How to Check a Tradie's Licence in NSW
You've got a quote in your hand and a stranger about to start work on your home. Before any money moves, there's a free NSW Government check that takes about two minutes — and most people have never run it.
The short answer
Go to the NSW Government's licence register at verify.licence.nsw.gov.au and search the tradie's name, business name or licence number. You're confirming four things:
- The licence status is current — not expired, suspended or cancelled.
- The name on the licence matches the name on your quote — the actual person or company you'd be paying.
- The licence class covers your specific job — a carpentry licence doesn't cover waterproofing.
- The expiry date clears the end of the job, not just the start of it.
That's the whole check. It's free, there's no account to create, and it's the official government record — the same register NSW Fair Trading maintains. The rest of this guide is what each part means and the traps that catch people out.
Does my job actually need a licensed tradie?
Two rules decide it in NSW:
Any residential building work worth more than $5,000 — labour and materials combined — must be done by a licensed contractor. That's the general threshold.
All specialist work needs a licence at any price. Electrical wiring, plumbing, drainage, gasfitting, and air conditioning or refrigeration work (plug-in appliances aside) are licensed at every dollar value. There's no "it's only a small job" exception. A $150 powerpoint swap still legally requires a licensed electrician, and a leaking tap still requires a licensed plumber.
Small non-specialist jobs under $5,000 — patching plasterboard, hanging a door, flat-pack assembly — sit in handyman territory, where no licence is required. The licence check isn't the tool for those jobs, but the other checks in our guide to confirming a tradie is legit still are.
Where do I actually run the check?
The current tool is the NSW Government's enhanced public register at verify.licence.nsw.gov.au. Type a name, a business name or a licence number and the record comes straight back. (An older version of the public register still exists at onegov.nsw.gov.au — it works, but the newer register is the one to use, and it also carries other credentials like White Cards.)
The cleanest way to search is by licence number. Licensed contractors are required to show their number on advertising and paperwork, so it should already be on the quote, the website or the side of the van — and any legitimate tradie will hand it over without blinking if you ask. Searching by number also skips the "which of the nine John Smiths is mine" problem entirely.
If a tradie hesitates or gets cagey about giving you a licence number, that's not an argument. It's your answer.
What am I looking at when the result loads?
Status. Only current counts. Expired, suspended, surrendered and cancelled all mean the same thing for your purposes: this person cannot legally contract to do licensed work right now. An expired licence is sometimes an innocent renewal lapse — but that's their problem to fix before your job starts, not yours to absorb.
The name. The licence needs to match the person or entity on your quote and contract — the one your money is actually going to. If the quote is from "JD Building Group Pty Ltd" and the licence belongs to an individual with a different surname, stop and ask why. Companies need their own contractor licence; you can't contract with an unlicensed company just because someone associated with it holds a personal licence.
The classes. A licence covers specific categories of work, not "trades" in general. General building, carpentry, waterproofing, tiling, kitchen and bathroom renovation — these are separate classes. Read what's actually listed and check it covers the job you're hiring for.
Conditions. Some licences carry conditions — supervision requirements or restrictions on the scope of work. If conditions are listed, they apply to your job too.
History. The register also shows cancellations, suspensions, public warnings issued by Fair Trading, and the results of prosecutions. A clean record won't have any of it. If it's there, it's there for a reason — read it and weigh it.
What are the three things people get wrong?
1. Treating any licence as the right licence. "They're licensed" is only half the check. The class has to cover the work. A licensed carpenter quoting your bathroom waterproofing is outside their class — the licence is real, and it still doesn't cover your job.
2. Confusing a certificate with a contractor licence. NSW also issues qualified supervisor certificates and tradesperson certificates. These mean someone is qualified to do or supervise the work — they don't allow that person to contract with the public. Plenty of genuinely skilled tradies hold certificates and work under someone else's contractor licence, and that's completely fine — as long as the contractor licence holder is the one on your contract. The entity you pay is the one that needs the contractor licence.
3. Checking from memory. Licences expire, and occasionally they get suspended. The tradie who was licensed for your deck three years ago isn't automatically licensed today. The check is two minutes — run it at quote time, for this job, every time real money is involved.
What if the search comes up empty?
Don't jump straight to the worst conclusion. Names get misspelled, tradies trade under business names that don't match their personal name, and licences are sometimes held by a company rather than the person you met. The fix is simple: ask for the licence number and search that instead.
But if the honest answer that comes back is no licence for work that legally requires one — walk away, even if the price is good, even if they came recommended. This isn't about whether they're a good person or even good at the work. It's that without the licence, you lose the safety net: an unlicensed contractor can't legally take on the job, and if something goes wrong you're left with far less protection under NSW home building law. The saving isn't worth the exposure. If you want to, you can report unlicensed contracting to NSW Fair Trading — it's the same body behind the register.
Is the licence check enough on its own?
No — it's one of five. A current licence tells you they're qualified and allowed to do the work. It doesn't tell you their ABN is active, that the person at your door is who they claim to be, or that their insurance is current. Each of those is its own quick check, and our complete guide to checking a tradie is legit in NSW walks through all of them.
It's also exactly why BLDESY exists. Every tradie on the platform is checked five ways before they're listed — ABN, licence, White Card, photo ID and insurance — and the results sit right on their profile next to their real work and prices. The checking is already done by the time you're comparing. You see the work, you see the checks, you choose who gets the job. Free for homeowners.
Either way: the register is at verify.licence.nsw.gov.au, the check takes two minutes, and it happens before money moves. That two minutes is the difference between hoping a stranger is legit and knowing.