CPD for Building Designers in 2026: What BDAA Requires and How to Meet It
Building designers who hold membership with the Building Designers Association of Australia (BDAA) must complete 20 CPD points per year, made up of 10 formal points and 10 informal points. The BDAA reporting year runs from 1 July to 30 June, not the calendar year. All CPD records must be submitted by 1 July each year.
One CPD point equals one hour of relevant learning activity. Formal CPD is structured learning with defined outcomes and verification of engagement. Informal CPD is self-directed learning relevant to building design practice.
The most important nuance to know: if you are also licensed or registered by a state body, the state requirement takes precedence over the BDAA scheme. That matters in Queensland (QBCC), Tasmania (CBOS), and Victoria (the new Building and Plumbing Commission). BDAA membership without meeting your state licensing CPD will not protect your registration.
The rest of this article is the working detail: what counts, how to plan a year of CPD that actually meets the requirement, what the Thermal Performance Assessor track adds for dual-accredited members, and the five mistakes that catch out building designers at the end of a CPD year.
Who This Applies To
BDAA CPD applies to every BDAA member who is required to maintain a CPD record under their membership category. That includes practitioners working as independent building designers, designers employed in larger studios, and Thermal Performance Assessors accredited under BDAA’s separate scheme.
It does not replace any state licensing CPD obligation. If you hold registration as a building designer through a state regulator (QBCC in Queensland, CBOS in Tasmania, the BPC in Victoria), the state’s CPD framework sits above the BDAA scheme. You may need to meet both, and where requirements conflict, the regulator’s rules apply.
For practitioners outside the state-licensed jurisdictions (NSW, SA, WA, NT, ACT), BDAA’s scheme is typically the highest CPD bar your professional standing depends on, and the focus of this article.
The 20-Point Baseline
The BDAA annual requirement is structured to balance verified learning with self-directed development. The 20 points break down into two equal halves.
10 formal points. Structured educational or technical activities with clearly defined learning outcomes provided by the organiser. Formal CPD requires meaningful interaction between presenter and participant, and may include an assessment component.
10 informal points. Self-directed learning and professional tasks relevant to building design practice. The activity must have an educational focus (acquiring new knowledge or skills) and may either supplement or complement regular professional duties.
One point equals a minimum of one hour spent undertaking the CPD. A 60-minute structured webinar with a quiz earns one formal point. A 90-minute Australian Standard reading session, documented and reflective, earns 1.5 informal points.
The split is not optional. Members who hit 20 total points but fail to reach 10 formal points have not met the requirement. Likewise, members who exceed 10 formal points but fall short of 10 informal points are technically non-compliant. Plan to hit both halves of the bar, not just the headline number.
The Reporting Cycle: 1 July to 30 June
This is the single most common point of confusion for new BDAA members. The reporting year runs 1 July to 30 June, aligned with the Australian financial year, not the calendar year.
The practical consequence: if you have been earning CPD in calendar-year increments, you may be tracking against the wrong cycle. A course you completed in January 2026 counts toward the 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 reporting period. A course you complete in August 2026 counts toward the next cycle.
CPD records must be submitted by 1 July each year. That gives you no grace period after the cycle closes. Reach the points before 30 June or be in deficit at submission.
The cleanest planning rhythm for BDAA members:
- Aim to complete the 10 formal points by the end of December
- Top up with informal points across January to May
- Use June as a buffer month, not your primary CPD month
That schedule survives almost every disruption a working designer encounters across a year, and it removes the panic of trying to complete 20 points in the final fortnight of a financial year.
When State Licensing Takes Precedence
Three Australian jurisdictions licence or register building designers directly through a state regulator. In each case, the state’s CPD framework overrides the BDAA scheme.
Queensland. Building designers registered with the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) must meet the QBCC CPD program. If you are a QBCC-licensed designer and a BDAA member, the QBCC scheme is the one you must meet first. BDAA’s scheme will accept the QBCC CPD on a points basis, but the reverse does not apply.
Tasmania. Building designers licensed by Consumer, Building and Occupational Services (CBOS) follow the Tasmanian licensing program. The CBOS scheme governs ongoing registration, with BDAA membership as a supplementary professional standing.
Victoria. The Building and Plumbing Commission (BPC) commenced on 1 July 2025 and now regulates building practitioners in Victoria. Designers registered through the BPC follow its CPD framework. As with Queensland and Tasmania, the regulator’s requirements take precedence.
If you operate across jurisdictions (and many designers do), the safest assumption is that you must meet every scheme you are tied to. A BDAA member with QBCC registration and Victorian work cannot simply hit BDAA’s 20-point baseline and call it done.
For a fuller breakdown of how the schemes interact, see How Many CPD Points Do I Need in 2026? A State-by-State Guide.
What Counts as Formal CPD for Building Designers
The BDAA Guidelines define formal CPD as structured learning with defined outcomes and verification of engagement. In practice, the activities that consistently meet the formal bar for building designers include:
- Accredited webinars and online courses with stated learning outcomes, an assessment or quiz, and a certificate of completion. Each CPD On Demand course is built to this standard: one hour, defined learning outcomes, quiz, dated certificate stored in your dashboard.
- In-person workshops and seminars with active facilitation and demonstrable engagement.
- Conferences with attended technical sessions, where each session has documented learning outcomes and your attendance is verifiable.
- Tertiary courses at university or TAFE level relevant to building design practice.
- Authoring and peer-review activities for published technical content, often weighted higher than one point per hour under specific scheme rules.
Activities that often fail the formal bar:
- Networking events and trade-show floor walks
- Supplier presentations without defined learning outcomes (some product CPD does meet the bar, but not all)
- Recorded sessions watched without a verification mechanism
- Conferences attended generally without session-level attendance records
If you cannot point to a learning outcome, a verification of engagement, and a dated certificate, the activity is informal at best.
What Counts as Informal CPD
Informal CPD is broader and easier to earn, but it still needs to be relevant and documented. The activities that typically meet the informal threshold for building designers:
- Reading Australian Standards and NCC volumes relevant to your practice
- Reading technical publications, industry journals, and reputable trade press
- Mentoring discussions with senior practitioners
- Site visits with documented learning outcomes (not routine project administration)
- Listening to relevant industry podcasts with reflective notes
- Researching specific building products or systems for a project, where the research goes beyond standard specification review
Documentation for informal CPD is lighter, but it should still capture the date, the duration, what you read or did, and the learning outcome. A spreadsheet row per activity is enough. An unsupported claim is not.
Thermal Performance Assessor CPD (For Dual-Accredited Members)
If you also hold accreditation as a Thermal Performance Assessor through BDAA, a separate annual CPD requirement applies on top of the building designer scheme.
Thermal Performance Assessor CPD: 12 points per year, with at least 6 points being formal technical.
The formal technical bar is specifically about energy assessment competence: NatHERS software, NCC energy provisions, building envelope performance, Whole-of-Home, and condensation. Reading an unrelated business management article will not contribute to the formal technical six.
The CPD On Demand energy assessor course library is built directly against this requirement. Each course is one hour, one formal technical point, and the content addresses the topics the BDAA Thermal Performance Assessor scheme treats as core.
Relevant courses on CPD On Demand: What to Expect From a NatHERS Audit, Common Mistakes Uncovered in AAO Audits, When a Design Change Triggers a Whole-of-Home Re-Rating.
If you hold both accreditations, plan your CPD year against both bars. The building designer 20 points and the Thermal Performance Assessor 12 points can overlap to a degree (a NatHERS course is both relevant building design CPD and formal technical Thermal Performance Assessor CPD), but the overlap is not total and depends on how each course is positioned.
What Building Designers Actually Need to Learn in 2026
Compliance is one half of CPD. The other half is whether the learning is the right learning for the work in front of you. For building designers operating in 2026, five topic areas warrant deliberate CPD focus.
NCC 2025 readiness. NCC 2025 was released on 1 May 2026 and is now in force in Victoria. Adoption follows in NSW, QLD, and SA on 1 May 2027. The residential pause means the headline residential provisions (7-star NatHERS, Whole-of-Home, heating and cooling load limits) carry through unchanged, but the thermal break wording in Housing Provisions clauses 13.2.3(7) and 13.2.5(5) has been clarified and other commercial and water management provisions have changed. See NCC 2025 vs NCC 2022: What Changed and What It Means for Your Practice for the full breakdown.
Whole-of-Home compliance. The framework has not changed but the practical scrutiny on documentation has. Building designers who can document their Whole-of-Home assumptions explicitly are the ones whose ratings hold up at audit.
Thermal bridging and junction performance. One of the most common compliance failure patterns in residential design. See Thermal Bridging in Buildings: Why It Keeps Failing Compliance for the diagnostic detail.
Condensation management. NCC 2025 has refined the condensation provisions, including mandatory wall cavities in defined colder-climate cases. The risk profile is rising, and the documentation expectation is rising with it.
Non-conforming building products and evidence of suitability. Strengthened A5G provisions in NCC 2025 affect specification risk. Building designers carry meaningful exposure on documentation defence.
The courses you build into your year should target these areas first, then everything else around them.
Relevant courses on CPD On Demand: Whole-of-Home Compliance: What Building Designers Are Actually Responsible For, Insulation Documentation That Gets Approved, Non-Conforming Building Products: Specification Risk, Evidence of Suitability, and Documentation Defence for Building Designers.
Five Mistakes That Catch Out BDAA Members
Almost every BDAA CPD problem reduces to one of five patterns.
One. Tracking against the calendar year, not the financial year. Easy to do, expensive to fix. Re-base your records to the 1 July to 30 June cycle and you will avoid most of the late-June panic.
Two. Hitting 20 total points but missing the 10-formal floor. The total number is not the threshold the regulator tests against. The formal-informal split is. Plan formal first, top up informal second.
Three. Assuming state licensing CPD covers BDAA, or vice versa. It depends on the body and the activity. Confirm in writing how each scheme treats the others before you rely on the overlap.
Four. Counting product presentations as formal without verifying. Supplier CPD is a legitimate learning source if it meets the formal bar. Many product sessions do not. Check whether the session has defined learning outcomes, an assessment, or a verification mechanism before counting it as formal.
Five. Leaving CPD evidence with the provider rather than downloading it. If the provider’s platform changes hands or your account lapses, the evidence may disappear. Download every certificate to your own records the day you earn it. BDAA expects you to be able to produce the evidence, not point at someone else’s platform.
How CPD On Demand Fits the BDAA Brief
CPD On Demand was built from the questions that came up repeatedly in the building design community, including the BDAA practitioners who told us the existing CPD market was too expensive, too slow, and too dominated by supplier sales pitches.
Every course is one hour, which equates to one CPD point. Each course meets the formal CPD bar: defined learning outcomes, a quiz, a dated certificate of completion stored in your dashboard, mapped to the relevant Performance Criteria codes.
The building designer course library is structured around the topics building designers actually need in 2026: NCC 2025 implications, Whole-of-Home compliance, thermal bridging, condensation, non-conforming products, balcony waterproofing, and Livable Housing.
CPD On Demand operates independently. It is not the official CPD provider of any association. Final recognition of any CPD activity rests with your registration body, in this case BDAA. The platform is built to align with the BDAA scheme so that members can use the courses with confidence and self-report their certificates against the scheme’s reporting requirements.
View the building designer course library or browse the full library at cpdondemand.com.au.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many CPD points do BDAA members need each year?
20 points annually, made up of 10 formal points and 10 informal points. One point equals one hour of relevant learning.
When is the BDAA CPD reporting year?
1 July to 30 June, aligned to the Australian financial year. Records must be submitted by 1 July each year.
Does BDAA accept online courses as formal CPD?
Yes, where the course has defined learning outcomes, includes a quiz or assessment, and provides a certificate of completion. CPD On Demand courses meet these criteria.
What if I am also licensed by a state regulator?
If you are licensed or registered in a state that mandates CPD (QBCC in Queensland, CBOS in Tasmania, BPC in Victoria), the state requirement takes precedence over the BDAA scheme. You must meet the state framework first.
Do BDAA Thermal Performance Assessors have a separate CPD requirement?
Yes. Thermal Performance Assessors accredited through BDAA need 12 CPD points per year, with at least 6 points being formal technical, on top of building designer CPD where dual-accredited.
Can I carry over CPD points from one year to the next?
The BDAA Guidelines do not provide for carryover. Plan to meet each year’s requirement within the 1 July to 30 June cycle.
What happens if I miss the BDAA CPD requirement?
BDAA can downgrade or suspend membership status. If you also hold state licensing and miss the state CPD, the consequences are more serious because they affect your right to practice in the regulator’s jurisdiction.
Are CPD On Demand courses recognised by BDAA?
CPD On Demand courses are structured for self-assessment compliance against the BDAA framework. Each course is one hour, one point, with defined learning outcomes, a quiz, and a certificate of completion. Final recognition of any CPD activity remains with BDAA. Detailed accreditation status is published on the CPD On Demand About page.
What to Do This Week
Three actions take you from BDAA-compliant on paper to BDAA-compliant in practice.
One. Confirm your reporting year baseline. If you are tracking by calendar year, re-base your records to 1 July to 30 June and identify any gap before it grows.
Two. Plan your 10 formal points before you plan anything else. Pick courses that address the topics building designers actually need in 2026: NCC 2025 implications, Whole-of-Home, thermal bridging, condensation, non-conforming products. Book them across the next two quarters.
Three. Set up a single CPD evidence folder for the current reporting year. Save every certificate the day you earn it. Save informal CPD notes the same day. When 30 June arrives, the submission is a copy-paste, not a panic.
The opposite of someday is today. The BDAA reporting year does not extend. Plan for it deliberately, or chase it desperately.