Stop quoting jobs you’re not licensed to sign .
We handle your builder or trade licence application from end to end — evidence packs, referee statements, every supporting document — and deliver it complete, checked and ready to go. You stay on the tools. We do the paperwork.
The builder’s margin on a typical $400,000 residential build. Without a licence, that goes to whoever signs the contract instead of you.
Standard gross margin for a residential builder. Subcontracting means handing that percentage over on every project you touch.
What you can lawfully invoice for licensable building work. No licence means no direct contract, however good the job is.
Roughly what the whole application costs you personally. We assemble it, check it, and get it to the finish line.
Margin figures: Master Builders Australia / industry benchmarks. Build cost: HIA average new home, 2025–26. Illustrative only.
The licence isn’t paperwork. It’s the ceiling on what you can earn.
Three things change the day your number issues.
Contract direct, not through someone else
Subcontracting means another business holds the client, sets the price and takes the builder’s margin. A licence lets you sign the contract yourself and keep that margin on every job you run.
Unlicensed contracting is an offence
Queensland requires a licence above $3,300 of building work and New South Wales above $5,000 — thresholds far lower than most tradies assume. Beyond the penalty, unlicensed work can leave you unable to recover money a client owes you.
You can advertise and tender
Licence numbers have to appear on your advertising and contracts, and both regulators publish a public register. Builders, developers and councils check it before they engage anybody.
Thresholds and penalties are set by QBCC and NSW Fair Trading and change from time to time. We’ll confirm the figures that apply to your situation on the eligibility call.
One call in. A finished application out.
Five steps. You’re involved in the first two.
Free eligibility call
We pin down which of 200+ licence classes fits your trade — and tell you straight if anything’s missing.
10 minutes · no costSend what you’ve got
One email. Your quals, a rough job list, a few referee names. No forms, no formatting.
About an hour of your timeWe build the evidence
Your job history, structured against the regulator’s own schedule. We draft the referee statements and chase them.
Handled for youChecked and finished
Every form and attachment ordered the way an assessor expects, reviewed against their own checklist.
Ready in about 4 weeksLicence granted
Your number issues and you can contract in your own name. We diarise your renewal so you don’t lose it.
Over to youLicensed in one state? The second one is faster.
If you already hold a current licence in Queensland or New South Wales, mutual recognition can get you the equivalent across the border without repeating your qualification and experience assessment from scratch. It’s the quickest licence you’ll ever get — and most builders don’t realise they’re entitled to it.
Check if you qualify →One condition worth knowing: your existing licence has to stay active and unsuspended for the whole assessment. If it lapses part-way through, the entitlement goes with it. Equivalence is determined by the receiving regulator, not by us.
Builders who stopped subcontracting.
“I’d started the QBCC form twice and given up twice. First call, they told me I needed medium rise, not low rise — which I’d have got wrong on my own and paid for twice.”
“Fifteen years on the tools and no certificate to show for it. They arranged the recognition of prior learning and had the whole file finished in five weeks. I barely lifted a finger.”
“We moved the business from Sydney to Brisbane. Mutual recognition meant I kept working through the whole thing instead of starting again from zero.”
Find out where you stand in ten minutes.
You’ll come off the call knowing which licence class to go for, what’s missing from your file, and how long it will realistically take. No cost, no obligation.
Interstate Builders Licences is a private application preparation service. We prepare and check licence applications; applications are submitted in the applicant's own name and all licensing decisions are made solely by the relevant regulator. We are not the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, NSW Fair Trading, or any government agency, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by them. We cannot guarantee any outcome. Margin and build-cost figures shown are industry averages for illustration and are not a projection of your earnings. Information on this page is general only and is not legal or financial advice.