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Licensing · VIC

Trade licensing in Victoria

The short answer

Victoria's building and plumbing regulator is the Building and Plumbing Commission, which replaced the Victorian Building Authority on 1 July 2025. Electrical licensing sits separately with Energy Safe Victoria.

Checked against 8 published sources, listed in full at the end of this page. How we source this

Who regulates what

BuildingBuilding and Plumbing Commission
Took over from the Victorian Building Authority on 1 July 2025, bringing licensing, enforcement, insurance and dispute resolution under one body.Building and Plumbing Commission Victoria ↗
Plumbing and gasBuilding and Plumbing Commission
Licenses and registers plumbers across separate classes of work. Licensed plumbing work generates a compliance certificate you should be given.Building and Plumbing Commission Victoria ↗
ElectricalEnergy Safe Victoria
Electrical and gas safety regulation, and the register of licensed electrical workers. Separate from the building regulator.Energy Safe Victoria ↗
Consumer disputesConsumer Affairs Victoria, then VCAT
Domestic building dispute resolution now sits inside the Building and Plumbing Commission. VCAT hears matters that do not resolve.Consumer Affairs Victoria ↗

How to check a licence in VIC

  1. Work out which regulator you need first. Electrical is Energy Safe Victoria; everything else building or plumbing is the Building and Plumbing Commission.
  2. Ask for the registration or licence number and the entity name.
  3. Search the relevant register directly.
  4. For plumbing work, ask who will issue the compliance certificate and keep it with your house papers.
  5. Confirm the ABN on ABN Lookup matches the quote.

Victoria is the jurisdiction where published advice is most likely to be out of date, because the regulator changed recently. A great deal of material still names the Victorian Building Authority as the body to contact. The VBA was folded into the Building and Plumbing Commission on 1 July 2025.

Victoria also publishes the clearest household energy rebate figures in the country, which is why the cost pages on this site quote Victorian amounts specifically rather than pretending a national figure exists.

Two checks that are the same wherever you live

Almost every trade credential in Australia is issued by a state, so checking one means knowing which register to search. Two are national, which makes them the easiest checks available to you:

  • Air conditioning: an ARCtick refrigerant handling licence from the Australian Refrigeration Council. Handling refrigerant without one is an offence.
  • Solar: accreditation with Solar Accreditation Australia, which took over from the Clean Energy Council on 29 February 2024. Without it your system cannot generate the federal certificates that fund the discount.

Related questions

Does the VBA still exist in Victoria?
No. The Victorian Building Authority was folded into the Building and Plumbing Commission on 1 July 2025. Advice naming the VBA as the current regulator is out of date, though existing registrations carried across.

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. Building and Plumbing Commission · Building and Plumbing Commission VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · live, but blocks automated clients so the specific page could not be confirmed
  2. Energy Safe Victoria · Energy Safe VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  3. Energy Safe Victoria · Energy Safe VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  4. Building and renovating · Consumer Affairs VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  5. Refrigerant Handling Licence · Australian Refrigeration CouncilChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  6. About accreditation · Solar Accreditation AustraliaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  7. ABN Lookup · Australian Business RegisterChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  8. Consumer rights and guarantees · Australian Competition and Consumer CommissionChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK

Read next

Other states and territories: