Will I have to do a course before I can set up an SMSF? What was actually announced on 19 August

Someone has told you to hurry. Set the fund up now, before the new rules land, before you have to sit some kind of course to be allowed to run your own super. It is the sort of advice that arrives with a deadline attached and no document behind it. The document exists, it is four pages long, and it is worth reading before anyone signs anything.

What was published on 19 August

Treasury published a fact sheet titled Protecting Consumers and the Promise of Superannuation in an Evolving Financial Ecosystem, dated 19 August 2026. The document describes itself as further implementation detail for the Government's Protecting Consumers in the Superannuation System measure, building on reforms announced in the 2026-27 Budget. It covers APRA-regulated funds, lead generation, managed investment schemes, financial advice and the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort. Section 2 is the SMSF section, and it runs to seven items.

The seven SMSF items

First, empowering the ATO to prevent rollovers to new SMSFs in situations where the ATO is investigating concerns of fraud, financial abuse, misconduct or potential harm. Second, mandatory trustee education prior to SMSF registration, alongside support for industry-led initiatives to lift standards. Third, requiring SMSFs to hold uniquely identifiable bank accounts. Fourth, requiring a written investment strategy upfront, with consultation on options to improve the quality of those strategies.

Fifth, enabling the ATO to collect additional information about financial advisers and other entities involved in setting a fund up and in ongoing advice fee deduction arrangements. Sixth, aligning the supervisory levy with fund establishment and raising it for the first time since 2013, from $259 to $295. Seventh, supporting the ATO to give trustees - particularly those with low balances - better visibility of their fund's returns compared with members of APRA-regulated funds.

The line that decides how to react to all of it

None of this is law. The fact sheet sets out what the Government intends to implement; it is not a bill and it is not an Act. The SMSF section carries no commencement dates at all, and as at 21 August 2026 no bill before Parliament carries these measures. Treasury has also said consultation with industry, consumer groups and regulators continues before anything is legislated.

Announcements of this shape normally travel a long road: consultation, exposure draft, a bill, then a start date, with detail changing at each step. The gap between the announcement and the rule is where most of the bad advice lives.

Two misreadings already circulating

The first is that the ATO will be able to freeze your super. Item 2.1 as published is narrower than that. It is about preventing a rollover into a new SMSF, and it applies where the ATO is investigating concerns of fraud, financial abuse, misconduct or potential harm. It is not described as a general power over money already in a fund, and it is not described as applying to ordinary transfers.

The second is that mandatory education means an exam you can fail. The fact sheet says mandatory trustee education prior to registration and stops there. It names no provider, no format, no length and no pass mark. Anyone who can tell you what the test looks like is filling in a blank that Treasury has not filled.

Is there anything to gain by setting up a fund now?

There is no published start date to get in ahead of, and no grandfathering arrangement has been announced either way - so the thing people are racing towards has not been defined. Racing has a cost of its own. A fund created to beat a deadline is still a fund: trustee obligations, an annual return, an independent audit every year, and a real cost and a real process if it later turns out not to suit.

The questions that decide whether an SMSF makes sense are the same ones as on 18 August. The balance going in, how much will be contributed each year, what the fund would actually hold, and how much administration a member wants to carry personally. Nothing in the announcement changes any of those.

What has not changed

Today's rules are the rules that applied before 19 August. Super law already requires trustees to prepare, implement and regularly review an investment strategy having regard to the fund's circumstances, including risk, likely return, diversification, liquidity and whether the fund should hold insurance for members; the ATO's guidance is to review it at least annually and document the review. Trustees must already hold the fund's investments separately from any other entity's assets, and the ATO's guidance is that the fund has a separate bank account. Each trustee or director must already sign the ATO trustee declaration within 21 days of becoming one. The supervisory levy is still $259.

In other words, three of the seven announced items are close cousins of duties that already exist. What is being proposed is mostly to move them earlier, make them explicit, or make them checkable.

This is general information current as at 21 August 2026, not advice about your fund or your super. Whether an SMSF suits a particular person, and what a fund should do next, depends on the trust deed, the members' circumstances and licensed advice specific to them. Where we can help is the part on either side of the structure - what a property or a portfolio actually costs after tax, and what the capital gains position looks like on the way out. That is what our property investor tax service and the investment property calculator are built for.