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Licensing · VIC · gasfitter

How to check a gasfitter licence in Victoria

The short answer

The Building and Plumbing Commission for the licence, with Energy Safe Victoria regulating gas safety is the authority for gasfitters in Victoria, and the licence to look for is a gasfitting class on a plumbing licence or registration. 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 Find and check a practitioner yourself rather than accepting a photo of a card.

Checked against 5 published sources, listed in full at the end of this page. How we source this

Who issues it, and where to search

Regulator

the Building and Plumbing Commission for the licence, with Energy Safe Victoria regulating gas safety

What the licence is called here
gasfitting class on a plumbing licence or registration
Register to search
Find and check a practitionerBuilding and Plumbing Commission Victoria ↗

Victoria separates the licensing of gasfitters from the regulation of gas safety: the Commission licenses the practitioner and Energy Safe Victoria regulates gas installations and appliances. Both are worth knowing about if something goes wrong.

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 Find and check a practitioner 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

Gas pipework, appliance installation and appliance servicing. In most jurisdictions gasfitting is a separate class or endorsement from plumbing, and servicing gas appliances is a further endorsement on top of that.

What you can legally do yourself

None. There is no householder-permitted gas work of any kind in any Australian jurisdiction. Relighting a pilot following the label on the appliance is the only thing on the list, and it is not gasfitting.

This is the trade where the licence question has the most direct answer: gas leaks and faulty flues kill people, and every jurisdiction licenses the work accordingly. It is also the trade where the endorsement structure catches people out, because 'I am a licensed plumber' does not answer the question of whether someone may work on your gas.

Ask specifically about the appliance endorsement if the job is a heater or a hot water unit rather than pipework. Servicing a gas appliance, including the carbon monoxide spillage test that a proper heater service includes, is generally a separate authorisation from installing gas pipe.

Related questions

Is a plumber automatically allowed to work on gas?
No. In most jurisdictions gasfitting is a separate licence class or endorsement, and gas appliance work is a further one. A plumber may hold all of them and many do, but it is a question to ask rather than an assumption to make.
How often should a gas heater be serviced?
Manufacturers and state safety regulators commonly recommend every two years, and annually for older units and in rental properties in some jurisdictions. Ask for a carbon monoxide spillage test as part of the service and for the reading in writing. A heater can run, heat the room and still be venting combustion products into it.

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. Find and check a practitioner · Building and Plumbing Commission VictoriaChecked 2026-08-19 · live, but blocks automated clients so the specific page could not be confirmed
  2. 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
  3. Energy Safe Victoria · Energy Safe VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  4. Buying safe appliances · Energy Safe VictoriaChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK
  5. ABN Lookup · Australian Business RegisterChecked 2026-08-10 · responded 200 OK

Other trades in Victoria:

Checking a gasfitter somewhere else: