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Licensing · NSW · electrician

How to check an electrician licence in New South Wales

The short answer

NSW Fair Trading is the authority for electricians in New South Wales, and the licence to look for is a electrician licence, or an electrical contractor licence for the business. Ask for the number and the exact entity name it is held under, which is often a company rather than the person on site, then search Verify.Licence yourself rather than accepting a photo of a card.

Checked against 7 published sources, listed in full at the end of this page. How we source this

Who issues it, and where to search

Regulator

NSW Fair Trading

What the licence is called here
electrician licence, or an electrical contractor licence for the business
Register to search
Verify.LicenceNSW Government ↗

New South Wales is one of the more consolidated systems in the country: electrical, plumbing and building licensing all sit with Fair Trading rather than being split across separate bodies, so one register answers all three.

How to check it, in order

  1. Ask for the licence number and the exact name it is held under. It is often a company rather than the person standing in front of you, and the register searches on the name it was issued to.
  2. Search Verify.Licence yourself. A photograph of a card proves that a licence once existed, not that it is current.
  3. Check the class or category covers this work. A licence that is valid for one kind of work is not a licence for another, and that is the gap that most often matters.
  4. Check the expiry date and any conditions or disciplinary history recorded against it.
  5. Confirm the ABN on the quote matches the entity named on the licence, using ABN Lookup. A mismatch between who is licensed and who you are contracting with is worth asking about before you pay a deposit.

What the licence covers

Fixed electrical wiring: anything connected to the mains that is not simply plugged in. Installing or replacing a power point, a switch, a light fitting, a circuit or a switchboard is all licensed work.

What you can legally do yourself

Effectively nothing. Australia is unusual internationally in having no do-it-yourself exemption for fixed wiring in any state or territory. Changing a lamp in an existing fitting and plugging in an appliance are the practical limits, and resetting a circuit breaker once is fine. Resetting it twice is a fault report, not a nuisance.

Electrical is the trade where checking is both easiest and most worth doing, because the register is free, the licence is required with no exceptions, and the failure mode is a fire in a wall cavity that nobody sees start.2456

Two things to get right when you check. The licence is usually held by a company rather than by the person standing in your hallway, so ask for the name it is held under as well as the number. And a contractor licence and a worker licence are different things: a worker can do the work under supervision, a contractor can enter into the contract with you.

Related questions

Can I do my own electrical work in Australia?
No. Unlike some overseas jurisdictions, no Australian state or territory has a do-it-yourself exemption for fixed electrical wiring. Work done without a licence is an offence, is uninsurable, and is a standard reason for a home insurance claim to be reduced or refused after a fire.
What is the difference between an electrical worker and an electrical contractor?
A worker licence permits a person to do electrical work. A contractor licence permits a business to contract with you to do it. A sole trader usually holds both. If the person quoting holds only a worker licence, ask who the contracting entity is. That is who owes you the work.

Sources

Every source below was fetched and its response recorded on the date shown. Where a government site blocks automated clients, that is noted rather than reported as a successful check.

  1. Verify.Licence · NSW GovernmentChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  2. Electricians · NSW GovernmentChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  3. Public Register of licences · NSW GovernmentChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  4. Energy Safe Victoria · Energy Safe VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  5. Building and Energy · Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (WA)Checked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  6. Access Canberra · Access CanberraChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  7. ABN Lookup · Australian Business RegisterChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK

Other trades in New South Wales:

Checking an electrician somewhere else: