Cost Recovery Implementation Statement

Each year, we publish our Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS). The CRIS shows how we apply the industry funding model and the estimated costs and levies for each sector and subsector we regulate.

Cost Recovery Implementation Statement 2025–26

Our Cost Recovery Implementation Statement shows how we will recover costs for our regulatory activities in 2025–26. It reports non-financial performance information for 2025–26, actual financial performance information for 2024–25, and forward estimates for 2025–26 and the following three financial years.

The figures in the CRIS are estimates only to help entities plan and budget for the levies and fees payable. Levy notices will be issued between January and March 2027 after actual levies have been calculated. For more information, see ASIC's industry funding model.

Download:

Summary of ASIC's 2025-26 estimated costs and levies for all sectors and subsectors (PDF 230 KB)
2025-26 estimated costs and levies for each subsector:

Cost recovery and allocation

Under the ASIC industry funding model, we recover our regulatory costs from the industry sectors we regulate, through a combination of industry funding levies and cost recovery fees.

Industry funding levies are charged to 52 subsectors. The levies consist of:

general industry levies (known as cost recovery levies), which are charged for ongoing regulatory activities that are consistent with the Australian Government Charging Framework – these activities relate to supervision and surveillance, enforcement, industry engagement, education, guidance and policy advice
statutory levies, which are charged for activities the Australian Government has decided should be cross-subsidised between industry subsectors.

Cost recovery fees (known as fees for service) apply when an entity requests a specific service from us. These activities include:

licensing
professional registration
applications for relief, and
review of corporate finance transaction documents.

Exemptions to the industry funding model

Registered charities and not-for-profit organisations registered under the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012 are exempt from paying industry funding levies. ASIC does not recover the associated regulatory costs relating to these entities through industry funding levies. This exemption does not affect the levy amounts payable by other entities in the relevant subsectors.

Certain amounts will not be recovered as they are not part of ASIC’s regulatory costs. These amounts include the costs of:

operating the Companies Auditors Disciplinary Board (CADB)
operating ad‑hoc disciplinary committees for registered liquidators
maintaining and operating ASIC’s public registers
regulating self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) auditors, and
conducting preliminary investigations and reports by registered liquidators into company failures where there are few or no assets.

Allocating costs to industry sectors and subsectors

ASIC’s industry funding model operates on an ex‑post basis. This means we calculate regulatory costs for each subsector at the end of the financial year using our actual reported expenditure. Given the dynamic operating environment, we maintain flexibility in resourcing to respond to emerging risks and regulatory developments. In the enforcement context, this may require us to shift or strengthen our focus in certain areas during the year, supported by mechanisms such as the Enforcement Special Account (ESA).

We allocate costs to the following industry sectors and subsectors:

Corporate (includes auditors and liquidators, which are subject to separate fees and levies)

Corporations, including:
- listed corporations
- unlisted public companies
- large proprietary companies, and
- small proprietary companies
Auditors of disclosing entities
Registered company auditors
Registered liquidators

Deposit taking and credit

Credit licensees, including:
- credit providers
- small and medium amount credit providers, and
- credit intermediaries.
Deposit product providers
Payment product providers
Margin lenders

Investment management, superannuation and related services

Superannuation trustees
Responsible entities
Wholesale trustees
Custodians
Investor directed portfolio service (IDPS) operators
Notified foreign passport funds and regulated former notified funds operators
Managed discretionary account (MDA) providers
Traditional trustee company service providers

Market infrastructure and intermediaries

Market infrastructure providers, including:
- market licensees, including various types of market operators
- clearing and settlement (CS) facility operators
- Australian derivative trade repository operators
- exempt market operators
- credit rating agencies, and
- benchmark administrator licensees
Market intermediaries, including:
- market participants
- securities dealers
- corporate advisers and over-the-counter (OTC) traders
- retail OTC derivatives issuers, and
- wholesale electricity dealers

Financial advice

AFS licensees that provide:
- personal advice to retail clients on relevant financial products, and
- personal advice to retail clients on products that are not relevant financial products
- general advice only to retail or wholesale clients, and
- personal advice to wholesale clients only

Insurance (includes life and general insurance)

Insurance product providers (including friendly societies)
Insurance product distributors
Risk management product providers
Claims handling and settling services providers

Policy and statutory authority to recover costs

Government policy for cost recovery

In April 2016, the Australian Government announced it would introduce an industry funding model for ASIC. This was in response to the recommendation in the Financial System Inquiry final report that the Government recover the cost of ASIC’s regulatory activities directly from industry participants through fees and levies calibrated to reflect the cost of regulation in a way that is transparent and provides greater stability and certainty to ASIC’s funding.

See recommendation 29 in the Financial System Inquiry: Final report.

The industry funding model commenced in July 2017 and was reviewed by the Government in 2023. ASIC fees for service were introduced on 4 July 2018.

Statutory authority to recover costs

The legislative framework for industry funding levies is established by a number of Acts, regulations and legislative instruments, as set out in Table 1.

Table 1: Statutory authority for the levies

Act, regulation or legislative instrument	Description
ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Act 2017	Imposes a levy on persons we regulate to recover our regulatory costs.
ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy (Collection) Act 2017	Provides ASIC with the authority to collect levies and requires entities to submit annual data to support levy calculations.
ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Regulations 2017	Sets out the criteria to determine the subsectors an entity is a part of and the metrics used to calculate the levy payable by entities in each subsector. The regulations also require ASIC to make an annual legislative instrument setting out, for each subsector, our regulatory costs and the total amount of activity (the subsector metric) for the financial year.
Corporations (Review Fees) Regulations 2003	Sets out how regulatory costs for small proprietary companies will be recovered through the annual review fee.

Cost recovery model

Outputs and business processes

The regulatory activities subject to industry funding levies and the associated business processes are listed in Table 2.

Table 2: Regulatory activities and associated outputs and business processes

Activity	Outputs and business processes
Supervision and surveillance	Monitor and assess compliance with the laws administered to promote positive consumer and investor outcomes. This includes collecting and analysing information about entities, transactions, products or emerging issues, and using data and technology to support risk based supervision.
Enforcement	Investigate suspected breaches of the law and take enforcement action where warranted. This includes conducting investigations, gathering admissible evidence, making administrative decisions, and pursuing civil, criminal or other enforcement outcomes. Our enforcement effort may extend to the use of technology and digital tools that support and enhance the outcomes of our enforcement activities.
Industry engagement	Engage with regulated entities and industry stakeholders to communicate regulatory expectations and identify actual or emerging harms in the market.
Education	Deliver education initiatives to support informed decision making by consumers and investors, and promote the protection of consumer interests.
Guidance	Develop and issue regulatory guidance to explain how the law is administered and how regulated entities can meet their obligations.
Policy advice	Provide advice to the Australian Government on the operational impacts of policy initiatives and legislative changes.

Costs of regulatory activities

Costs are categorised into the following groups for allocation to the relevant activity or subsector:

direct costs
indirect costs
capital expenditure, and
adjustments

This is done in line with the Australian Government Charging Framework.

Direct costs

Using timesheet data we determine the costs to be allocated to the relevant activity and subsector. These costs include direct employee expenses and direct supplier costs. We recover the cost of the following activities through direct costs:

supervision and surveillance
enforcement
policy advice
industry engagement
education, and
guidance.

Costs for enforcement

In the case of enforcement, the direct costs include both ‘business as usual’ (BAU) and ESA matters. BAU costs are allocated to the relevant subsectors and recovered in the year in which the costs are incurred. For the ESA, the appropriation amount is recovered each year from industry, rather than the annual expenditure from the ESA.

We allocate costs to subsectors according to the nature of the issues involved in each enforcement and ESA matter. This means that costs for an enforcement matter may be allocated across two or more subsectors based on the nature of these issues. The allocations are decided by the relevant enforcement and regulatory teams, with appropriate governance in place.

ESA costs are allocated to the relevant subsectors based on a three-year rolling average of ESA activity in each subsector. This approach aims to reduce the volatility of ESA costs by easing the impact of large matters on levies.

Costs for unlicensed operators

Unlicensed operators are not registered with ASIC and generally do not pay registration fees or annual levies. ASIC incurs costs to identify, prevent, and take action against such conduct.

These activities are undertaken in the interests of licensed participants and to maintain market integrity, with costs allocated to the most relevant licensed subsector.

Costs for emerging subsectors

Emerging subsectors are not captured within existing subsector classifications. Therefore, associated costs are allocated to ‘adjacent’ subsectors that are already licensed and subject to levy arrangements.

These activities support ASIC’s work, alongside the Government, to maintain Australia’s regulatory framework for financial services and ensure the integrity of the system overall.

Indirect costs

Indirect costs support ASIC’s regulatory work, but cannot be directly attributed to a specific subsector or activity. Indirect costs fall under the following categories:

Commission, corporate legal support, and strategy and communications
digital, data and technology
enabling services, and
property and accommodation services

These costs are allocated to teams following detailed analysis. Our analysis identifies which costs can be allocated to which activities. Costs that cannot be allocated to a specific team are shared across all teams based on the number of full time equivalent (FTE) staff. Once allocated to regulatory, enforcement and registry teams, indirect costs are distributed to subsectors in proportion to their direct costs.

As enforcement is ASIC’s largest activity, subsectors with higher enforcement costs typically receive a higher share of indirect costs. The impact on each subsector may fluctuate from year to year.

Capital expenditure

Capital expenditure covers ASIC’s capital budget and equity injections for infrastructure supporting regulatory work. The recovery of capital expenditure occurs in the year in which the investment is made, which means the regulated population in that year bears the cost of investment.

These costs are allocated to subsectors, where possible, and shared across the entire regulated population in proportion to their direct costs. Some projects are allocated directly to a single subsector where they solely benefit from the project.

Adjustments

Adjustments are also made in accordance with our balance management strategy set out in the ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Act 2017. Under this framework, regulatory costs for the current financial year are reduced by any excess levy collected in the previous financial year and increased to account for any shortfall. Any excess or shortfall is attributed to the subsectors in which it arose.

Adjustments may occur due to timing differences in entity registration or deregistration, or changes to the leviable populations, costs or metrics from the previous year.

Design of regulatory charges for individual entities

Once regulatory costs are allocated to each subsector, an individual entity’s levy is calculated using either a flat or graduated levy formula in accordance with the ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Regulations 2017 (Cost Recovery Levy Regulations).

An entity’s total levy for a financial year reflects its share of applicable flat and graduated levies for each subsector to which it belongs during the financial year. Entities can belong to more than one subsector. For more information, see our industry funding decision tree (PDF 258 KB).

For an explanation of how flat and graduated industry funding levies are determined, see Table 3.

Table 3: How ASIC’s industry funding levies are determined

Levy type	How costs are apportioned	Business activity metric	Data source and timing	Treatment of part year entities
Flat industry funding levies	Costs are shared equally between entities in a subsector where no business activity metric applies.	In some subsectors, levies are based on each entity’s share of reported business activity (e.g. revenue or days holding an AFS licence).	Metrics for the previous financial year are reported by entities in the ASIC Regulatory Portal between July and September.	A full year equivalent (FYE) entity count is used to calculate levies based on the number of days in a subsector or a licence was held (e.g. one half year entity = 0.5 FYE).
Graduated industry funding levies	Entities pay a minimum levy plus a graduated component based on relative business activity.	Graduated component is apportioned according to each entity’s share of total business activity in the subsector.	Metrics for the previous financial year are reported via the ASIC Regulatory Portal between July and September.	An FYE entity count is used to pro rata the levy based on the number of days in a subsector or a licence was held.

Note: For some subsectors, the graduated component only applies beyond a prescribed threshold. In these cases, we will apportion our remaining regulatory costs between entities based on each entity’s share of total business activity within the subsector above the prescribed threshold.

ASIC’s fees for service

Fees for service are user initiated. A regulatory form is lodged with ASIC for each fee-for-service activity. The fee charged for each service reflects the resources expended by ASIC to provide that service. For more information about the activities covered by different fees for service and how we determine specific fee amounts, see Fees for service.

Risk assessment

A Charging Risk Assessment (CRA) was carried out on ASIC’s cost recovery charging to identify implementation risks associated with the cost recovery arrangements outlined in this year’s CRIS. This was done in line with the Department of Finance’s requirements.

The cost recovery arrangements were assessed as medium-risk level. The CRA relates to existing charges under the ASIC industry funding model, which has operated since 2017. No changes to the underlying cost model have been proposed, and regulated entities will not face new or different charging structures as a result of this year’s CRIS. The assessment considered charging risks for regulated entities and the overall impact across the sectors. ASIC considers that risks associated with the charging arrangements are managed appropriately.

Cost recovery revenue is reported in accordance with the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013.

Industry engagement

As recommended in the 2023 industry funding model review, ASIC now publishes one final CRIS each year, removing the need for annual consultation on a draft CRIS. Together with Treasury, we will undertake more substantive consultation every five years. Industry stakeholders will have an opportunity to make written submissions to the consultation, and we will consider industry roundtables as needed. The next substantive consultation on ASIC’s industry funding model is scheduled for 2028.

Previous industry engagement

Industry consultation on industry funding levies (2015–2019)

The Australian Government undertook multiple rounds of consultation between 2015 and 2019 to develop and refine the ASIC industry funding model. This consultation covered the initial model, the ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Regulations 2017, and subsequent amendments, including the creation of a new subsector for entities subject to close and continuous monitoring.

Industry consultation on the fees-for-service model (2015–2019)

The Australian Government consulted extensively with industry between 2015 and 2019 to develop and refine the fees-for-service model. Feedback led to refinements such as tiered fees aligned to activity complexity and the removal of fees for novel relief applications, before the model was implemented through the Treasury Laws Amendment (ASIC Cost Recovery and Fees) Regulations 2019.

2023 industry funding model review

In August 2022, the Australian Government announced a review of ASIC’s industry funding model. Treasury undertook public consultation between September and October 2022. Recommendations and a summary of industry stakeholder feedback were set out in the final report published in June 2023.

Financial performance

Industry funding levies

The actual revenue and expenses for costs recovered through industry funding levies for the 2024–25 financial year are set out in Table 4. It also provides estimates of our revenue and expenses for costs recovered through industry funding levies for the next three financial years (i.e. 2025–26, 2026–27 and 2027–28).

Table 4: Forward estimates for costs recovered through industry funding levies

Figure type	Actual figure for 2024–25	Estimates for 2025–26	Estimates for 2026–27	Estimates for 2027–28
Expenses	$337.6m	$400.5m	$412.9m	$382.7m
Revenue (costs recoverable)	$334.2m	$400.5m	$412.9m	$382.7m
Balance (revenue minus expenses)	($3.4m)	Nil	Nil	Nil
Cumulative balance	($3.4m)	Nil	Nil	Nil

The $3.4 million balance carried forward from 2024–2025 to 2025–26 represents estimated costs from 2024–25 that will not be recovered from levies in 2024–25. This amount is carried forward under section 10(6)(b) of the Cost Recovery Levy Act 2017.

Fees for service

The actual revenue and expenses for costs recovered through fees for service for the 2024–25 financial year are set out in Table 5. It also provides estimates of our revenue and expenses for costs recovered through fees for service for the next three financial years (i.e. 2025–26, 2026-27 and 2027–28).

Table 5: Forward estimates for costs recovered through fees for service

Figure type	Actual figure for 2024–25	Estimates for 2025–26	Estimates for 2026–27	Estimates for 2027–28
Expenses	$18.2m	$24.4m	$24.4m	$24.4m
Revenue (costs recoverable)	$11.0m	$11.6m	$11.6m	$11.6m
Variance (revenue minus expenses)	($7.2m)	($12.8m)	($12.8m)	($12.8m)

Non-financial performance

We published the ASIC Corporate Plan 2025–26 in August 2025. It outlines our purposes, strategic priorities and focus areas in relation to regulating our industry sectors. The plan also details the key activities we undertake and the performance measures we will use to assess our performance in achieving our purposes.

We will publish ASIC’s Annual Report 2025–26 in October 2026. It will show our progress and achievements against our purposes, strategic priorities and focus areas.

In December 2025, we also published our 2026 enforcement priorities which communicate our intent to industry and indicate where we will direct our resources and expertise.

For more information on how we measure our performance, see Measuring our performance.

Key dates

For key dates relating to the CRIS and the industry funding model, see Table 6.

Table 6: Key dates

Event	Date
ASIC Regulatory Portal opens for annual returns	July – September 2026
ASIC to finalise regulatory costs	November 2026
ASIC to make legislative instrument with business activity details	December 2026
ASIC to publish summary of actual levies, annual dashboard report and summary of variance between estimated and actual costs	December 2026
ASIC to issue levy notices	January – March 2027
Levy notices due for payment	April 2027
Next substantive consultation on ASIC’s industry funding model	2028
Portfolio charging review	2028