How many trade businesses are there in the Australian Capital Territory?

This dataset holds 1,052 across 7 trades, measured on 2026-09-22. It is a census of the businesses in this directory rather than of every trade business in the Australian Capital Territory, so treat it as a large sample with a known bias toward businesses that have a public footprint.

How many ACT trade businesses publish an ABN you can check?

16.3% — 171 of 1,052. Nationally the figure is 19.5%, so the Australian Capital Territory sits 16% below it. An ABN is free to look up on the national register, which makes it the cheapest identity check available to a customer.

Who regulates trade licensing in the Australian Capital Territory?

Access Canberra, covering construction occupations licensing. Licensing in Australia is a state matter with no national register, so a licence issued elsewhere does not automatically carry over. Check the licence with the regulator in the state where the work is being done.

How many ACT businesses list a phone number that doesn't match their website?

7.5% of the 625 we compared, or about 47 businesses. This counts only direct contradictions between a listed number and the number on the business's own site, not missing numbers and not businesses the comparison has not run for.

Which trades in the Australian Capital Territory are best documented?

Plumbers publish a checkable ABN most often at 21.4%, and pet groomers least often at 0%. Only trades with at least 40 businesses in the state are compared.

Research

Trade businesses in the Australian Capital Territory, by the numbers

We checked what 1,052 ACT trade businesses publish about themselves, and how much of it holds up against an independent source.

Measured 2026-09-22 · free to reuse with attribution

16.3%

publish a checkable ABN

of all 1,052. 16% below the national rate of 19.5%.

63%

phone number confirmed against their own site

of 625 compared. 5% above the national rate of 59.8%.

7.5%

phone number contradicting their own site

of 625 compared. 10% above the national rate of 6.8%.

84.2%

have a website that loads

of 721 fetched. In line with the 82.6% national rate.

Google reviews for the median business

The national median is 40. Review counts track how often people hire a trade, not how well they do it — a trade you call once a decade will always sit lower.

What stands out

The Australian Capital Territory publishes checkable ABNs at 16.3%, 16% below the 19.5% national rate. Registration rules are set federally — an ABN is the same instrument everywhere — so a state gap is about what businesses choose to publish rather than about who is registered.

47 businesses in the Australian Capital Territory — 7.5% of the 625 numbers we compared — list a phone number that contradicts the one on their own website, 10% above the national 6.8%. Worth checking before you call, because the same signature appears on both a listing nobody has updated in years and a lead-reselling service sitting between you and the person who does the work.

Licensing is where the state actually matters. Australia has no national trade register, so a licence is issued and enforced by Access Canberra and a licence from another state does not automatically carry over.

Checking a licence in the Australian Capital Territory

Access Canberra maintains the public register covering construction occupations licensing. Searching it is free, takes about a minute, and is the only way to confirm a licence is current — a number printed on a van proves nothing on its own.

Access Canberra

Step by step: how to check an Australian tradie's licence

ACT trades compared

Trades with at least 40 businesses in the Australian Capital Territory. Smaller groups are held back rather than published as percentages that swing on a single record.

Verification coverage for trade businesses in the Australian Capital Territory, by trade
Trade	Businesses	ABN	Phones checked	Phone confirmed	Phone mismatch	Sites checked	Site loads	Median reviews
Mechanics	276	16.3%	114	66.7%	6.1%	126	88.1%	75
Builders	154	19.5%	100	67%	5%	118	83.1%	12
Cleaners	95	14.7%	65	69.2%	3.1%	76	81.6%	38
Plumbers	56	21.4%	34	64.7%	8.8%	40	82.5%	38
Photographers	43	9.3%	29	—	—	37	81.1%	18
Gardeners & Landscapers	41	9.8%	30	66.7%	3.3%	31	96.8%	19
Pet Groomers	40	0%	23	—	—	29	—	53

Method, and what it can't tell you

1,052 trade businesses in the Australian Capital Territory. Every one of them gets the same four checks: 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.

Not all four have run everywhere yet, so the figures above are shares of what has been checked: 625 phone comparisons, 721 website fetches and 851 cross-source matches out of 1,052 businesses. A check that has not run counts in neither half of a percentage.

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 these figures upward — a business too small to appear here is less likely to publish an ABN, not more.

ABN registration is the one figure taken over every business in the group rather than over a checked subset, because an absent ABN is not a failed lookup — read it as a floor. Review counts and averages are held; individual reviews are not, so nothing here can tell you whether a business's reviews arrived steadily or all at once.

Full method and national figures: the state of Australian trade business data.

Common questions

How many trade businesses are there in the Australian Capital Territory?: This dataset holds 1,052 across 7 trades, measured on 2026-09-22. It is a census of the businesses in this directory rather than of every trade business in the Australian Capital Territory, so treat it as a large sample with a known bias toward businesses that have a public footprint.
How many ACT trade businesses publish an ABN you can check?: 16.3% — 171 of 1,052. Nationally the figure is 19.5%, so the Australian Capital Territory sits 16% below it. An ABN is free to look up on the national register, which makes it the cheapest identity check available to a customer.
Who regulates trade licensing in the Australian Capital Territory?: Access Canberra, covering construction occupations licensing. Licensing in Australia is a state matter with no national register, so a licence issued elsewhere does not automatically carry over. Check the licence with the regulator in the state where the work is being done.
How many ACT businesses list a phone number that doesn't match their website?: 7.5% of the 625 we compared, or about 47 businesses. This counts only direct contradictions between a listed number and the number on the business's own site, not missing numbers and not businesses the comparison has not run for.
Which trades in the Australian Capital Territory are best documented?: Plumbers publish a checkable ABN most often at 21.4%, and pet groomers least often at 0%. Only trades with at least 40 businesses in the state are compared.

Using these numbers

Free to quote, chart or republish under CC BY 4.0, which asks only for attribution and a link. The full aggregate dataset is available as a free download. If you need a cut that isn't published, ask.

WhoToHire, “ACT trade business data 2026”, 2026-09-22. https://whotohire.com.au/research/states/act

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