What licence is the data published under?

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You can copy, chart, republish and build on it commercially, including in a paid report, as long as you credit WhoToHire and link back.

Does it include individual businesses?

No. Only aggregates: the national figures, each category, each state, and each category within each state. Business-level records are not published in bulk, because republishing tens of thousands of businesses' contact details as a downloadable file is a different thing from listing them on pages.

What are the percentages a percentage of?

Of the businesses the check actually ran for, and that base ships as its own column beside each rate: phone_checked, site_checked and corroboration_checked. So site_loads_pct is a share of site_checked, not of businesses. A check that has not run is in neither the numerator nor the denominator — counting it as a failure would publish our own backlog as a finding about tradespeople. The exception is abn_pct, which is a share of every business in the group: an absent ABN is not a failed lookup, so read that one as a floor.

Why are some category and state combinations missing?

Any group with fewer than 40 businesses is omitted. Below that a single record moves a percentage by several points, and small-sample cells get quoted without their sample size sooner or later.

How often is it updated?

It regenerates from the same measurement the directory is built from, so the download and the site are never out of step with each other. The current figures were measured on 2026-09-22.

Can I get a cut that isn't in the file?

Ask at support@whotohire.com.au. Cuts below the minimum group size are held back deliberately, but anything above it that isn't in the export can be sent.

Open data

Australian trade business data

The aggregate figures behind everything on this site, as a free download. No signup, no email, no licence fee — CC BY 4.0, which asks only that you credit the source and link back.

Download CSV Download JSON

165 rows · 14 columns · measured 2026-09-22

What's in it

One row per group, at four levels of detail. Every figure is computed from the same measurement the directory pages are built from, so the file and the site cannot disagree.

1 national row, all categories
23 categories, Australia-wide
8 states and territories, all categories
133 category-within-state combinations

Columns in the published dataset
Column	Meaning
scope	national, trade, state, or trade_state
trade	trade slug, blank where the row is not trade-specific
state	state or territory code, blank where the row is national
label	human-readable name for the group
businesses	businesses in the group
abn_pct	% of businesses with an ABN confirmed on the national register
phone_checked	businesses whose listed phone was compared with the number on their own site
phone_confirmed_pct	% of phone_checked whose two numbers agree
phone_mismatch_pct	% of phone_checked whose two numbers contradict each other
site_checked	businesses whose website was fetched
site_loads_pct	% of site_checked whose website responded
corroboration_checked	businesses a cross-source match was run for
corroborated_pct	% of corroboration_checked described by two or more independent sources
median_reviews	median Google review count

What's deliberately not in it

No business-level records. The file contains no names, addresses, phone numbers, websites or per-business scores. Those appear on the listing pages, where a business can ask to be corrected or removed. Publishing the same information as a bulk download is a different act with different consequences, and it is one we have chosen not to take.

No group smaller than 40 businesses. Percentages over a handful of records swing several points on a single business. Those cells are held back rather than published with a warning nobody carries forward when they quote them.

No prices. This dataset holds no pricing information of any kind, and no cost figures should be attributed to it.

Licence and attribution

Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. You may copy, adapt, chart and redistribute it for any purpose, including commercially, provided you credit the source and indicate any changes you made.

WhoToHire, "Australian trade business data", 2026-09-22. https://whotohire.com.au/research

If you publish something built on this, we'd genuinely like to see it — support@whotohire.com.au.

Method and limitations

Each business is checked the same way: an ABN lookup against the national register, a comparison of the listed phone number against the number on the business's own website, an HTTP request to that website, and a match against open mapping data maintained separately from Google.

This is a census of a directory, not of the trade. It covers businesses with enough of a public footprint to be found at all, which if anything biases the figures upward — a business too small to appear here is less likely to publish an ABN, not more. Percentages are of every business in the group, including those where a check could not be completed.

The full write-up, with the findings in prose: the state of Australian trade business data.

Common questions

What licence is the data published under?: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You can copy, chart, republish and build on it commercially, including in a paid report, as long as you credit WhoToHire and link back.
Does it include individual businesses?: No. Only aggregates: the national figures, each category, each state, and each category within each state. Business-level records are not published in bulk, because republishing tens of thousands of businesses' contact details as a downloadable file is a different thing from listing them on pages.
What are the percentages a percentage of?: Of the businesses the check actually ran for, and that base ships as its own column beside each rate: phone_checked, site_checked and corroboration_checked. So site_loads_pct is a share of site_checked, not of businesses. A check that has not run is in neither the numerator nor the denominator — counting it as a failure would publish our own backlog as a finding about tradespeople. The exception is abn_pct, which is a share of every business in the group: an absent ABN is not a failed lookup, so read that one as a floor.
Why are some category and state combinations missing?: Any group with fewer than 40 businesses is omitted. Below that a single record moves a percentage by several points, and small-sample cells get quoted without their sample size sooner or later.
How often is it updated?: It regenerates from the same measurement the directory is built from, so the download and the site are never out of step with each other. The current figures were measured on 2026-09-22.
Can I get a cut that isn't in the file?: Ask at support@whotohire.com.au. Cuts below the minimum group size are held back deliberately, but anything above it that isn't in the export can be sent.