Verify / Licence · insurance · ABN · specialist endorsement · history

Five minutes here saves the deposit. Most disasters in Australian residential trade work would have been caught at this stage.

The page below is the operational routine for verifying any Australian tradie before you sign a contract or pay any deposit. Every link points to the actual state regulator or federal register. No tracking. No referral fees. Just the URLs and the order to use them.

Total time

~5 min

For the full routine across 6 checks

Cost

Free

Every check is a publicly-funded register or federal service

What it prevents

Most of it

Unlicensed work, void insurance, abandoned jobs

Before you start

Before running this routine you need three pieces of information from the tradie: their full legal business name (not just the trading name), their licence number, and their ABN. If they hesitate to provide any of these in writing, stop. A licensed operator gives this freely. An unlicensed one finds reasons to delay.

The 60-second verification routine

The six checks below take roughly a minute each. Run them in order. If any one of them fails, don't sign. There's almost always another operator.

The routine at a glance

1
State trade licence — verify the licence number matches the person/business on the state register.
2
Insurance certificates — public liability + workers comp current and named correctly.
3
ABN / business identity — ABR + ASIC checks confirm the trading entity exists and is active.
4
Trade-specific endorsement — CEC for solar, ARCtick for HVAC, asbestos class A/B for removal, scaffolding HRW class, roof plumbing endorsement, etc.
5
Reviews & dispute history — ProductReview, Google, and regulator complaint summaries where available.
6
References — three recent jobs you can actually drive past or contact, not "we don't share customer details".

Step 1 — State trade licence

Every state runs its own trade-licensing register. Pick yours, enter the licence number or business name, and confirm:

· The licence is current (not expired, suspended, or cancelled).
· The licence covers the work you're asking them to do (a standard plumber's licence doesn't cover roof drainage; a general builder's licence may not cover demolition).
· The name matches what you were given.
· Any conditions or restrictions on the licence (some states publish these on the register).

Open your state's register

NSW NSW Fair Trading

Search-for-a-licence-holder

www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/trades-and-businesses/licensing/search-for-a-licence-holder

VIC VBA

Practitioner search via VBA

www.vba.vic.gov.au

QLD QBCC

Online licence search

www.qbcc.qld.gov.au

WA WA Building & Energy

Registered builder & tradesperson search

www.commerce.wa.gov.au/building-and-energy/registered-builders

SA Consumer & Business Services

Licensing search via CBS

www.cbs.sa.gov.au

TAS CBOS

Public registers via CBOS

www.cbos.tas.gov.au

NT NT Government — Building

Licensed builders & certifiers directory

nt.gov.au/property/building

ACT Access Canberra

Public registers

www.accesscanberra.act.gov.au

Step 2 — Insurance certificates

Ask for two documents. Both should be a current Certificate of Currency — the insurer's formal one-page summary — not a screenshot, not a "we have it, trust me".

Public liability (PL)

Covers damage to your property and injury to third parties caused by their work.

· Minimum: $5M for handyman / small trades; $10M for licensed trades; $20M for building / demolition / scaffold.
· Check: insurer name, policy number, expiry date, named insured matches the trading entity.

Workers compensation

Covers injury to the operator's workers on your site. Mandatory if they have any employees.

· Check: current cover, named entity, scope includes the type of work.
· Sole traders with no employees are not legally required to have workers comp on themselves, but personal accident cover is wise — ask.

If you sign a contract with an uninsured operator and something goes wrong on site, your home insurance may decline the claim under standard "unlicensed trade work" exclusions, and the operator's injury becomes your liability. This is not theoretical — it's a major source of household financial catastrophe.

Step 3 — ABN / business identity

Two quick federal checks. Both are free. Both take under a minute.

AU Australian Business Register

Enter the ABN. Confirm it's active, the entity name matches what you were given, and the registration date is plausible for a real trading business.

abr.business.gov.au

AU ASIC

For Pty Ltd companies, check the company is registered, the directors are listed, and there's no insolvency notice.

asic.gov.au

What you're looking for

· The entity exists, has an active ABN, and the trading name matches what's on the quote.
· The ABN has been active for at least 12 months (brand-new entities are not disqualifying but warrant extra scrutiny).
· No "deregistered" or "strike-off action in progress" status on ASIC.

Step 4 — Trade-specific endorsements

For most trades, the state-licence check is enough. For these, you need to verify an additional credential:

Trade	Extra credential to verify	Where
Solar / battery	CEC installer accreditation	solaraccreditation.com.au
HVAC / split / ducted	ARCtick refrigerant licence	arctick.org
Demolition	Demolition contractor licence (state)	SafeWork / WorkSafe by state
Asbestos removal (>10m²)	Class A (friable) or Class B (bonded)	State work-safety regulator
Scaffolding	HRW SB / SI / SA ticket	State work-safety regulator
Guttering / roof drainage	Roof plumbing endorsement	State trade-licence register
Pest / termite (new build)	Termite Management Permit (AS 3660)	State health / fair-trading
Locksmith	MLA Australasia accreditation (preferred)	masterlocksmiths.com.au
Pool builder	Pool-specific builder licence class	State trade-licence register

The full licence-check directory lives in the glossary §07. If you're hiring a trade not listed above, the state-licence check (Step 1) is your primary verification.

Step 5 — Reviews & dispute history

Reviews are noisy but they're not useless. The signal you're looking for is patterns over time, not individual five-star or one-star reviews.

Where to look

· ProductReview.com.au — trade-specific, verified-purchase signals, operator response history.
· Google Reviews — volume and recency. Look at the operator's response style on negative reviews.
· State fair-trading complaint summaries — some states publish aggregate complaint data for licensed contractors.
· Court / tribunal records — NCAT (NSW), VCAT (VIC), QCAT (QLD), SACAT (SA) publish residential building dispute decisions. A pattern of decisions against an operator is a serious flag.

What you're looking for

· Volume. Fewer than 10 reviews on Google for an operator claiming 15 years in business is anomalous.
· Recency. Activity in the last 12 months matters more than activity from 2018.
· Patterns. Multiple reviews mentioning the same complaint (no-show, surprise bill, poor cleanup, quality issue) is signal.
· Operator response style. Honest, prompt, specific responses to negative reviews tell you something. Defensive, dismissive, or absent responses tell you something else.

Step 6 — References, properly asked

Ask for three recent jobs — ideally completed within the last 6 months — with addresses you can drive past or contact details you can call. A real operator has these. An operator who treats it as a strange request might be the operator you don't want.

What to ask the referee

· How did you find the operator?
· Was the final price the quoted price — if not, what variations were there, and were they communicated in advance?
· Did the operator stick to the agreed timeline?
· How was the site left at the end of the job?
· Have you had to call them back? Did they come?
· Would you use them again?

The "would you use them again" question is the most diagnostic. A noncommittal "yeah, probably" is more informative than a glowing "absolutely!".

Red flags during verification

Any one of these is reason to walk. More than one is reason to actively warn the next homeowner.

· “I'll send the licence/insurance later” — they've had however long to prepare for this meeting. They didn't. They never will.
· Licence number doesn't match the trading entity — sometimes a partner's name, sometimes a former employer's, sometimes invented. Real operators' numbers match.
· “Cash gets you a discount” — cash isn't illegal but cash with no receipt or invoice voids your statutory warranty, your consumer protection, and your insurance.
· Pressure to sign today — manufactured urgency. Real trades book weeks out.
· Deposit over the statutory maximum — NSW & QLD cap at 10%; VIC 10%/5% by threshold. Anything above is illegal.
· Verbal-only variations — "we'll just sort out the price as we go" is how budgets blow out by 40%.
· No fixed scope of work in writing — if the contract doesn't say what you're paying for, you're paying for whatever they decide later.
· Refuses to commission an asbestos survey on a pre-1990 home — specifically a demolition red flag. Walk.

What paperwork you should now have

By the end of the verification routine, you should be holding (or have on email):

· The operator's current state trade licence number, verified on the register
· A current Certificate of Currency for public liability ($5M–$20M depending on trade)
· A current workers comp certificate (if they have employees)
· The operator's ABN, verified active on the ABR
· Any specialist endorsement certificates relevant to the work (CEC, ARCtick, asbestos class, HRW ticket)
· Three recent reference contacts you've verified independently
· A written, itemised scope of work and quote (not "approximately $X")
· Written variation clause (cost + time impact must be agreed in writing)
· Written deposit terms (within the statutory limit for your state)
· Written warranty terms (workmanship + product, where applicable)

Keep all of it. If you ever end up in a dispute — with the operator, with your insurer, with your state regulator — this is the file that wins it.

Now read the 12 questions.

Verification gets you a real operator. The 12 cross-cutting questions get you the right scope, price, and protection from that operator.

Open the briefing template →

Licence-check directory Methodology ← Back to 33 trades