Only 5.7% of Australian trade businesses publish their opening hours

Short answer

3,720 of 65,117 Australian trade businesses — 5.7% — publish opening hours in a form anyone can actually read. That is why "open now" is the least reliable filter in any trade directory: for nineteen businesses in twenty there is nothing behind it. For work that is happening right now, a page of businesses that say they take emergency callouts is worth more than a badge nobody can verify.

Hours are the piece of information people most want from a directory at the moment they need it most, and the piece least likely to exist. A mobile trade does not keep shop hours; a sole trader's "hours" are whenever the phone is answered. So an "open now" toggle in a trade directory is mostly an interface pretending to a fact.

What we hold, honestly

SignalBusinessesShare of the directory
Opening hours published3,7205.7%
Service areas published2,8404.4%
ABN published and confirmed12,45819.1%
Phone number matches their own site19,07129.3%

Those are floors, not failures. A business with no published hours has not failed a check — the check has nothing to run against. This site prints the base beside every rate for exactly that reason.

Which trades publish hours most often

The pattern is what you would expect and it is worth seeing anyway: trades with a premises publish hours, and trades that come to you do not.

TradePublish hoursBusinesses
Removalists25.3%1,226
Car Washes22.7%1,552
Locksmiths13.4%1,002
Pest Controllers13.2%1,387
Garage Door Specialists12.8%579
Solar Installers11.4%1,510
Plumbers10.6%3,494
Car Detailers8.8%1,247
Heating & Cooling8.8%2,122
Arborists6.8%916

What to do at 11pm instead

Use the emergency pages. A business appears on one because it says it takes emergency callouts, and each page needs at least ten of them before it exists at all — so what you get is a list to work down, not a single "open now" claim to trust.

  • Ring, do not message. Nobody is reading a contact form at 11pm.
  • Ask about the callout fee before describing the job. After-hours rates are legitimately higher, and they should be a number you hear before anyone is dispatched.
  • For a burst pipe, turn the water off at the meter first; for anything electrical and smoking, the switchboard. That often converts an emergency into a job you can book in daylight, which is the version of the job nobody charges an after-hours rate for.

Common questions

Are Australian tradies really available 24/7?
Some genuinely are, but very few publish anything you can verify: 5.7% of Australian trade businesses publish opening hours at all. Treat "24/7" as a marketing line and ask what the after-hours callout fee is.
Why does this directory not have an 'open now' filter?
Because it would be honest for 5.7% of listings and invented for the rest. Emergency pages, built from businesses that say they take callouts, answer the same question without pretending to a fact we do not hold.
How much more does an after-hours callout cost?
We hold no price data and will not guess at one. Ask for the callout fee as a number before the job is described, and get it in a text message.

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