What you may do, and what you may not
Queensland's Electrical Safety Office publishes both sides of the line, which is more than most regulators do. This table is theirs, not ours.
| Electrical work — licensed electrician only | Not electrical work |
|---|---|
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Two of those catch almost everybody. Repairing an appliance is electrical work, and so is putting a new plug on an extension lead — the two jobs a handy person is most likely to think of as obviously fine. And the right-hand column comes with its own warning from the same page: cutting holes or driving screws into walls still risks contact with wiring inside the cavity.
One thing that is not banned: buying the gear. As the Electrical Safety Office puts it, “it's not illegal to purchase electrical accessories or appliances that need to be hard-wired, but they must be connected by a licensed electrician.” Buy the fan. Do not wire the fan.
Source: Electrical Safety Office (Queensland), Don't do your own electrical work, read 3 September 2026. Queensland's list; the principle travels, the wording is theirs.
Where the line actually sits: the outlet socket
New South Wales draws it in law, and once you see it you can apply it anywhere. Electrical wiring work is “the actual physical work of installing, repairing, altering, removing, or adding to an electrical installation” — and an electrical installation expressly does not include “any electrical article connected to, and extending or situated beyond, any electrical outlet socket”.
So: the socket is the border. On your side of it — the toaster, the lamp, the extension lead you bought finished, the plug you push in — is yours. On the other side of it, and everything fixed into the building, is a licensed electrician's. The same NSW definition also carves out equipment operating at no more than 50 volts AC or 120 volts ripple-free DC, which is why low-voltage garden lighting is a different conversation from a garden power point.
That single test resolves most of the questions people actually have. A plug-in appliance: yours. A hardwired one: not yours. A light you screw a globe into: yours. The fitting the globe screws into: not yours.
Source: NSW Government, Electrical work, read 3 September 2026 (last updated 23 June 2026 per that page).
Check an electrician's licence at the regulatorThe penalties, in each regulator's own words
| Where | What the regulator publishes | Read at |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | A licence or certificate is needed “regardless of the cost of the work”. Doing electrical wiring work without one breaches the Home Building Act 1989: “You can be fined $22,000 as an individual or $110,000 as a company for doing unlicensed electrical work” | nsw.gov.au |
| Queensland | “DIY electrical work is regarded as unlicensed electrical work, which is illegal, and has penalties of up to $40,000 for individuals.” A breach exposing a person to a risk of death or serious injury carries a maximum of $600,000 for an individual, $3,000,000 for a corporation, or five years imprisonment | electricalsafety.qld.gov.au |
| Victoria | “Don't be tempted to do your own electrical work — it's illegal and it can also be deadly.” Installation work must be done through a registered electrical contractor. No penalty figure is published on the page we read | energysafe.vic.gov.au |
Each row was read at that URL on 3 September 2026. The other five states and territories are not on this table, because we did not read their regulators on the day and a page about penalties is no place to guess. Every regulator, for every state and territory, is listed on our licence-check page. Victoria carries no dollar figure here on purpose: its penalties are expressed in penalty units whose value changes each financial year, and a stale conversion would be worse than no number.
Your insurer is the other reason, and nobody warns you about it
Queensland's Electrical Safety Office says it in a single sentence: major property damage from an electrical fire is a real risk, and “if it was the result of illegal electrical work, your insurer may refuse the claim.”
That is the part that turns a saved callout fee into a lost house. The danger is also not usually visible on the day — the same page notes it “may not be immediately apparent and often only becomes evident in a fault situation, or may even develop over time.” Work done badly in 2026 can sit quietly behind a wall until 2032.
There is a related consequence when a licensed person does it instead. Queensland requires licensed electrical contractors to carry a minimum of $5 million public liability insurance with a $50,000 consumer protection component. Unlicensed work, as the regulator puts it, “does not provide this assurance or protection.”
Source: Electrical Safety Office (Queensland), Don't do your own electrical work, read 3 September 2026.
The certificate you should be handed when it is finished
In Victoria this is not optional and it is worth knowing about wherever you live, because it is the document that proves the work was done properly. Energy Safe Victoria states that whenever a licensed electrician completes any electrical installation work, they must provide a Certificate of Electrical Safety.
| Certificate | What it covers in a house | Inspection |
|---|---|---|
| Prescribed | Major wiring work — work on wiring and equipment where the electricity cannot be switched off. Generally the wires up to the switchboard, and it may include the wiring from the street and the meter | Must be inspected by a qualified inspector, arranged by your contractor |
| Non-prescribed | Minor wiring work — where the electricity can be switched off at the switchboard. Safety switches, circuit breakers, power points, non-plug-in equipment, lighting points | No inspection required, though Energy Safe may arrange one, with your agreement, for audit |
Source: Energy Safe Victoria, Electricity tradespeople, read 3 September 2026 (that page states it was reviewed 24 January 2025).
“It is only a small job” is the argument that does not exist
Every state that writes a dollar figure into a building rule declines to write one into this one. New South Wales says the words: a licence is required “regardless of the cost of the work”. There is no under-$X carve-out, no small-job exception, and no version of it for a mate doing you a favour.
The reason is not bureaucratic. Building work is regulated on what the job is worth. Electrical work is regulated on what it can do to you — and a bad connection behind a wall does not become safer because the invoice was small.
The same logic, applied to pipes: plumbing work you cannot do yourself. And the licensing rule across the states: electrical and plumbing work always needs a licence, whatever it costs.
This page explains what electrical safety regulators publish about unlicensed work. It is general information, not legal advice, and it is not a safety assessment of anything you are planning. Yamate is software for tradespeople. We do not issue, assess, endorse or certify any licence, we are not an electrical regulator, and we do not decide what is or is not electrical work — your state's electrical regulator does. No regulator has reviewed this page. Every rule and penalty above was read at the regulator's own page on 3 September 2026 and is linked beside the claim; only New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are covered, and jurisdictions not quoted here are not covered at all. Penalties and definitions change, so check the date on this page against theirs. If you think something in your home is unsafe, stop and call a licensed electrician.