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Made for Australian builders.
Every document type is mapped to the states and trades it actually applies to — not a single generic checklist stretched to cover the whole country.
253 compliance requirements
mapped across 21 trades and 8 states and territories
Counted live from our own catalogue, right now — not a fixed number in a brochure.
Look up the documents your subcontractor needs, by trade and state
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This page is general information only, based on publicly available sources as at the date this page was last reviewed (see the sources listed further down this page for that date). It is not legal, compliance, or insurance advice, is not exhaustive, and may not reflect the most current requirements -- regulations, licensing rules, and insurance thresholds change, and requirements can vary by project, site, and contract. Always verify current requirements directly with the relevant state or territory regulator, your insurer, or a qualified advisor before relying on anything here.
Subcontractor compliance isn't one document — it's several categories of requirement, each with its own rules about who issues it, who needs it, and what happens if it lapses. Here's what each category actually means.
A White Card confirms someone has completed general construction induction training — the basic WHS awareness training required before carrying out construction work unsupervised on an Australian building site. It's not limited to tradespeople: anyone performing construction work, including labourers and some site visitors, generally needs one. A card issued by a registered training organisation in one state is generally recognised in every other state and territory, which makes it different from a trade licence. Whether the card itself needs renewing is a common point of confusion — see our dedicated White Card expiry explainer for the full answer and the regulator sources behind it.
Builders and licensed trades — electricians, plumbers, gasfitters, and others — need a specific licence from the relevant state or territory regulator before lawfully carrying out that work. Unlike a White Card, licensing is state-based: a licence issued in one jurisdiction doesn't automatically authorise work in another, though Automatic Mutual Recognition (AMR) has started to extend some licensed occupations across state lines and which trades and states are covered keeps expanding. A builder's or contractor's licence (for the business managing the work) is separate from the individual trade licences each subcontractor holds — a compliant project needs both verified, each against its own expiry date.
Deeper, state-specific and topic-specific guides built on everything above. More are published regularly — this list grows over time.
A White Card in NSW isn't the same document as one in VIC. Each requirement is tied to the specific state or territory it applies in, plus the national requirements every project needs regardless of location.
See how this becomes your project's checklistRequirements are also mapped to the trades they actually apply to, so an electrician's checklist doesn't include a geotechnical report, and vice versa.
The catalogue is reviewed and extended over time as requirements change. You can also add your own custom document types alongside the standard catalogue.
This catalogue is built from, and reviewed against, the official WHS regulators and state licensing bodies below. This page was last reviewed against those sources on 1 October 2026.
National WHS policy body and the model Work Health and Safety Act 2011
WHS regulator — New South Wales
WHS regulator — Victoria (Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, not the model WHS law)
WHS regulator — Queensland
WHS regulator — South Australia
Under the current rules in every Australian state and territory, a general construction induction (White) card does not carry a legal expiry date once issued -- it generally doesn't need to be renewed. Some individual sites or principal contractors still run their own refresher training as site policy, which is separate from the legal requirement. See our full explainer for the detail and the official sources behind it.
Not automatically. Builder and trade licences (electrical, plumbing, gasfitting and similar) are issued separately by each state and territory, and a licence from one doesn't by itself authorise work in another. Automatic Mutual Recognition (AMR) has started to let some licensed occupations work across state lines without a second licence, but which trades and states are covered keeps expanding -- check the specific state licensing body before assuming it applies to you.
Home building compensation (sometimes called home warranty) insurance is a statutory scheme in several states that protects the homeowner if a licensed builder dies, disappears, or becomes insolvent partway through residential work above a contract-value threshold. Public liability insurance is a separate commercial policy covering injury or property-damage claims arising from the work, and is commonly required as a licensing condition or by the head contractor before a subcontractor starts on site. They cover different things and most builders need both.
Each state and territory's WHS regulator enforces workplace health and safety law in that jurisdiction (for example SafeWork NSW or WorkSafe Victoria), alongside the duties the law places directly on the person conducting the business or undertaking (PCBU) running the site -- typically the builder or principal contractor.
Two different kinds of cover get confused for each other. Home building compensation (sometimes called home warranty) insurance is a statutory scheme run in several states that protects the homeowner if a licensed builder dies, disappears, or becomes insolvent partway through residential work above a contract-value threshold the state sets. Public liability insurance is a separate commercial policy covering injury or property-damage claims arising from the work, and is commonly required as a licensing condition or by the head contractor before a subcontractor can start on site. The thresholds, minimum cover amounts, and exact rules are set — and changed — by each state regulator and insurer, so we don't restate figures here; check the relevant licensing body in the sources below.
Beyond the national White Card, most sites run their own site-specific induction covering site layout, emergency procedures, PPE rules, and current hazards — this comes from the broader duty WHS law places on the person conducting the business or undertaking (the builder or principal contractor) to provide information, training, and instruction, rather than from a single standardised national card. Separately, specific high-risk activities — operating a crane, forklift, scaffolding, or rigging — need their own individual high-risk work licence issued by the state WHS regulator, each with its own validity period. ComplySite's custom document types let a builder track any of these alongside the standard catalogue.
The same category of requirement above can differ in which regulator issues it, what it's called, and what triggers it, from state to state — Victoria and Western Australia run their own WHS frameworks rather than the model law most other jurisdictions adopted, and every state licenses builders and trades through its own separate body. We're publishing a dedicated guide for each state and territory covering its specific rules — explore the ones published so far below.
WHS regulator — Western Australia (Work Health and Safety Act 2020)
WHS regulator — Tasmania
WHS regulator — Australian Capital Territory
WHS regulator — Northern Territory
Trade and contractor licensing — New South Wales
Builder and trade licensing — Victoria
Builder and trade licensing — Queensland
Builder and trade licensing — South Australia
Builder and trade licensing — Western Australia
Builder and trade licensing — Tasmania
Builder and trade licensing — Australian Capital Territory
Builder and trade licensing — Northern Territory
ComplySite maps each document type in its catalogue to the specific state or territory and trade it applies to, so a project in Queensland generates a different checklist to the same trade's project in Victoria, and an electrician's checklist doesn't include documents only a different trade needs.
Generally, yes, alongside the subcontractor's own responsibility for holding current licences and insurance. WHS law places duties on the person conducting the business or undertaking (PCBU) running a site -- typically the builder or principal contractor -- to manage the risks workers on that site create, which in practice includes knowing who's actually licensed and inducted to be there.
More often than a static checklist would suggest. In the time this catalogue has been maintained, Victoria replaced its Domestic Building Insurance scheme with a new Home Warranty scheme (1 July 2026) and Tasmania split its building regulator, CBOS, into two new agencies (1 October 2026) -- both genuine, material changes within a single year. This is exactly why every page here carries a last-reviewed date rather than being treated as permanently current.
In practice, most builders either turn the worker away until the missing document is provided, or carry the risk of an unlicensed or uninsured person on site -- neither is a good position to be in mid-project. See our explainer on what happens if a licence lapses for the regulatory, insurance, and contractual exposure involved.
