Short answer
Check the licence first — interior designers are not licensed in Australia, so check qualifications and public liability insurance instead. Then check that the business is who it says it is: of the 263 Australian interior designers in this directory, only 37.6% publish an ABN you can confirm, and 4.2% list a phone number that contradicts the one on their own website.
Interior Designers handle room and whole-home design, colour and materials, furniture selection, styling and renovation design. This is what to check before you commission someone to shape your home, and what the evidence says about the category as a whole.
There is no interior designer licence — so check something else
Interior design is unlicensed in Australia. Anything structural inside the design — moving a wall, altering plumbing or electrical — needs the licensed trades and approvals those things always need, and a designer should say so. The commercial questions are fees, mark-ups on products they source, and who owns the drawings.
No licence or register. The Design Institute of Australia lists accredited members, which is a professional standard rather than a legal one. The fee structure is the thing to get in writing.
What 263 Australian interior designers actually publish
We check every business in this directory the same way, and publish the result whether it flatters the trade or not. For interior designers:
| What we checked | Interior Designers | All trades |
|---|---|---|
| Publish an ABN we could confirm | 37.6% | 21.5% |
| Listed phone matches their own website | 41.7% | 59.2% |
| Listed phone contradicts their own website | 4.2% | 7.7% |
| Website responded when we checked | 83.3% | 81% |
| Corroborated by two or more sources | 91.7% | 81.1% |
| Median number of Google reviews | 20 | 39 |
What goes wrong with interior designers
- Design fees plus an undisclosed mark-up on everything they buy for you
- A design that assumes structural changes nobody has had approved
- Drawings you cannot give to a builder because the designer retains them
What to ask before the work starts
- How are you paid: a fee, a percentage, a mark-up on products, or all three?
- Which parts of this design need a builder, engineer or council approval?
- Do I own the drawings and may I give them to any builder?
A interior designer who answers all three of those without hesitating is telling you something useful. One who is vague about a licence number is telling you something too.
The median matters more than the average
The median interior designer in this directory has 20 Google reviews. That is the number to hold in your head when you see a perfect five-star rating: five stars from four reviews and 4.6 from three hundred are not comparable, and the second is almost always the safer hire.
It is also why the ranking here weights review volume more heavily than review score. A business cannot buy its position, and a handful of glowing reviews does not move it far.
Where the interior designers are
Melbourne (53), Sydney (51), Brisbane (26). A shortlist for your own area is more useful than a national ranking — the best interior designer in the country is no help if they are four states away.
Where to check a licence, by state
There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state where the work is happening.
- NSWNSW Fair Tradingbuilders, electricians, plumbers and specialist trades
- VICBuilding and Plumbing Commission, and Energy Safe Victoria for electricalbuilding practitioners and plumbers; electricians are Energy Safe Victoria
- QLDQueensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC)building and most trade contractor licences
- WABuilding and Energybuilders, electricians, plumbers and gas fitters
- SAConsumer and Business Servicesbuilding work contractors and supervisors
- TASConsumer, Building and Occupational Services (CBOS)building and occupational licences
- ACTAccess Canberraconstruction occupations licensing
- NTNT Government building practitioner registrationbuilding practitioners and electrical workers
Common questions
- Do interior designers need a licence in Australia?
- No. Interior design is unlicensed in Australia. Anything structural inside the design — moving a wall, altering plumbing or electrical — needs the licensed trades and approvals those things always need, and a designer should say so. The commercial questions are fees, mark-ups on products they source, and who owns the drawings.
- How do I check an interior designer's licence?
- No licence or register. The Design Institute of Australia lists accredited members, which is a professional standard rather than a legal one. The fee structure is the thing to get in writing.
- What percentage of Australian interior designers have a verifiable ABN?
- 37.6% of the 263 interior designers in this directory publish an ABN we could confirm against the national register, against 21.5% across all trades.
- How many reviews should an interior designer have?
- The median interior designer here has 20. Treat a five-star rating from a handful of reviews with more caution than a slightly lower rating from hundreds.
Compare interior designers near you
263 interior designers, ranked on the evidence described above rather than on advertising.
Read next
- How to check an Australian tradie's licenceThere is no national licence register in Australia. Here is the regulator for every state and territory, what each one c…
- What an ABN tells you about a tradie — and what it doesn'tAn ABN is free, public and takes a minute to check — and only 21.5% of 133,763 Australian trade businesses publish one. …
- When a tradie's phone number doesn't match their own website10,300 Australian trade businesses list a phone number that contradicts the one on their own website. Sometimes it is a …