Getting ready for your 2026 annual AML/CFT report
Summary:
- From 1 July 2026, the DIA becomes New Zealand’s sole AML/CFT supervisor
- If the DIA already supervises you, your annual report process doesn’t change
- If you’re moving across from the FMA or Reserve Bank, you’ll file through AML Online now, so create a RealMe login and make sure your compliance officer’s contact details are current before registration opens in June
- The submission window is 1 July to 31 August 2026, with no extensions, so it pays to start early
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If you’ve filed an annual report before, this year’s will feel familiar. The timing and the form haven’t changed. What has changed, for a lot of reporting entities, is who you file it with.
From 1 July 2026, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) becomes New Zealand’s sole AML/CFT supervisor, taking on the work previously split across the DIA, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and the Reserve Bank (RBNZ). What that means for your annual report comes down to who has been supervising you until now.
If the DIA already supervises you
Not much changes. You’ll submit your report through AML Online just as you have before, across the same 1 July to 31 August 2026 window. Your risk assessment, record-keeping and reporting all carry on as usual.
If you’re moving across from the FMA or the Reserve Bank
This is the year to get set up. From 1 July your annual report goes to the DIA through AML Online, the portal DIA-supervised entities already use, rather than to your former supervisor.
A few things are worth sorting before the window opens. You’ll need a RealMe login to get into AML Online, so set one up early if you don’t already have it. It’s also worth checking that your compliance officer’s contact details are current with your existing supervisor, because the registration invitation goes to the named AML/CFT contact at your organisation, and out-of-date details are an easy way to miss it when it arrives. Registration for transferring entities opens in June, so the link should land before the reporting window does.
Until 30 June, keep dealing with your current supervisor as normal; the handover is a clean cut-off rather than a grey zone. And if you can, spend a little time in AML Online beforehand. The DIA has training material and step-by-step guides for submitting a report, and it’s a far easier first run when you’re not also racing the deadline.
What the report actually covers
The annual report is a snapshot of your risk assessment and AML/CFT programme over the past 12 months. It’s required under section 60 of the Act, it covers the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, and you submit it in the prescribed form. In practice it asks you to describe your business and the services that bring you within the Act, then walk through how your programme performed: your customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, the suspicious activity and prescribed transaction reports you filed with the FIU, your training, and any changes you made along the way. If your independent audit landed in this period, that feeds in too.
None of it should be a surprise. You already hold most of what it asks for; the work is mostly in pulling it together and making sure it reflects how your programme actually ran, not how it looked on paper a year ago.
Why it pays to prepare early
There’s no general extension. The DIA has been clear it can’t grant them, and missing the deadline is a civil liability act. So it’s not something you want to be chasing in the last week of August.
Reports filed in the final fortnight are the ones most likely to contain gaps: a CDD figure that doesn’t reconcile, a training session no one logged, an audit recommendation that never got actioned. Giving yourself a few weeks turns the report from a scramble into a review. This is a chance to look back honestly at the year, notice what slipped, and tidy it before your supervisor does. It’s also a natural moment to check your programme still reflects the recent amendments to the Act and the DIA’s updated guidance.
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To make the gathering part easier, we’ve put together a checklist that walks through everything you’ll need on hand before you open AML Online so you can work through it once and submit with nothing left to chase.