RICS members must complete at least 20 hours of CPD every calendar year, and at least 10 of those hours must be structured. The CPD year runs from 1 January to 31 December, and everything must be recorded, with an annual declaration signed, by 31 January of the following year. Since 1 January 2026 there is a second layer on top: three mandatory topics, each of which must be covered with at least one hour of structured learning once every three CPD years.
If you last read the RICS CPD rules before 2026, some of what you remember is out of date. “Formal” and “informal” learning have become “structured” and “unstructured”, and the old ethics requirement has been folded into the new mandatory topics. This guide sets out the current rules as RICS publishes them, what counts, what does not, and the legal training duties that sit alongside membership for surveyors who deal with asbestos or estate agency work.
At a glance: Nexis CPD offers £9 CPD-accredited online courses relevant to surveying practice, including Asbestos Awareness and Anti-Money Laundering Awareness, each with a verifiable e-certificate, and any three courses cost £18.
What are the RICS CPD requirements?
The current rules are set out in RICS CPD rules: requirements, version 1, with effect from 1 January 2026. The core requirement is short:
- 20 hours of CPD minimum in each CPD year
- At least 10 of those hours structured
- The CPD year runs 1 January to 31 December
- Record everything by 31 January of the following year at the latest
- Sign the annual declaration by the same date
- Cover each of the three mandatory topics at least once every three CPD years, with at least one hour of structured learning on each
Records are made digitally, through RICS My Account or the official RICS mobile app. If you are used to calling it “My CPD”, that is the old name; the substance is the same, but the rules now refer to My Account.
Two smaller details catch people out. First, an activity must last at least 30 minutes to be recorded. A five-minute article read on the train does not count, however useful it was. Second, structured hours from an accredited award can be carried forward: up to 20 hours, at no more than 10 hours a year, across the following two years. That helps members who complete a substantial qualification in one year and would otherwise “waste” the surplus.
Who the rules apply to
The rules define a member as Fellows, professional members and non-chartered members, but not honorary members. In practice that means FRICS, MRICS and the non-chartered grade, which is where AssocRICS members sit. Honorary members are outside the requirement.
Regulated firms are treated differently. The CPD rules do not place an hours requirement on firms. What firms do have is Rule 2 of the RICS Rules of Conduct, which says members and firms must maintain their professional competence. A firm therefore has no hours target of its own, but it cannot shrug off competence as something only individuals are responsible for.
What is the difference between structured and unstructured CPD?
This is the distinction that decides whether your 20 hours actually comply, because half of them must sit on the structured side.
RICS defines structured CPD as learning where the outcomes can be easily identified. Its own examples are webinars, seminars, conferences, lectures and workshops. It then adds a pointed exclusion: structured CPD does not include “keep up to date” reading or listening to podcasts.
Unstructured CPD is self-managed learning: private study, on-the-job training, informal seminars and events, keep-up-to-date reading and podcasts.
The practical test is whether someone else could look at the activity and say what you were supposed to learn from it. A webinar with a stated agenda passes. An online course with defined learning outcomes and an assessment will usually look like structured learning too, though the judgement is yours to make against RICS’s definition, and you should record what the outcomes were rather than just the title. Reading the property press every morning is valuable, but it is unstructured, and no amount of it will fill the structured half.
Why the split exists
The structured requirement is there to stop CPD becoming a record of what you would have done anyway. Almost every practising surveyor reads, talks to colleagues and learns on jobs. The structured hours force at least some deliberate learning into the year, chosen because of a gap rather than because it crossed your desk.
The members who find the requirement hardest are rarely the ones who learn least. They are the ones whose learning is entirely informal: experienced practitioners who stay current by doing the work and talking to peers, and who then discover in January that none of it counts towards the structured half.
What are the RICS mandatory CPD topics from 2026?
From 1 January 2026, RICS requires members to cover three topics, each at least once every three CPD years. As the rules word them, the topics are:
- RICS’ global professional and ethical standards
- AI, data and technology
- Sustainability
For each topic, the learning must be structured and last at least one hour. RICS’s announcement of the new framework in November 2025 described the list slightly differently, splitting AI from data and technology, so you may see “four topics” quoted elsewhere. The rules document is the authoritative version, and it lists three.
The rules say that CPD on the mandatory topics is recorded “in the usual way”. The natural reading is that those hours also count towards your 20, rather than being additional to them, but the document does not say so in terms. If your hours are borderline, do not rely on that reading; check with RICS.
What happened to the ethics module?
Under the previous framework, members were expected to complete ethics learning on a three-yearly cycle, and many will remember the RICS online ethics module. Ethics has not gone away. It now sits inside the first mandatory topic, professional and ethical standards, on the same three-year basis as the other two.
The Rules of Conduct page itself notes that the ethics module is not mandatory for this purpose and that other activities qualify. So the requirement is to cover the topic with at least an hour of structured learning in each three-year window, not to complete one specific RICS product.
Planning the three-year window
Because the topics run on a three-year cycle, they are easy to forget until year three. The sensible approach is to pick one topic a year. It takes three hours of structured learning spread over three years, well inside the 10 structured hours you need annually anyway, and it removes the risk of a scramble in the final December.
Sustainability and technology are also areas where client expectations are moving faster than most practitioners’ knowledge, so there is a commercial case for covering them early rather than at the deadline.
What happens if a surveyor does not meet the CPD requirement?
The rules state that breaches may result in administrative and/or disciplinary action, and the same applies to failing to sign the annual declaration or to submit records.
RICS deals with CPD failures largely through its fixed penalty process. RICS’s own description is that a first breach attracts a fixed penalty caution, and a second breach within 10 years of receiving a caution attracts a fixed penalty caution and fine. A review can be requested within 28 days.
You will see specific fine amounts and escalation steps quoted on third-party sites. The current RICS page does not publish the amounts, so we have not repeated them here. If you have received a notice, the notice itself and RICS’s current sanctions guidance are the only sources worth relying on.
The more useful point is that CPD breaches are among the easiest to avoid. They are administrative: nobody is alleging poor work. They come almost entirely from records not being entered by 31 January, which is a calendar problem, not a competence problem.
Do surveyors need asbestos training?
This is where RICS membership and the law run on separate tracks, and where the difference between awareness and competence matters most.
The legal duty: awareness for people liable to be exposed
Regulation 10 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 requires employers to give adequate information, instruction and training to employees who are, or are liable to be, exposed to asbestos, and to those who supervise them. It must be given at regular intervals.
Surveyors who enter older buildings, lift floor coverings, go into roof voids, or open up service ducts are plainly in the “liable to be exposed” group. HSE’s asbestos training guidance lists building surveyors among the workers who need asbestos awareness training. For a building surveyor employed by a practice, this is a legal duty on the employer, and it exists whether or not the surveyor is a RICS member.
For the full picture of who is covered, see who needs asbestos awareness training, and for how awareness fits against the higher categories, asbestos training categories explained.
What awareness training does not do
HSE is direct about the limit: awareness training will not prepare workers to carry out work with asbestos-containing materials. It teaches you where asbestos is likely to be found, how to avoid disturbing it, and what to do if you suspect you have. It does not make anyone competent to sample it, survey for it, or remove it.
Asbestos surveying is a separate discipline. HSE’s guidance for dutyholders says there is no legal requirement for asbestos surveyors to be accredited, but HSE strongly recommends using surveyors accredited to BS EN ISO/IEC 17020, with UKAS as the sole national accreditation body. HSE’s surveyors’ guide, HSG264, adds that the P402 qualification on its own does not demonstrate competence, and expects field experience under supervision as well.
So, said plainly: an asbestos awareness course, including ours, is not asbestos surveying competence. It is the baseline the law expects for anyone liable to be exposed. If your work includes management or refurbishment and demolition surveys, the route runs through the relevant qualifications, supervised experience and an accredited organisation, not an online awareness course.
If you are advising a client on their duties as the person in control of a non-domestic building, the duty to manage asbestos guide sets out regulation 4 in plain terms.
Do surveyors need anti-money laundering training?
It depends on what your firm actually does, and this is an area where a lot of confident statements online are wrong.
RICS is not an anti-money laundering supervisor. Schedule 1 of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 lists the professional body supervisors, and RICS is not among them. Being a RICS member therefore tells you nothing about who, if anyone, supervises you for AML purposes.
Firms that carry out estate agency business, including many residential and commercial agency practices run by chartered surveyors, must be registered with HMRC. HMRC’s registration guidance is blunt that it is a criminal offence to trade as an estate agency business without being registered.
A practice doing only surveys and valuations may sit outside that. The Estate Agents Act 1979 excludes work done in the course of a survey or valuation under a separate contract. Whether that exclusion carries through to the Money Laundering Regulations for your specific business is a question to check with HMRC or a compliance adviser, not to assume from a blog post, including this one.
The training duty, where the regulations apply
Where your business is in scope, regulation 24 of the Money Laundering Regulations requires the firm to ensure relevant staff are made aware of the law relating to money laundering and terrorist financing, and are regularly given training in how to recognise and deal with transactions and other activities that may be related to money laundering. The firm must also keep a written record of what it did.
“Regularly” and “written record” are the operative words. A single induction session years ago, with nothing on file, is the most common gap an HMRC visit finds. Our guides to AML training requirements and training requirements for estate and letting agents go into the agency side in more detail.
Can online courses count towards RICS CPD?
Yes, where they are relevant to your practice and you record them properly. RICS does not operate an approved-provider list for CPD. The rules care about what you learned and whether it was structured, not who delivered it.
What makes an online course useful for RICS purposes:
- Relevance. The learning has to connect to your practice. An asbestos awareness course for a building surveyor is obviously relevant; the same course for a surveyor who never leaves the office is harder to justify.
- Identifiable outcomes. Record what the course was meant to teach, not only its title. That is what supports treating it as structured.
- Duration. Log the time you actually spent. Rounding a 90-minute course up to three hours is the kind of thing that looks bad if your records are ever reviewed.
- A reflection. One or two sentences on what you will do differently. RICS does not require an essay, but a record that shows a change in practice is far more defensible than a list of certificates.
And the limit, again: an online course contributes to your CPD. It does not replace a regulated qualification where one is required, and it does not make you competent in a discipline such as asbestos surveying that needs supervised experience and accreditation.
A simple way to plan your RICS CPD year
Most CPD problems are planning problems. A structure that works for most practitioners:
- January: record last year’s CPD and sign the declaration before the 31st. Then look at the gap between what you did and what you needed.
- Pick this year’s mandatory topic. One of the three, one structured hour minimum. Book it early.
- Book the legal minimums. If you are liable to asbestos exposure, is your awareness training current? If your firm is in AML scope, has your training been refreshed and recorded?
- Plan 10 structured hours around a real gap: a new service line, a change in standards, a type of instruction you are taking on.
- Log as you go. Enter each activity within a week, while you still remember what you learned. Reconstructing a year of CPD in late January is how records end up thin.
- Let the unstructured hours happen naturally, but record them. Reading, site learning and peer discussion all count towards the 20.
Surveyors working across professions will recognise the pattern. Solicitors and accountants face similar reflective, output-based systems, covered in our guides to CPD for solicitors and CPD for accountants.
Which courses suit surveyors?
For surveyors who want structured awareness learning in the areas that carry the most legal risk:
- Asbestos Awareness: where asbestos is found, avoiding disturbance, and what to do if you suspect it (see where asbestos is found)
- Anti-Money Laundering Awareness: the red flags and reporting duties behind regulation 24
- Working at Height Awareness: ladders, roof voids and the Work at Height Regulations 2005
Those three together cost £18 rather than £27, because any three courses trigger the pay-for-2-get-3 offer. Add them to the cart and the discount applies automatically. Surveyors who work alone on site often add Lone Working Awareness, and those handling client files can add Data Protection and GDPR Awareness. Practices with designers on staff may prefer Asbestos Awareness for Architects and Designers.
These are CPD awareness courses. They are not RICS products, they do not automatically satisfy any specific mandatory topic, and they are not asbestos surveying qualifications.
Frequently asked questions
How many CPD hours do RICS members need?
RICS members must complete and record at least 20 hours of CPD each calendar year, of which at least 10 hours must be structured. The CPD year runs from 1 January to 31 December, and records must be entered, with the annual declaration signed, by 31 January of the following year.
What are the RICS mandatory CPD topics?
Under the rules in force from 1 January 2026, members must cover three topics at least once every three CPD years: RICS global professional and ethical standards; AI, data and technology; and sustainability. The learning on each topic must be structured and last at least one hour.
What counts as structured CPD for RICS?
Structured CPD is learning where the outcomes can be easily identified, such as webinars, seminars, conferences, lectures and workshops. RICS specifically excludes keep-up-to-date reading and podcasts, which count as unstructured CPD along with private study and on-the-job training.
Is the RICS ethics module still mandatory?
Ethics is now covered by the first of the mandatory topics, RICS global professional and ethical standards, which must be covered with at least one hour of structured learning once every three CPD years. The Rules of Conduct note that the ethics module itself is not mandatory and that other activities qualify.
What happens if I miss the RICS CPD deadline?
RICS states that breaches of the CPD rules may lead to administrative or disciplinary action. Under its fixed penalty process, a first breach attracts a caution and a second breach within 10 years of a caution attracts a caution and fine. A review can be requested within 28 days.
Is asbestos awareness training enough to carry out asbestos surveys?
No. Awareness training is the baseline for anyone liable to be exposed to asbestos, and HSE says it will not prepare workers to carry out work with asbestos-containing materials. HSE strongly recommends using surveyors accredited to BS EN ISO/IEC 17020, and its guidance says the P402 qualification alone does not demonstrate competence.
Is RICS my anti-money laundering supervisor?
No. RICS is not listed as a professional body supervisor in Schedule 1 of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. Firms carrying out estate agency business must register with HMRC. Whether a survey-only practice is in scope depends on its activities, so check with HMRC or a compliance adviser.
CPD courses for surveyors
£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100% online, verifiable e-certificate. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18.
This article is general information, not legal or regulatory advice. RICS CPD rules were revised with effect from 1 January 2026 and may change again; always check the current rules and your own obligations with RICS. Anti-money laundering scope depends on the activities your business carries out, so confirm your position with HMRC or a qualified adviser. A CPD awareness course is not a regulated qualification and does not demonstrate competence to carry out asbestos surveys or work with asbestos-containing materials.