first CPD year begins at the first anniversary.
The second covers people who are not working. A licence can be deactivated when its holder steps away from the industry, and CPD is not required for a CPD year in which the licence was deactivated for most of the year.
The third covers two limited licences, those restricted to business letting and to affordable housing. The fourth covers public sector representatives.
Beyond the list, the Office of Fair Trading's CPD pages include a separate exemption for exceptional circumstances, which a person applies for. The pages do not define the term, and each application turns on its own facts. Serious illness and similar events that prevent a person from training for a long period are the kind of situation such provisions exist for, but the decision belongs to the regulator.
Does a CPD year apply?
Situation
Two sessions required
Licensed agent or auctioneer in practice
Yes
Registered salesperson, including a property manager
Yes
First 12 months after a licence or certificate is issued
No
Licence deactivated for most of the CPD year
No
Limited licence for business letting or affordable housing
No
Exceptional circumstances accepted by the regulator
No, on application
Real Estate Institute of Queensland CPD program page; Office of Fair Trading CPD pages.
## Keeping records and proving compliance
Completing a session produces a certificate. The Residential Tenancies Authority's page says each participant who completes a full session receives a certificate of completion, and other providers do the same.
The certificate stays with the licence holder. According to the Real Estate Institute of Queensland's program page, certificates must be retained for five years and do not need to be sent to the Office of Fair Trading unless the regulator asks for them, which it may do in a compliance audit. The system therefore runs on declaration backed by spot checks, in the same way as many tax and professional obligations.
A sensible file for each person holds the certificate for each session, the session code and type, the provider and the date, set against the dates of the CPD year in which the session was taken. Agencies often keep a central record for their staff, but the obligation and the certificate belong to the individual. A salesperson who changes employer takes the CPD history along.
## What happens at renewal
CPD is tied to the life of the licence through the renewal process. The Property Occupations Act 2014 links the two: an application to renew or restore a licence or registration is accompanied by a statement about whether the CPD requirements have been met, or by evidence that exceptional circumstances apply, and a failure to comply is a matter the regulator may take into account when deciding the application.
Because licences are issued for one or three years, the renewal date and the end of a CPD year do not always coincide. A person on a three-year registration passes through three CPD years between renewals, and the statement at renewal covers that history. Leaving two sessions for the final weeks before a renewal does nothing for the CPD years that have already closed.
The Office of Fair Trading's renewal page says it sends renewal notices four to six weeks before expiry, that a licence must be renewed before it expires, and that a holder who misses the date has three months to apply for restoration. The CPD statement is part of that application either way.
One CPD year, start to finish
Find the datesWork out the CPD year from the issue date of the licence or certificate, using the regulator's calculator.
Choose two sessionsOne Type 1 and one Type 2, or two Type 1, each approved under the Queensland scheme.
Complete them inside the yearOnline, by webinar or face to face. Two to three hours each is the usual length.
Keep the certificatesStore them for five years with the session codes. They are sent only if the regulator asks.
Declare at renewalState on the renewal or restoration application whether the requirements were met.
## Questions that come up in practice
**Does a session done before the CPD year started count?** The requirement is two sessions in each CPD year, so a session is matched to the year in which it was completed. Training taken before a person's first CPD year began sits outside it.
**Can extra sessions be carried forward?** The published summaries describe a requirement for each year and do not mention carrying sessions over. A person who relies on a carry-over is relying on something the rules, as published, do not offer.
**Does the session have to match the person's role?** The rule is about type, not subject. A property manager is free to choose tenancy sessions, and a sales agent sessions on appraisal or contracts, and most people will pick what helps them in their own work. The combination of types is the only fixed element.
**What about a person who holds two documents?** An auctioneer may hold an agent licence as well. The requirement is described per licence holder, in sessions per CPD year. A person in that position should confirm with the Office of Fair Trading how the CPD year is set where the two documents were issued on different dates.
**Does interstate training count?** Only sessions approved under the Queensland scheme count toward the Queensland requirement.
## What the scheme asks, in plain terms
Measured in hours, the obligation is light: two sessions of two to three hours each come to between four and six hours in a year. Its weight lies in the attention it requires. Each licence holder needs to know a personal date, pick sessions of the right type from the approved list, and keep the paperwork for five years.
For clients, the scheme is mostly invisible, but it changes what a current licence means. Since 6 June 2025, a licence or registration that has been renewed tells a seller, a buyer, a landlord or a tenant that its holder has been asked, each year, to account for recent training in the technical work and in the law that governs it.