What changed on 2 September 2025
Free tool for this topic
Try it: AHPRA & TGA Ad Compliance CheckerAHPRA's cosmetic procedure advertising guidelines took effect 2 September 2025, and they strengthened an already-strict testimonial ban under National Law s133 to explicitly cover influencer content and re-shared patient stories — not just a clinic's own paid testimonials. The update also banned apps, websites, tools or programs that predict a person's appearance post-procedure (or without the procedure), prohibited advertising cosmetic procedures to under-18s outright, and introduced a mandatory 7-day cooling-off period between a first consultation and any procedure for under-18 patients where a procedure is clinically appropriate at all.
Separately, since 1 July 2023 the title "surgeon" — including "cosmetic surgeon" — is legally protected. Only practitioners with specialist medical registration in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, or ophthalmology may use it; a general-registration doctor with a cosmetic procedures endorsement cannot, regardless of experience.
What's actually banned
- Testimonials — patient, influencer, or reshared. The National Law's testimonial ban now explicitly covers influencer partnerships and re-shared patient content, including time-limited formats like Stories.
- Before/after imagery. Prohibited for higher-risk cosmetic procedures because it creates an unrealistic expectation of benefit — no consent-based exception.
- Appearance-prediction tools. Any automated app, website or program predicting post-procedure appearance is banned in advertising — a narrower carve-out exists for general skin-analysis tools not tied to a specific outcome.
- Advertising to under-18s. Banned outright, with the 7-day cooling-off period applying to any under-18 patient where a procedure is clinically appropriate.
- Named prescription medicines. Under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 (a separate TGA rule, not AHPRA), botulinum toxin (Botox), dermal fillers and other prescription-only or professional-use-only products cannot be named in public advertising — refer to the treatment category generically instead.
- Discounts and inducements without clear terms. A regulated health service advertised with a gift, discount or inducement must state full terms plainly; urgency language pressuring a clinical decision is separately discouraged.
Under-18 patients: an advertising ban and a procedural requirement, not one rule
The September 2025 guidelines do two separate things here, and conflating them is how practices get it wrong. First, advertising cosmetic procedures to under-18s is banned outright — which is a targeting and creative question, not just an audience-settings checkbox: casting, platform, music choice and tone all speak to who an ad is addressed to, and an ad that reads as aimed at teenagers is a problem even if the paid targeting excludes them. Second, where a procedure is clinically appropriate for an under-18 patient at all, a mandatory 7-day cooling-off period applies between the first consultation and the procedure. That one is an operational requirement on the practice, not an advertising rule — but it interacts with advertising directly, because any funnel promising a fast path from enquiry to treatment cannot be run for that patient group.
The practical consequence for campaign structure: age exclusions belong in the targeting and the creative brief, and any "book this week" urgency mechanic has to be scoped to adult audiences only. If a single campaign is doing both jobs, it isn't compliant for one of them.
Where the platforms' rules bite before AHPRA's do
Worth knowing in advance: Meta and Google both run their own health and cosmetic advertising policies, and in practice their automated review usually rejects copy before any regulator sees it. Those policies are not the same as AHPRA's and are not a substitute for it — an ad can pass platform review and still breach the National Law, which is the failure mode that matters, because the platform's approval is not a defence. The reverse is also true and more common day to day: entirely compliant clinical language gets caught by a platform classifier and needs rewriting for reasons that have nothing to do with Australian law.
This is why compliant-first creative is cheaper than it looks. A campaign built to AHPRA's standard from the first draft clears platform review more often too, because both regimes penalise the same things — outcome guarantees, testimonial framing, before/after imagery, manufactured urgency around a clinical decision.
How current is this, and what it is cited to
Every rule above is sourced to AHPRA's own cosmetic procedure advertising guidelines, its 2 September 2025 announcement, its 2023 surgeon-title update, or the TGA's own advertising guidance — the primary pages in each case, not a secondary summary. The rules dataset behind this page and behind our AHPRA & TGA checker was last reviewed on 20 July 2026.
One honest caveat that belongs on the page rather than in a footnote: AHPRA guidance in this area is actively evolving — the most recent overhaul took effect 2 September 2025, and the direction of travel has been consistently stricter. Check the AHPRA source pages before relying on any of this for a decision, and treat this guide as general information rather than legal advice. Where a rule is a judgement call rather than a bright line — the boundary of the appearance-prediction carve-out, for instance — we say so instead of writing it as settled.
What still converts within these rules
The clinics performing best under AHPRA's restrictions build around three assets the rules don't touch: practitioner credibility (qualifications, experience, specific expertise — genuinely persuasive and entirely compliant), process transparency (what a consultation actually involves, how a treatment plan gets built), and facility quality. None require a testimonial or before/after photo, and all three are exactly what a patient comparing clinics for a personal decision is actually looking for. See our full Australian aesthetic clinic marketing programme for how this plays out in a real campaign structure.
Self-check your own ad copy against every rule above — testimonials, before/after, appearance-prediction, under-18 targeting, inducements, and named prescription medicines — with our free AHPRA & TGA Ad Compliance Checker. It flags the specific phrase that triggers each rule and suggests a compliant rewrite, in your browser, with nothing sent anywhere.
Penalty exposure
Dental practices sit under the same AHPRA framework via the Dental Board of Australia, with breach penalties reaching A$30,000 per breach for an individual practitioner and A$60,000 for a corporation — the same enforcement mechanism applies to medical cosmetic practice. See our Australian dental clinic marketing programme for how the same compliance discipline applies there. The cost of a compliance review before a campaign launches is trivial next to that exposure.
What we do differently
We build Australian cosmetic and dental campaigns compliant-first: creative reviewed against AHPRA's September 2025 guidelines and TGA rules before a single dollar is spent, run across Meta Ads and Google Ads as one accountable performance marketing system, AUD budgeting against real benchmarks, and enquiry-to-consultation tracking so spend optimises toward patients who actually show up — not raw click volume. See our Australia practice overview for the full programme.