Who Must Sit the Financial Adviser Exam, and When

5 min read · facts checked 12 Oct 2026

As at 12 October 2026, the Corporations Act (ss 921B(3) and 921BA(2)) requires every relevant provider to pass an exam administered by ASIC: the financial adviser exam. New entrants must pass it before starting the third quarter of their professional year (ASIC FAQs).

Who is a relevant provider

Under s 910A, a relevant provider is an individual who is a financial services licensee, an authorised representative, or an employee or director of a licensee (or of a related body corporate), and who is authorised to give personal advice to retail clients on relevant financial products. If you give only general advice, or advise only wholesale clients, you are not a relevant provider. Section 921BC exempts advisers whose only relevant financial product is a time-sharing scheme.

The four education and training standards

• Qualifications: an approved bachelor or higher degree, or an equivalent qualification.
• Exam: pass the exam administered by ASIC.
• Professional year: at least one year of work and training. While you are doing it you are a provisional relevant provider.
• Continuing professional development every year after that.

New entrants

• ASIC's FAQs say you must pass the exam before commencing the third quarter (indirect supervision) of your professional year.
• Anyone can book. ASIC no longer requires an exam eligibility number, so you do not need to finish your degree first.
• Pick a sitting that leaves room for a resit before your deadline: see the exam dates.

Existing providers

Advisers who were already giving advice when the standards began had to pass by 1 January 2022, or by 1 October 2022 if they qualified for an extension. ASIC says anyone who missed that deadline is treated as a new entrant. Many of them sat the exam when FASEA ran it: see the FASEA exam is now ASIC's exam.

The experienced provider pathway does not replace the exam

The experienced provider pathway is for advisers with at least 10 years (3,650 days) of authorised personal advice between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2021 and a clean disciplinary record. It satisfies the qualifications and professional year standards, not the exam: you must also have passed the exam by your exam cut-off day. ASIC says existing providers needed to declare by 1 January 2026 to keep advising from that date.

Is anything changing?

A Treasury consultation on adviser education ran from March to April 2026. Reports of it say the exam requirement stays. No new law had been made as at 12 October 2026, so the rules above still apply. If you need to sit, the preparation guide is the next step.