How an electrical licence actually works, state by state

Australia does not issue a single electrical licence. It issues a family of tickets, each of them tied to a state or territory Act, and each of them split — in practice if not always in name — into the person who may do the work and the business that may sell it. That distinction is the one that still catches competent tradespeople. A Grade A electrician who has been on the tools for twenty years is not, by that fact alone, a registered electrical contractor. A contractor card from Brisbane does not, by that fact alone, let the same firm open a van in Footscray on Monday.

This piece is a working map, not a substitute for the current instrument. Licence classes, notification rules and fees move. Fees in particular should be read on the regulator's site on the day you apply. What does not move is the structure: worker versus contractor, supervisor versus labourer, and the hard limit on what a ticket from another state actually lets you do.

Worker licence and contractor licence are different jobs

Every jurisdiction that issues electrical credentials draws a line between the individual authorised to carry out electrical work and the person or company authorised to contract for that work. The names change. The line does not.

In Victoria, Energy Safe Victoria issues the electrician's licence (A Grade for unrestricted installation work) and separately registers the Registered Electrical Contractor. In Queensland the Electrical Safety Office issues the electrical work licence and, separately, the electrical contractor licence. New South Wales, through NSW Fair Trading and Building Commission NSW, issues a qualified supervisor certificate or an individual contractor licence for the person, and a contractor licence for the company or partnership that sells the work. South Australia splits registration as an electrician from a contractor's licence under the Plumbers, Gas Fitters and Electricians Act 1995, while the Office of the Technical Regulator remains the technical authority for electrical installations. Western Australia's Building and Energy issues the electrician's licence and the electrical contractor's licence. Tasmania's Consumer, Building and Occupational Services, Access Canberra and NT WorkSafe each run the same two-layer model under their own occupational licensing Acts.

The worker licence answers the question: may this person isolate, install, test and certify? The contractor licence answers a different question: may this business offer that work to a customer, employ others to do it, and put a trading name on the invoice? A sole trader often holds both. A company cannot hold a worker licence; it holds a contractor licence and nominates a licensed person to supervise.

If you only remember one thing from the licensing and compliance hub, remember that. The rest of the paperwork — insurance, certificates, advertising — hangs off it. The insurance conditions that actually get contractors in trouble are covered separately in insurance and licence conditions.

What a qualified supervisor actually is

"Qualified supervisor" is the NSW phrase. Victoria talks about a nominated technical supervisor on a REC. Queensland talks about a qualified technical person, and separately a qualified business person, endorsed on the contractor licence. The idea is the same. The contracting entity must have a named, licensed individual who is responsible for the electrical work being designed, supervised and carried out lawfully.

That person is not a letterhead decoration. If they leave, the contractor has a short period — seven days to notify in NSW, ten business days for supervisor changes in Victoria, and similar clocks elsewhere — to put another eligible person in the chair. Go past the grace period and the contractor licence itself is at risk. Energy Safe Victoria is explicit that effective supervision may be provided by a REC who holds an A Grade licence, or by the nominated technical supervisor who does. Queensland requires the work to be performed or supervised by the qualified technical person under that person's electrical work licence.

Supervision is also how apprentices exist in the system at all. An apprentice is not an unlicensed labourer who happens to be enrolled at TAFE. They are authorised to do electrical work only under the effective supervision of a licensed electrician, and only within the scope of their training contract. "Effective" is the word the regulators use, and they mean it. The supervisor has to be in a position to direct the work, to stop it, and to take responsibility for the result. Sending a third-year across town to terminate a switchboard on their own because the supervisor is on another site is not a grey area. It is a licensing offence dressed up as rostering.

Unlicensed labour is narrower still. A trades assistant may carry cable, pull in under instruction, and keep the site tidy. They may not make a termination, they may not isolate, and they may not decide that a circuit is dead. If the work is electrical work as defined in the local Act, it is licensed work. There is no "just helping" exception that survives a serious incident.

Mutual recognition: what the ticket from another state does not do

Automatic Mutual Recognition under the Commonwealth Mutual Recognition Act 1992 is real, and it is narrower than the way it gets described on Facebook. AMR lets a person who holds a current licence in their home state carry out the equivalent work in a participating second state without taking out a second licence. In most cases the person must notify the host regulator before they start. Home-state conditions travel with them. Host-state electrical safety law applies in full: AS/NZS 3000, the local certificate of compliance, and the local inspection rules.

Queensland is not a participating AMR jurisdiction in the ordinary sense. A Queensland electrical worker who wants to work in Victoria does not get a free pass. Energy Safe Victoria will accept an equivalent A Grade holder under a specific exemption, and only after the worker notifies through ESVConnect. Other Queensland licence classes still go through ordinary mutual recognition — an application, not a notification. The reverse is also true: a Victorian ticket does not automatically authorise work in Queensland.

New South Wales runs a further overlay, the East Coast Electrician's scheme. Eligible unrestricted electricians from Queensland, Victoria and the ACT can be recognised in NSW without a separate AMR notification. That scheme is about electrical wiring work. It is not a general permission to open a contracting business, to take on apprentices, or to skip a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work. Building Commission NSW has also been clear that endorsed contractor licences and qualified supervisor certificates for electrical wiring work are not sitting in ordinary AMR on the same timetable as worker tickets. If you intend to contract, read the current page, not last year's forum post.

Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory each publish their own AMR notification rules. TAS CBOS will show an interstate licensee on the public register as notified, validated or invalid. Invalid means the home-state licence has fallen over; the person must stop. Access Canberra and NT WorkSafe both expect notification before work starts. WA Building and Energy applies AMR to licensed individuals, not to partnerships or companies.

That last point is the one contractor principals miss. AMR is a worker scheme. A company REC in Victoria is not, by AMR, a licensed contractor in Perth. A Queensland electrical contractor licence is not a NSW contractor licence. If the business is selling the work, the business needs the local contractor authority, or a recognition pathway that the host regulator has actually published. A worker who notifies under AMR and then invoices on a company letterhead from home is mixing two systems and hoping no one notices.

What a ticket from another state does not let you do, in any jurisdiction:

• work beyond the scope of the home-state licence (a restricted disconnect/reconnect ticket does not become unrestricted because you crossed the border)
• ignore the host state's certificate, inspection and notification rules
• employ unlicensed people to do electrical work
• advertise as a local contractor without the local contractor authority
• treat an expired home-state licence as current because the van is already on site

Restricted electrical work is a particularly poor traveller. The refrigeration mechanic's ticket in Queensland is not a plumber's water-heater endorsement in Victoria, and neither of them is a licence to alter fixed wiring.

How the states actually name the tickets

The map is easier if you use the regulator's own words.

Victoria — Energy Safe Victoria. A Grade electrician's licence for unrestricted installation work; other grades and restricted electrical worker licences for defined scopes; Licensed Electrical Inspector for prescribed work; Registered Electrical Contractor for the business. Certificates of Electrical Safety are purchased and lodged through ESVConnect. Prescribed work needs an independent inspector before energisation.

Queensland — Electrical Safety Office. Electrical work licence for the person; electrical contractor licence for the business, with a qualified technical person and a qualified business person. The Electrical Safety Act 2002 and the current Electrical Safety Regulation set the offences. The public Electrical licence holder search is the register.

New South Wales — NSW Fair Trading and Building Commission NSW. Individual contractor licence or qualified supervisor certificate for the person; contractor licence for the company or partnership, with a nominated qualified supervisor. Certificates of Compliance for Electrical Work are lodged through the BCNSW eCert portal. Handwritten CCEWs are being retired; check the current lodgement rule before you leave site.

South Australia — Office of the Technical Regulator and Consumer and Business Services. Registration as an electrician for the worker; contractor's licence for the business under the PGE Act. OTR is the technical regulator for electrical installations and the Electricity Act 1996. CBS runs the occupational licence register. Contractor applicants are assessed against business and financial criteria that CBS publishes; do not guess the current asset threshold or fee.

Western Australia — Building and Energy. Electrician's licence and electrical contractor's licence under the Electricity (Licensing) Regulations 1991. Licensed contractors must employ licensed electricians. The Online Licence Search is the public check.

Tasmania — CBOS. Occupational licensing under the Occupational Licensing Act 2005. Electrical contractor and electrical practitioner classes, with the OLAC public search covering electrical, plumbing and gas-fitting.

Australian Capital Territory — Access Canberra. Unrestricted electrician and contractor classes under the Construction Occupations (Licensing) Act 2004, with electrical safety duties under the Electricity Safety Act 1971. Construction Occupations public registers are the check.

Northern Territory — NT WorkSafe. Electrical worker and contractor licences. The Electrical Safety Act 2022 brought a broader Certificate of Compliance duty; like-for-like replacements have since been carved out, but the current bulletin is the source, not memory.

Clean Energy Council accreditation, and the Solar Accreditation Australia scheme that now issues installer and designer numbers, sit on top of this map. They do not replace any of it.

Apprentices, labourers and the people who are not on the ticket

An apprentice electrician is a licensed person of a limited kind. The training contract, the supervising electrician and the work being within the trade are what make the work lawful. Once the contract ends there is a short window in some states — Victoria refers to three months after the training contract — in which the person is still treated as licensed while they apply for the full ticket. That window is not a reason to keep them on unsupervised installation work "until the card arrives". If the application is pending, treat them as you would treat any other person whose authority you cannot prove on the register.

A trades assistant, a labourer, a labour-hire body or a "mate who is good with a drill" is not in that window. They may assist. They may not do electrical work. The definition of electrical work in each Act is broad: installing, altering, repairing, maintaining, removing, connecting and testing electrical equipment that is part of an electrical installation. If you are arguing about whether a particular task is electrical work, you have already lost the argument you wanted to have with the inspector.

The same logic applies to other trades on a shared site. A plumber with a restricted electrical endorsement may disconnect and reconnect a like-for-like water heater. They may not run a new circuit. A refrigeration mechanic with a restricted licence may work on the package and, in some states, on a dedicated mechanical-services board. They may not work in the general distribution board. When you find their tails in your board, that is not a documentation problem. It is unlicensed electrical work, and the contractor who leaves it there inherits it.

Where to check the public register

Do this before you subcontract, before you hire, and before you accept a "fully licensed" claim from a labour-hire desk.

• Victoria: Energy Safe Victoria licence search / ESVConnect.
• Queensland: Electrical Safety Office Electrical licence holder search.
• New South Wales: NSW Fair Trading and Building Commission NSW licence registers, including the public contractor and supervisor search.
• South Australia: CBS occupational licence register (name or licence number). Technical questions go to the Office of the Technical Regulator.
• Western Australia: Building and Energy Online Licence Search.
• Tasmania: CBOS OLAC public search.
• Australian Capital Territory: Access Canberra Construction Occupations public registers.
• Northern Territory: NT WorkSafe electrical licence register.

Check the name, the class, the restrictions and the expiry. A number on a magnet is not a search. A search from six months ago is not a search. If the person is working under AMR, confirm that the host register shows them as notified or validated, not merely that they have a card from home.

Fees, forms and processing times are published by those same agencies. They change. This journal does not reprint them.

A practical checklist before you start work in a jurisdiction

• Confirm the work is electrical work under the local Act, not a task you have decided is "not really electrical".
• Confirm the person on the tools holds a current worker licence of the right class, on the public register of the state where the work will be done.
• If anyone is offering the work to a customer, confirm the contracting entity holds a current contractor licence or registration in that state, with a nominated supervisor who still works there.
• If the ticket is from another state, confirm the exact recognition pathway — AMR notification, East Coast scheme, ordinary mutual recognition, or a local application — and complete it before the first isolation.
• Do not treat a restricted licence, a refrigeration endorsement or a plumbing disconnect/reconnect as an electrician's licence.
• Keep apprentices under effective supervision. Do not leave unlicensed labour on terminations, isolation or testing.
• Use the local certificate: COES in Victoria, CCEW in NSW, the Queensland electrical work notice / CoC, the SA eCoC, the WA electrical safety certificate, and the NT CoC as currently required.
• Test. Record the tests. Do not energise on a promise to "do the cert tomorrow".
• Put the contractor number on the quote, the invoice and the advertisement, if the local rules require it — Victoria does.
• If the job is solar or battery work, the electrical licence is still the licence. Accreditation is extra, and it does not travel in place of the ticket.

The public registers exist because people lie about this, including people who do not think they are lying. They are remembering a licence they used to hold, or a ticket that covers a different class of work, or a home-state card that was never notified. Look them up. Then look yourself up, on the day, in the state you are standing in.