The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued its 2025/26 Cost Recovery Implementation Statement indicating a 26 per cent increase in the levy per adviser for licensees who provide personal advice to retail clients on relevant financial products.
Such licensees will now have a minimum levy of $1500 plus $3037 for each authorised representative. That compares to the same minimum levy in 2024/25, but a lower per adviser levy of $2398.
As such, the levy has increased from a total $11,092 in 2024/25 to $13,648 in 2025/26 for a small practice with four financial advisers.
The ASIC report noted the main driver of the material variance over the year was estimated enforcement costs being higher than prior years due to increased action of this nature and new matters arising.
The regulator indicated its overall estimated recoverable costs across all industries increased by 19 per cent to $400.5 million in 2025/26.
“The increase reflects additional funding for ASIC’s regulatory, supervision and enforcement work, along with the timing of expenditure,” the corporate watchdog explained when releasing the statement.
The levy for licensees providing personal advice to retail clients on products that are not relevant financial products has increased from $135 in 2024/25 to $555 in 2025/26. Meanwhile, the flat levy for licensees providing general advice alone has more than doubled from $4854 to $10,979.
ASIC said firms solely providing general advice are charged a flat fee levy because regulatory costs for each entity are not dependent on each entity’s share of total business activity within the subsector.
The levy for licensees servicing only wholesale clients increased by a small margin from $543 in 2024/25 to $548 in 2025/26.
ASIC confirmed the figures are a guide only with final levies to be published in December 2026 and invoices issued between January and March 2027.
