The financial adviser levy will drop by a few hundred dollars for the FY25 after the regulator on Thursday released its cost recovery estimates for the financial year.
The regulator announced the minimum levy of $1500 per licensee, plus $2314 per adviser. ASIC’s full cost recovery for financial advice is estimated to be $39.27 million, divided by 15,233 advisers authorised by 2680 licensees.
The final levies will be published in December 2025 and invoiced between January and March 2026.
The FY24 levy came in $187 less than an initial estimate of $2691 per adviser (plus $1500 flat fee), down from the $2878 estimate last July. In FY23, the regulator projected a $3217 per-adviser levy, which was reduced to $2818 later that year – a drop of almost $400 from the initial figure.
The former Coalition government froze the ASIC levy in 2021 due to rising enforcement costs and a shallower pool of advisers to sustainably fund the scheme, with a review of the Industry Funding Model slated to take place a year later. The outcome of the Treasury-run review led to a return to the status quo for the funding model.
The review was announced before but took place after Labor won the 2022 federal election, and after Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones had promised to bring down the cost of advice – a promise ultimately undermined by the rising ASIC levy and the introduction of the IFM to support the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort.
The adviser levy is calculated with reference to the number of advisers on the ASIC Financial Advisers Register at the end of a financial year, but those advisers will only be required to pay in proprotion to how long they were on the register for the financial year.
ASIC’s total estimated recoverable costs for FY25 have increased 6 per cent to $349.3 million.
The regulator said this increase reflects additional funding to support government priorities including implementation of the scams prevention framework, mandatory climate-related financial disclosures, beneficial ownership transparency reforms, and enhancements to ASIC’s data capability and cyber security.
ASIC’s key strategic work in the advice sector for FY25 included enforcement against cold-calling super switching business models, the SMSF review, support for the implementation of regulatory changes from the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes legislation, and monitoring the use of offshoring and AI.
Other ongoing enforcement priorities included administering the financial adviser exam, the Financial Services and Credit Panel, and publishing internal dispute resolution and breach reporting data.
