NSW and Victorian trade licences compared

A licence is a piece of state law. New South Wales and Victoria each run their own system, with their own classes, their own conditions and their own registers. That is why the same plumber can be fully licensed on one side of the Murray and unlicensed on the other unless something bridges the gap.

Two things bridge the gap. Both are worth understanding before you hire.

Mutual recognition, the old path

Mutual recognition has existed since the early 1990s under Commonwealth and state legislation. It lets a person licensed in one state apply for the equivalent licence in another state without repeating the training or the exams. The second regulator can attach conditions so the licence lines up with local law, and there is an application and a fee.

The result is a real second licence. A Wodonga plumber who takes this path holds a Victorian licence and a New South Wales licence, appears on both registers, and can be checked on both. For a business that works both sides of the border every week, this is still the cleanest arrangement.

Automatic Mutual Recognition, the newer path

Automatic Mutual Recognition, usually shortened to AMR, started in 2021. The idea is that a person with a licence in their home state can work in another participating state without applying for a second licence at all. They notify the second state's regulator where required, they carry their home state licence, and they work under the second state's rules.

The important word is participating. AMR does not cover every occupation in every state. Some occupations are excluded, some were deferred by a state, and some carry extra notification requirements. The scope has shifted since it began and it can shift again. Do not assume it covers the trade you are hiring. Check the current position on the regulator's site for the state where the work will happen.

AMR also does not change the rules of the job. It changes who has to hold what paperwork. Everything else, meaning the standards, the certificates, the notifications and the insurance, follows the state where the work is done.

What does not travel across the border

This is where people come unstuck.

• Compliance paperwork. Electrical work done in Victoria needs a Victorian Certificate of Electrical Safety, whoever the electrician is. Plumbing work done in Victoria needs a Victorian compliance certificate for the classes that require one. Neither is replaced by a New South Wales equivalent.
• Warranty insurance. Residential building work above a threshold needs home building compensation cover in New South Wales and domestic building insurance in Victoria. They are different products under different schemes. A builder covered in one state is not covered in the other.
• Business entitlement. A licence held by an individual is not the same as the entitlement of the company to contract for work. In Victoria an electrical business contracting for work should be a Registered Electrical Contractor. In New South Wales the business needs a contractor licence in its own name.
• Where you complain. A dispute about work done in New South Wales goes to NSW Fair Trading and then to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. A dispute about work done in Victoria goes to Consumer Affairs Victoria or the Victorian Building Authority and then to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The address of the tradie does not decide this. The address of the job does.

The regulators, and which one you want

New South Wales keeps most trade licensing with NSW Fair Trading, including builders, plumbers, drainers, gasfitters, electricians and air conditioning work.

Victoria splits it. The Victorian Building Authority registers builders and licenses plumbers. Energy Safe Victoria licenses electrical workers and registers electrical contractors. Searching the wrong body is the single most common reason someone concludes a legitimate tradie is unlicensed.

Our licence check tool points at the right register for the trade and state you pick, and the manual steps are in how to check a tradie licence.

Five checks before you hire across the border

1. Ask which state the work is in. Not where the business is. Where the job is.
2. Get the licence or registration number and the exact legal entity name on the quote.
3. Search the register for the state where the work will happen, and check the class covers the work.
4. Ask what compliance certificate you will receive when the job is finished, and who issues it.
5. For residential building work over the threshold, ask for the warranty insurance certificate for that state before you pay a deposit.

None of that takes long. All of it is much cheaper than finding out afterwards that the certificate you need does not exist.

The practical reality on the Murray

Most established trade businesses in the border towns already hold what they need in both states, because half their work is on the other side. It is the newer operators, and businesses coming down from further away for a single job, where the gaps show up.

If a business tells you it is not licensed in the other state but can do the work anyway because of mutual recognition, that answer is incomplete. Ask which arrangement they are relying on, and ask what certificate you will get at the end. A tradie who works both sides regularly will answer both questions without pausing.

For the town by town view of how this plays out day to day, read hiring a tradie on the border. To start from a listing, try plumbers in Albury or electricians in Wodonga, where the state of each licence is shown on the profile.