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FLOSTRUCTION · Time Verification

Labour hire licensing · Australia

Labour hire licensing in Australia: which states require a licence?

Four jurisdictions run a mandatory labour hire licensing scheme — Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT. New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory do not. The obligation follows where the work is supplied, so an operator in a no-scheme state can still need another jurisdiction’s licence.

Labour hire licensing by state and territory (as at June 2026)
State / territoryMandatory schemeActRegulatorPublic register
Queensland (QLD)YesLabour Hire Licensing Act 2017 (Qld)Labour Hire Licensing QueenslandYes
Victoria (VIC)YesLabour Hire Licensing Act 2018 (Vic)the Labour Hire AuthorityYes
South Australia (SA)YesLabour Hire Licensing Act 2017 (SA)Consumer and Business ServicesYes
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)YesLabour Hire Licensing Act 2020 (ACT)WorkSafe ACTYes
New South Wales (NSW)No
Western Australia (WA)No
Tasmania (TAS)No
Northern Territory (NT)No

Each state link goes to a dedicated page with the sources, the cross-border position, and the answer for that jurisdiction. Confirm current requirements with the regulator.

What a licence does — and does not — cover

A labour hire licence confirms you’re permitted to supply workers. It says nothing about whether your record of the hours those workers actually worked will hold up if it’s ever challenged.

That is the gap the Workforce Ledger Evidentiary Standard (WLES) addresses: hours verified at the point of work, approved by the supervisor, and sealed into a tamper-evident record before payroll.

Sources: Fair Work Ombudsman — Managing your labour contracting; and each state regulator, cited on the relevant state page.