Jewellers and High-Value Dealers

What this means for your firm

From 1 July 2026, a jeweller carries AML/CTF obligations for sales that cross a $10,000 threshold paid in physical currency or virtual assets. Below that, and paid by card or bank transfer, a sale is not a designated service and carries no obligations.

The trigger is a value and a payment method, not a judgment about the customer or the nature of the work. A shop can make hundreds of sales a year with no obligations and one that brings the whole regime into play.

For the general test, see Obligations overview.

Which services are designated services

Tick the services your firm provides to see which ones are designated services. The detail for each item follows below.

Step 1 of 2

Which of these services do you provide?

Tick everything your business does, including work you think is out of scope.

Buying and selling precious goods

Sell jewellery, precious metals or precious stones to customers, or buy them from customersBuy or sell bullion as part of a bullion dealing business

Other work

Repairs, cleaning or valuations

Precious metals, stones and products sit in Table 2 in s 6(3) of the AML/CTF Act 2006. Item 2 is the one that applies to jewellers. You provide it when you are:

buying or selling one or more of the following items in the course of carrying on a business, where the purchase involves the transfer of physical currency or virtual assets (or a combination of physical currency and virtual assets) with a total value of not less than $10,000, whether the purchase is made in a single transaction or in several transactions that are linked or appear to be linked: (a) precious metal; (b) precious stones; (c) precious products; (d) any combination of any 2 or more of the items referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c)

Three conditions must all be met:

Condition	What it means
Value	$10,000 or more, counting only the precious items
Transaction	A single transaction, or several transactions that are linked or appear to be linked
Payment method	Physical currency, virtual assets, or a combination, reaching the value threshold

The customer is the buyer or the seller, as the case may be. Item 2 covers buying as well as selling, so buying precious metal, stones or jewellery for $10,000 or more in cash counts in the same way as a cash sale. It also covers dealing between businesses: AUSTRAC's examples include a retailer paying a supplier in cash for stock.

Physical currency means coins and printed money, Australian or foreign, that are legal tender and circulate as money (s 5). A virtual asset is a digital representation of value, not issued by a government body, that can be transferred, stored or traded electronically (s 5B). Payment by debit or credit card or by bank transfer is neither.

Like every designated service, item 2 also needs a geographical link to Australia (s 6(6)), which a shop or business operating in Australia will have.

What counts as precious

The definitions in s 5A are wider than they sound.

• Precious metals are gold, silver, platinum, iridium, osmium, palladium, rhodium and ruthenium, and any alloy with at least 2% by weight of any of them, whether manufactured or unmanufactured. The Rules can add further substances.
• Precious stones are substances of gem quality with market-recognised beauty, rarity and value. The Act names beryl, corundum, diamond, garnet, jadeite jade, opal, pearl and topaz, without limiting the list.
• Precious products are jewellery, watches, other objects of personal adornment, and articles of goldsmiths' or silversmiths' wares, that are made of, contain or have attached any precious metal or stone.

Precious products is the definition that covers a retail jeweller. It means the stock in the window is in scope, not only loose metal or stones. The Act's own examples are a stainless steel watch with rubies set on the face, a platinum tie bar, and a gold and pearl necklace. AUSTRAC adds a gold or diamond dental grill, a headdress of platinum and garnet, and belts or hair clips with precious metal or stones attached. Goldsmiths' and silversmiths' wares include ornaments, tableware, trophies and other articles of personal, household, office or religious use.

Synthetic and reconstructed stones count the same as natural ones

The Act says it is immaterial whether a stone is natural, synthetic or reconstructed (s 5A(4)). A laboratory-grown diamond is a precious stone on the same basis as a mined one.

Where a substance is not on the list, AUSTRAC's test for gem quality is whether its colour, cut, clarity or carat can be assessed or graded, and there has to be a market for it.

Mixed sales

Only precious items count towards the threshold. AUSTRAC's example is an $11,500 cash sale made up of a gold and ruby belt buckle at $8,500 and plain leather shoes at $3,000. It is not a designated service, because the regulated item is under $10,000.

Linked transactions

Several transactions that are linked, or that appear to be linked, are added together. AUSTRAC suggests asking whether the transactions:

• relate to the same items or the same underlying sale or purchase
• form part of a single arrangement, such as an instalment or lay-by plan
• share a common purpose, such as paying off an outstanding balance
• are made by the same customer in a short period for the same or similar products
• are connected through an invoice, for example several payments for one invoice
• appear to be split deliberately to stay under $10,000.

There is no time limit after which linked payments reset. A $15,000 item on lay-by paid off in cash instalments is a designated service, however long the lay-by runs. By contrast, a customer who buys a $7,000 pendant in cash and returns the next day to buy a separate $7,000 chain, with no instalment plan or shared invoice, has made two unlinked purchases on those facts alone.

The designated service starts once the sale or purchase is complete and the cash or virtual asset payments reach the threshold. In AUSTRAC's instalment example, a $15,000 item paid for in three $5,000 instalments (cash on day 1, cash on day 2, virtual assets on day 3) becomes a designated service on day 2.

The obligation to notice linked payments is yours

The test includes transactions that merely appear to be linked. If you accept cash or virtual assets at all, AUSTRAC expects you to have a process to spot linked payments that reach $10,000, including deliberate structuring. Structuring to avoid reporting is a criminal offence, and a reasonable suspicion of it can require a suspicious matter report.

What is not a designated service

• Card and bank transfer payments: where precious items are bought or sold using only a debit or credit card or a bank transfer, AUSTRAC states the business is not providing a designated service.
• Cash or virtual assets under $10,000: a single payment under the threshold that is not linked to others is not item 2.
• No cash or virtual assets at all: AUSTRAC states that a business that does not accept physical currency or virtual assets in any amount is not regulated for these sales and does not need an AML/CTF program for them.
• Work that is not buying or selling: item 2 is limited to buying or selling precious items. A service that involves neither, such as a repair or a valuation, falls outside it.
• Items that are not precious: goods with no precious metal or stone, such as the shoes in the mixed sale above.

Other designated services a jeweller may provide

Item 2 is not the only item a jeweller can meet. Table 2 item 1 covers buying or selling bullion in the course of carrying on a bullion-dealing business, and it has no cash threshold. Bullion means gold, silver, platinum or palladium in bar, coin, ingot, plate or wafer form, carrying a mark that guarantees its fineness and usually priced by reference to the spot price (s 5). AUSTRAC names selling bullion and providing loans as designated services that its jeweller starter kit does not cover. If you provide either, your program has to be adapted to include it.

Threshold transaction reports for cash of $10,000 or more are a separate obligation, covered below under the cash threshold.

AUSTRAC guidance used for this section:

• Precious metals, stones and products designated services
• Regulation options for dealers in precious metals, stones and products
• Examples of linked transactions in practice
• Jeweller program starter kit: getting started

What to watch for as a jeweller

The cash threshold and threshold transaction reporting are two different things

The numbers match, but the triggers do not.

• The $10,000 threshold in item 2 is what makes a sale a designated service in the first place. It is about scope: whether the regime applies to this transaction at all.
• A threshold transaction report is a separate reporting obligation under a different part of the Act, triggered by physical currency of $10,000 or more in a transaction.

A large cash sale can therefore do both: bring the transaction into scope as a designated service and require a report. They are separate obligations with separate deadlines, and meeting one does not discharge the other.

The reporting deadline is 10 business days from the day the transaction takes place, and the full obligation is on Reporting.

A sale by card can still matter for other reasons

A card sale is not a designated service, so the AML/CTF obligations do not attach to it. It can still matter to your risk assessment.

High-value, portable, easily resold goods attract money laundering risk beyond whether a particular sale crossed a threshold. That risk assessment belongs in your program, and it is covered on Build your program.

Where to start

In the order you will need them:

1. Obligations overview: the designated service test, which for this vertical turns on value and payment method.
2. Reporting, for the threshold transaction reporting obligation that a large cash sale can trigger.
3. Customer due diligence, for what you must establish about a customer once a sale is in scope.
4. Enrol with AUSTRAC, Appoint your AMLCO and Firm setup, including switching on threshold transaction reporting.

Related pages

• Deadlines, for the reporting deadline and the setup dates.
• Filing a report, for how the report record works in the product.
• Known limitations, for what the product does not do.