The migration agents regulations were replaced in 2026 — what actually changed?

In February 2026 the regulations sitting behind a migration agent's registration were replaced. The instrument that did it is easy to miss, because it is not called a rewrite and it does not announce itself as one, but its effect on the machinery around your practice is worth understanding — and its effect on your actual obligations is, reassuringly, close to nothing.

1. The 1998 regulations were repealed in full

The Migration Legislation (Migration Agents) (Repeal and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 was made on 19 February 2026 and commenced at the same time as the new regulations it accompanies.

“At the same time as the Migration Agents Regulations 2026 commence.”

Its Schedule 1 does one thing, and does it completely. The heading of the schedule names the instrument, and the single item beneath it reads:

“Repeal the instrument.”

So the Migration Agents Regulations 1998 — the regulations that had governed migration agent registration since 1998 — are gone, replaced by the Migration Agents Regulations 2026.

2. But the Code of Conduct itself was barely touched

The Code of Conduct is a separate instrument: the Migration (Migration Agents Code of Conduct) Regulations 2021. Because the 1998 regulations it referred to had been repealed, the Code needed consequential amendments — but only to keep its cross-references accurate.

The amending instrument changed three things in the Code. All three are the same kind of change.

The definition of the consumer guide. Section 7 previously defined the consumer guide by reference to the old regulations. It now reads:

“consumer guide means the guide, as existing from time to time, produced under subsection 43(1) of the Migration Agents Regulations 2026.”

One cross-reference in section 27. The amending instrument omits the reference to the old regulations and substitutes a reference to the new instrument's section 33.

The note to section 38. The note explaining where the consumer guide comes from was repealed and replaced:

“Note 1: The Authority arranges for the production of the consumer guide: see subsection 43(1) of the Migration Agents Regulations 2026.”

That is the whole of it. A separate item updates a note in the Migration Regulations 1994, which is not part of the Code.

3. What did not change

This is the part worth being clear about, because it is the part that would be easy to misreport.

No substantive obligation in the Code was amended. The seven-year client-file retention rule, the requirement that a service agreement be in writing and signed, the duty to record oral communications contemporaneously, the rules on fees, invoices, and client money — none of them moved. The amending instrument's Schedule 2 contains cross-reference updates and nothing else.

An agent who was compliant in January 2026 is compliant now. There is no new duty to learn, no new form to adopt, and no new record category to create.

4. What did change, and why it still matters

The risk is not in the obligations. It is in the citations.

Every practice accumulates documents that name the regulations: client-facing service agreement templates, internal checklists, onboarding packs, engagement letters, and — increasingly — the software a practice runs on. Any of those that still say "regulation 6B of the Migration Agents Regulations 1998" is now citing an instrument that has been repealed.

That matters for three reasons:

• A citation to repealed regulations is a defect a reviewer will notice. An OMARA audit, a client complaint, or a professional indemnity query all start from the documents, and an out-of-date statutory reference is the kind of detail that invites a harder look at everything around it.
• It undermines the document's authority. A service agreement that points the client at a repealed instrument is telling the client something untrue about the law that governs their matter, even if every substantive term in it is correct.
• Software is the easiest place for it to hide. A template you can open and read is straightforward to check. A clause generated by a system is not, and vendors have varying records of keeping their statutory references current through a change like this one.

5. What to check

1. Find every place your practice names the regulations. Service agreement templates, checklists, onboarding documents, and any know-your-client material.
2. Search for "1998". That is the fastest way to surface the stale references, since the instrument's title is the thing that changed.
3. Check your software's generated documents, not just your own templates. Open a service agreement the system would produce today and read the clauses that cite an instrument.
4. Check the definition of the consumer guide wherever it appears in your own materials, since that is one of the references that moved.
5. Keep a dated record of the check. A practice that can show it reviewed its statutory references after a change to the regulations is in a stronger position than one that simply happens to be correct.

Practice takeaway. The regulation change of February 2026 did not change what a migration agent has to do — the Code's obligations are the same as they were. What it changed is which instrument those obligations point at. The work it creates is a citation review, not a compliance rewrite, and the practices that will feel it are the ones whose documents and software named the old regulations and have not been looked at since.