What is the single most useful check?

The licence, for any trade that requires one. It is free, takes about a minute, and it is the one check that speaks directly to whether the person is legally permitted to do the work at all.

What if a business has no online presence at all?

It is not disqualifying — plenty of good tradespeople work entirely on referral and have no website. It does mean the checks available to you are narrower, so lean harder on the ABN, the licence and a personal recommendation from someone who has actually used them.

Does this site do these checks for me?

Some of them. Every listing here shows whether the ABN was confirmed, whether the phone number matches the business's own site, whether the website responded and whether independent sources corroborate the business — and shows which checks could not be run rather than leaving a blank that reads as a pass. Licence checking remains yours to do, because there is no national register to check against.

Check a tradie online in 10 minutes

Short answer

Confirm the ABN on the national register, search the licence on your state regulator's register, compare the phone number against the business's own website, read the middle of the review distribution rather than the top, and confirm the entity on the quote matches the entity you checked. Ten minutes, no cost, and it eliminates most of what goes wrong.

Ordered by how much risk each step removes for the time it takes. If you only do the first two, you have done most of the good available.

1. ABN — two minutes

Search the ABN on the national register. It confirms the entity exists, is registered, whether GST is registered, and what trading names attach to it. Check the name matches what is on the quote. Across 36,230 businesses here, only 9.8% publish one where a customer can find it, so you may have to ask — and the response to being asked is itself informative.

2. Licence — two minutes

For any licensed trade, search the number on your state's register. Confirm it is current, that the class covers this work, and that the name matches the entity you are contracting with. This is the single highest-value check available and it is free in every state.

3. Phone number — one minute

Find the business's own website and compare the phone number there with the one you have. 4.8% of businesses measured here list a number that contradicts their own site. It is not proof of anything, but it is the cheapest way to notice you may be dealing with a referral service rather than the tradesperson.

4. Reviews — three minutes

Ignore the headline score. Look at how many there are, whether they arrived steadily or in bursts, whether they describe actual jobs, and how the business replies to criticism. The median business here has 29 reviews — five stars from four is not a track record.

5. The entity on the quote — one minute

Check that the name and ABN on the quote match what you verified. A quote from a different entity than the one that holds the licence or the insurance is the detail that turns a claim into an argument about who you actually contracted with.

6. A search of the name plus the word 'complaint' — one minute

Crude, and occasionally very effective. Tribunal decisions, regulator media releases and forum threads surface here. Weigh what you find sensibly: one angry post is not a pattern, and a regulator action is.

Common questions

What is the single most useful check?: The licence, for any trade that requires one. It is free, takes about a minute, and it is the one check that speaks directly to whether the person is legally permitted to do the work at all.
What if a business has no online presence at all?: It is not disqualifying — plenty of good tradespeople work entirely on referral and have no website. It does mean the checks available to you are narrower, so lean harder on the ABN, the licence and a personal recommendation from someone who has actually used them.
Does this site do these checks for me?: Some of them. Every listing here shows whether the ABN was confirmed, whether the phone number matches the business's own site, whether the website responded and whether independent sources corroborate the business — and shows which checks could not be run rather than leaving a blank that reads as a pass. Licence checking remains yours to do, because there is no national register to check against.

How to check a business online in ten minutes