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Home repairs that need a licence, a guide by Dotto

Cast in the lid: TERMITE

Termite and pest treatment: licensed when it is done for others

The electrical and plumbing licences in this guide attach to the work itself. The pest licence is drawn around something else: whether the work is being done for someone, and paid for.

A strip of concrete footpath seen from above, with one cast-iron cover set into it, the word TERMITE cast across its middle, and the kerb along the bottom. TERMITE
TERMITE: the fourth cover. Under it, the licence turns on who the treatment is for.

Across the states and territories, the pest licence attaches to pest work done for others: pesticides applied for a fee or reward, or used while running a pest control business. Queensland adds a second layer for termites: a QBCC licence is needed to carry out, or contract for, chemical termite management at any value.

General informationA summary of what pest and building regulators publish, as at 8 October 2026, including SA Health, the QBCC in Queensland and the NSW EPA. Not legal or safety advice about any treatment.

Dotto is not a builder, tradesperson or property manager. Dotto holds no builder’s or trade licence. It does not do, offer, contract for or arrange any building, trade or maintenance work. This is general information, not advice.

The words that set the line

The regulators use different licences and different names for them. The trigger is what they share, and it is worth reading in each one’s own terms:

  • South Australia · fee or rewardA business offering pest control for fee or reward needs a Pest Controller’s licence, and anyone applying pesticides for payment needs a Pest Management Technician’s licence.
  • New South Wales · fee, reward or a public authorityThe pest management technician licence covers using pesticides (fumigants aside) against pests when the work is done for a fee or reward, or for a public authority.
  • Victoria · a pest control businessVictoria’s health department licenses people who apply pesticides as part of running a pest control business, under its Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. For some listed activities, a separate agricultural chemical licence is described only as something such a business “may require”.
  • Tasmania · payment, fee or rewardThe Commercial Operator Licence applies to a business that uses agricultural chemical products to control pests and is paid for doing it.
  • Northern Territory · fee or rewardUsing a schedule 5, 6 or 7 pesticide in pest control for fee or reward is illegal without a licence.
  • Australian Capital Territory · commercialCommercial pest and weed control operations need an Environmental Authorisation.
  • Western Australia and Queensland · the industryWorking in the pest management industry in WA needs a technician licence and approved training; in Queensland, a pest management technician needs a current licence to carry out pest management activities.

Tasmania shows how carefully the line is drawn. An employee who applies chemicals only on the employer’s own land, such as a farm hand or a council worker, may not need the certificate of competency the commercial work requires.

Termites in Queensland: two licences for one treatment

Queensland treats termite work as building work as well as pest work, so a chemical treatment can need two licences from two regulators. In order:

  1. The QBCC licence, at any value

    Termite management with chemicals sits on the QBCC’s list of work that needs its licence however small the job. The QBCC names two termite classes, chemical and physical, and limits the physical class to particular systems such as graded stone or stainless steel mesh.

  2. The health licence as well

    Anyone performing or supervising chemical termite management must also hold a Queensland Pest Management Licence from the Department of Health.

  3. Insurance behind the chemical licence

    Holders of the chemical termite licence also need professional indemnity insurance of at least $500,000, as at 8 October 2026.

The QBCC licence reaches past the treatment itself. A contractor needs one of the termite classes to give advice or write reports on termite management systems or infestations, and a QBCC licence is needed to install a termite management system in new building work. An inspection is licensed work too: the QBCC says only a licensed pest controller can complete a termite inspection.

New South Wales has a termite licence of its own: a technician using pesticides against termites generally needs the EPA’s timber pest management technician licence, unless they still hold a five-year pest management technician licence from before 17 December 2021.

Advertising and enforcement

In the Northern Territory, the licence is needed before the work is even offered: its government says a pest management technician licence is required to advertise pest control.

In NSW, the EPA says a person doing prescribed pesticide work must hold a licence by law, and that it can act against unlicensed pest controllers, up to prosecution in serious cases, with a maximum penalty of $60,000 as at 8 October 2026.

One more cover sits on the same footpath, and its first rule travels with every mention of it: on asbestos, the national Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency says it is “not recommended that you handle or remove asbestos yourself”, and in some places the law goes further: in the Australian Capital Territory any removal needs a licensed removalist, unless it is part of minor routine maintenance or other minor work, and in Queensland a home owner must be trained before taking out more than 10 square metres of non-friable material, and only a removalist holding a Class A licence may remove friable material. The agency adds that a professional is easier, safer and often cheaper. It also says asbestos waste may go only to a landfill site licensed to take it, and that a household rubbish bin is not that place: putting it there can bring a fine.