Licence Numbers in Tradie Advertising: The Rule in Every Australian State (2026)

If you are a licensed builder, electrician, plumber or building services contractor in Australia, whether you must put your licence number in an advertisement depends entirely on which state you are in and which trade you hold. There is no national rule. Three jurisdictions have no requirement at all for construction trades. One introduced a brand-new obligation on 1 July 2026 that most operators have not heard of.

This page sets out the actual statutory position in every state and territory, quoted from the legislation, with penalties calculated from current penalty unit values rather than copied from regulator brochures. Neomeric is a Melbourne-based AI product company and the team behind NeoMind, Australia’s onshore AI teammates platform. We built this reference because our customers publish marketing copy across every one of these jurisdictions and the rules contradict each other.

Verified against live legislation on 23 September 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.

Which Australian states require a licence number in tradie advertising?

Short answer: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, the ACT and (since 1 July 2026) the Northern Territory all impose a requirement on at least some trades. Tasmania does not, for building and construction trades. The scope differs sharply between them.

What exactly does Queensland require?

Queensland has the broadest rule in the country. Section 54 of the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 provides that a licensee who publishes or causes to be published any advertisement in connection with the licensee’s business must ensure it contains the name under which the licensee is licensed, and states that the licensee is licensed under the Act and the number of the licence. The advertisement must also not include false or misleading information, and must not omit information where the omission makes it misleading.

Two points that are commonly misstated. First, no particular form of words is prescribed. You will see advice online insisting the advertisement must contain the phrase “licensed under this Act”. The section requires you to state that you are licensed under the Act; it does not dictate the sentence. Regulation 50 of the QBCC Regulation 2018 adds only that written information must be easily read, and spoken information must be no less audible and clear than the rest.

Second, the statute does not mention social media. Neither the Act nor the Regulation defines “advertisement” or refers to websites, the internet or social platforms. QBCC’s published guidance treats company Facebook pages and similar as advertising, and that is the regulator’s stated position — but it is guidance, not statutory text. The ordinary meaning of “advertisement” is wide enough to cover a promotional social post in any event.

Queensland also regulates the other side: under section 53C(2), a person without a contractor’s licence who advertises availability to do building work must state the value of the work they are entitled to carry out without a licence. That is 100 penalty units — $17,270 for an individual at the 2026–27 unit value of $172.70, and up to $86,350 for a corporation under the five-times multiplier in section 181B(3) of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992.

How narrow is the Victorian building rule?

Much narrower than it is usually described. Section 169H of the Building Act 1993 (Vic) applies to a registered building practitioner who publishes an advertisement offering to carry out domestic building work. It is not a general rule covering every Victorian building practitioner advertising any kind of building work. Where it applies, the advertisement must state the name under which the practitioner is registered and their registration number, and under regulation 262 of the Building Regulations 2018 both must be clearly legible. The penalty is 60 penalty units, which at the Victorian 2026–27 value of $209.10 is $12,546.

Victorian electrical contractors are caught by a separate and stricter provision. Section 32 of the Electricity Safety Act 1998 prohibits publishing any advertisement, notice or statement that the contractor carries on or is willing to carry on electrical contracting work unless it includes the contractor’s registered number. That one does carry a corporate tier: 60 penalty units for a natural person and 300 for a body corporate, or $12,546 and $62,730.

Victorian plumbers have no equivalent obligation. The Plumbing Regulations 2018 contain no advertising provision at all. A regulation-making power exists in section 221ZZZV of the Building Act covering “advertising by licensed and registered plumbers”, but it has never been exercised.

What changed in the Northern Territory on 1 July 2026?

This is the newest requirement in the country and the one most likely to catch people out, because almost no secondary source reflects it yet.

Regulation 46 of the Electrical Safety Regulations 2024 (NT), made under the Electrical Safety Act 2022, provides that it applies to conduct occurring on or after 1 July 2026, and that the holder of an electrical contractor licence who advertises their business must ensure the advertisement states the name under which the holder is licensed or their registered business name, and states that the holder is licensed under the Act together with the identifying number of the licence. It is a strict liability offence carrying 50 penalty units, which at the NT value of $194 is $9,700.

There is a useful carve-out: advertising for this purpose does not include identifying the name or business of the licensee on an employee’s uniform, on the licensee’s vehicle, or on the licensee’s buildings or structures. Signwriting a ute is not advertising for regulation 46.

Northern Territory builders are treated quite differently. Section 25(1)(c) of the Building Act 1993 (NT) applies only to corporations registered as building practitioners, and requires only that the name of the registered individual appear in advertisements — no registration number. NT plumbers have no advertising provision.

Is “licensed and insured” without a number illegal?

This phrase appears constantly in trade marketing, and the risk attached to it is routinely described incorrectly. The accurate position has two parts.

If you are genuinely licensed and you write “licensed and insured” without your number, you have potentially breached the advertising rules above — in the jurisdictions that have them, and only within their scope. You have not committed a holding-out offence.

If you are not licensed, or not licensed for the work advertised, holding-out offences are where the serious money sits. These bite on the claim of licensure itself, not on the missing number:

• VIC — Building Act 1993 s 169A: 500 penalty units for an individual, 2,500 for a body corporate. At $209.10, that is $104,550 and $522,750.
• SA — Building Work Contractors Act 1995 s 47C: $50,000 individual, $250,000 body corporate, expiation fee $5,000. Note that the much-quoted $500,000 South Australian figure is not the holding-out penalty; it is the body corporate maximum under s 6 for actually carrying on business as a building work contractor without a licence.
• WA — Building Services (Registration) Act 2011 s 5: $25,000.
• ACT — Construction Occupations (Licensing) Act 2004 s 81: 50 penalty units, strict liability, $8,000 individual and $40,500 corporation.
• TAS — Occupational Licensing Act 2005 s 38(1): 75 penalty units individual, 150 body corporate, or $15,975 and $31,950 at the 2026–27 value of $213.

Tasmania is also the jurisdiction where the insurance half of the phrase is independently dangerous. Section 29(2) and section 29(3B) of the Occupational Licensing Act 2005 make misrepresenting insurance a standalone offence for contractors and building services providers respectively, at 75 penalty units for an individual and 150 for a body corporate.

Does Tasmania really have no requirement?

For building and construction trades, correct. The Occupational Licensing Act 2005 — which covers Tasmanian plumbers, electricians, gas fitters and building services providers — contains no advertising provision and no licence-number requirement.

Be careful how far you take that. Tasmania regulates other licensed occupations under entirely separate Acts, and at least two of them — motor vehicle traders and security and investigation agents — appear to have their own advertising rules that are outside the scope of this page. “No Tasmanian trade has to show a licence number” is a broader claim than the evidence supports. “Tasmanian building and construction trades have no licence-number advertising requirement” is accurate.

Why do the penalty figures here differ from the regulator’s website?

Because most regulator pages and PDFs quote dollar figures that were correct when written and have since gone stale. Almost every one of these penalties is expressed in the statute as a number of penalty units, and the unit value is re-set annually.

The values used throughout this page, for the 2026–27 financial year: Victoria $209.10, Queensland $172.70, Tasmania $213, Northern Territory $194, NSW $110 (not indexed), ACT $160 for an individual and $810 for a corporation. Western Australia and South Australia express these particular penalties in dollars rather than units.

A live example of the problem: the Western Australian government guidance page for building service contractors states the section 8 advertising penalty as $25,000. The Act says $5,000. The $25,000 figure belongs to the title-misuse and false-registration-claim offences in sections 4, 5 and 6. If you are relying on a regulator’s summary page for a number you intend to act on, check it against the Act.

What does this mean in practice for marketing copy?

Three things follow from the pattern above.

Jurisdiction is not inferable from the copy. Nothing in the words of an advertisement tells you whether the Queensland rule or the Tasmanian non-rule applies. A tradie operating across the Queensland–NSW border is subject to two different regimes with different content requirements and a twenty-fold difference in penalty. Any system that generates or reviews this copy has to hold the jurisdiction and the licence type as real data, not guess them from the text.

The failure is almost always an omission, not a forbidden word. With the partial exception of holding-out claims, these rules are not about banned phrases. They are about missing elements — the number, the licensed name, the statement of licensure, the value of unlicensed work. A keyword blocklist will not catch any of them.

The requirement usually has a cure. Adding the licence number fixes almost every breach on this page. That makes it one of the most mechanically checkable obligations in Australian advertising law, which is exactly why it is worth building into the process that produces the copy rather than the process that reviews it afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to put my licence number on my Facebook page?

In Queensland, QBCC’s published guidance treats company social media pages as advertising connected with the business, so its section 54 requirements apply. The Act itself does not name social media — it refers to “any advertisement”, whose ordinary meaning is wide enough to cover a promotional post. In jurisdictions with no requirement, such as Tasmania for building trades, there is nothing to include.

Does a vehicle sign count as an advertisement?

In the Northern Territory, expressly not: regulation 46(5) of the Electrical Safety Regulations 2024 excludes an employee’s uniform, the licensee’s vehicle, and the licensee’s buildings from what counts as advertising. Other jurisdictions do not contain that carve-out, so a vehicle sign may well be an advertisement elsewhere.

My business is a company. Which penalty applies?

Where the statute sets a separate body corporate maximum — Victoria’s electrical provision, NSW, the ACT — that figure applies directly. In Queensland the Act states a single maximum and the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 section 181B(3) allows a court to impose up to five times that amount on a corporation. Victoria’s section 169H sets no separate corporate rate.

Are these penalties per advertisement?

They are maximum penalties per offence, and each non-compliant advertisement is capable of being a separate offence. South Australia goes further: section 57 of the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 allows a continuing-offence penalty on conviction of up to one-tenth of the maximum for each day the offence continues, which is up to $2,500 a day.

Where can I check my own state?

Go to the Act, not the brochure. The relevant provisions are listed in the sources below. Penalty unit values are published each financial year by each jurisdiction’s justice or treasury department.

Sources

• Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Qld) ss 53C, 54, 56
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission Regulation 2018 (Qld) regs 50, 52
• Building Act 1993 (Vic) ss 169A, 169H, 169I
• Building Regulations 2018 (Vic) regs 262, 263
• Electricity Safety Act 1998 (Vic) s 32
• Plumbing Regulations 2018 (Vic)
• Home Building Regulation 2014 (NSW) cl 33
• Electricity (Licensing) Regulations 1991 (WA) regs 45, 65
• Building Services (Registration) Act 2011 (WA) ss 5, 8
• Building Work Contractors Act 1995 (SA) ss 6, 47C, 50, 57
• Construction Occupations (Licensing) Act 2004 (ACT) ss 7, 81, 83
• Occupational Licensing Act 2005 (Tas) ss 29, 38
• Electrical Safety Regulations 2024 (NT) reg 46; Building Act 1993 (NT) s 25
• Penalty unit values — Victoria; Tasmania; Northern Territory