How do I check an electrician's licence in Australia?

The search itself takes about a minute and costs nothing anywhere in the country. The hard part is knowing which regulator to ask, because electrical licensing is not filed the same way in any two places.

Which register to search

The mistake that makes a licensed electrician look unlicensed

In Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory the register that holds builders is not the register that holds electricians, and in the ACT each construction occupation has a register of its own. Searching the wrong one returns nothing for somebody entirely legitimate.34561211

Victoria catches the most people, because the Building and Plumbing Commission's practitioner search looks like the obvious place to start and electricians are not on it. Energy Safe Victoria holds electrical and gas.43

Queensland is the same shape with different names. The QBCC is the licensing body most Queenslanders have heard of, and it is the wrong one for a sparky: electrical worker and contractor licensing sits with WorkSafe Queensland, whose search confirms the status of a contractor licence number.56

What a blank result actually means

It depends on the state, and the difference is worth knowing before a name that did not come back turns into an argument. The Tasmanian register displays the details of current licence holders only, so an empty result there means not licensed today rather than never licensed.10

The ACT registers work the other way. They publish expired, suspended, surrendered and cancelled licences alongside current ones, and record disciplinary action taken against a holder, so a result there is usually more informative than an absence anywhere else.11

South Australia is the easiest place to start with nothing but a name. Its own guidance says a search needs one of the licence number, the surname, or the trading name of the supplier, so the name painted on the van is enough to begin, which is not true of every state.98

Two accreditations you can check from anywhere

• Refrigerant handling. Air conditioning work involving refrigerant needs an ARCtick licence from the Australian Refrigeration Council, and that one is national rather than state based.
• Solar. Installers are accredited by Solar Accreditation Australia, which replaced Clean Energy Council accreditation on 29 February 2024. An electrical licence on its own is not that accreditation.1415

What to do

1. 1Ask for the licence number and the exact name it is held under, on the quote rather than said out loud. It is frequently a company rather than the person standing in front of you.
2. 2Pick the register above for the state the work is in, not the state the business is based in.
3. 3Search it yourself. A photograph of a licence card proves nothing, because a card is easy to fake and easy to keep after a licence has lapsed.
4. 4Read the class and the conditions rather than stopping at the status line. A restricted electrical licence covers specific tasks only.
5. 5If nothing comes back, check you used the electrical register rather than the building one before you conclude anything.