Can I do it myself, or does the law require a licensed tradie?
Australia's answer is the strictest in the countries we cover: DIY electrical work is an offence in every state here, including in your own home, and overseas guides mislead. Pick the work and see what the law actually allows, cited to the law and regulator guidance, verified 2026-07-17.
What kind of work is it?
Pick the work and see what the law actually allows, state by state. Rules verified 2026-07-17 against the law and current regulator guidance.
Pick a work type to see the rules.
Worth knowing
- Owner-builder thresholds are current regulator guidance: 10,000 dollars including GST in NSW, more than 11,000 dollars including GST in Queensland, and more than 16,000 dollars in Victoria. They can change, so use the cited regulator page before starting.
- Penalty units are how these Acts express fines and each state sets the unit's dollar value yearly, so the counts above are the stable citation and the current dollar figure lives with the regulator.
Check the person before they start
See which registers cover each trade here, with the held record counts, your state's deposit caps before any money moves, check the business by name, or browse tradespeople with public evidence.
Common questions
Can I do my own electrical work in Australia?
DIY electrical work is an offence in every state we cover, with no exemption for your own home. That is the opposite of New Zealand's owner-occupier rules and England's notify-and-do route, and guides written for those countries mislead here. The legal DIY space is genuinely trivial: plugging appliances into a socket, replacing a light bulb, and in Queensland replacing a fuse, the examples Queensland's own Act gives for work anyone may do. Replacing a hard wired light switch is licensed electrical work, not DIY.
Can I change a light switch myself?
The legal DIY space is genuinely trivial: plugging appliances into a socket, replacing a light bulb, and in Queensland replacing a fuse, the examples Queensland's own Act gives for work anyone may do. Replacing a hard wired light switch is licensed electrical work, not DIY.
Is any DIY gas or plumbing work legal?
In Queensland the Act says it directly: connecting or disconnecting a gas cylinder to an existing fitting is not an offence, which is why swapping a barbecue bottle is legal, and everything with fixed pipework or an appliance behind it is licensed gas work. Victoria licenses gasfitting as a class of plumbing work with a 500 penalty unit offence for unlicensed work. Victoria's Building Act allows an unlicensed person to repair a tap in a dwelling they own and occupy, though never thermostatic mixing, tempering or backflow valves. NSW separately excludes an owner or occupier's tap or showerhead repair from its plumbing definition, with the same safety-valve exclusions. Queensland's published unregulated list is narrow: replacing a showerhead, domestic water-filter cartridge, tap washer or jumper valve, a few listed toilet-cistern washers, caps on ground-level drain openings, and specified irrigation maintenance. Treat anything else as licensed work until you have checked.
What can an owner-builder actually do?
Building work is where genuine DIY is legal, through owner-builder permits, and the permits never extend to electrical, gas or plumbing. Every state we cover runs an owner-builder route for building work on your own home: Queensland's permit regime sits in the QBCC Act, and Victoria issues certificates of consent through the building regulator. The boundary is the same everywhere: work that needs an occupational licence, electrical, gas and plumbing above the micro exceptions, stays licensed-only inside an owner-builder project.
This is guidance from the public rules, not legal advice. Every state's claims cite legislation and, where a current threshold or homeowner explanation is needed, the responsible regulator. The regulators decide real cases. Check the licence before anyone starts.
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