Workplaces, sites, strata & hire fleets

Test and Tag Sydney

Most of what is written about test and tag is wrong in the same two ways: that every workplace has to do it, and that it has to happen every three months. The rule in New South Wales is narrower than that, and the half of the job almost nobody does is the RCD.

Call us on 0401 427 270 Request a quote

Tested to AS/NZS 3760 RCD trip times measured, not guessed After hours, so nothing stops

Rated 5 stars on Google

30+Years on the tools

90%Of defects are found by eye

7am–5pmEvery day, Mon to Sun

Get a fast quote

Pricing agreed before we start. We usually reply the same day.

Licensed 387609CFully insured
AS/NZS 3000Compliant workmanship
5 star ratedOn Google reviews
Upfront pricingAgreed before we start
Same day serviceCall before 11am

Start here

The legal duty is narrower than the industry tells you

Almost every test and tag page in Sydney opens by telling you it is the law and it is due every three months. Neither half of that is right, and a business acting on it either spends money it did not have to spend or, far worse, relaxes about the equipment that genuinely does need attention.

The actual duty sits in clause 150 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation, and it has two conditions that both have to be satisfied. The equipment has to be supplied with electricity through a socket outlet, and it has to be used in an environment where normal use exposes it to operating conditions likely to damage it or shorten its expected life. The regulation names what it means by that: moisture, heat, vibration, mechanical damage, corrosive chemicals or dust. Miss either condition and clause 150 does not bite.

That takes a lot of equipment out of scope. Anything hard wired is out, because it is not fed through a socket outlet. So is plug in equipment living an undisturbed life in a clean, dry room. The three month figure, meanwhile, comes from construction and demolition sites and belongs only there.

The opposite mistake is just as expensive. Clause 150 is one specific duty sitting on top of the primary duty of care in the Work Health and Safety Act, which has not gone anywhere, and the test is about the environment the equipment is used in rather than the label on the business. A quiet office with a kitchen, a cleaner's vacuum, a cupboard of power tools and a tangle of leads under every desk has plenty of items inside clause 150 even though nobody would call it an industrial site.

One housekeeping note, because it catches people out in audits: the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 was replaced by the 2025 Regulation, which commenced on 22 August 2025. The clause numbers below survived the remake unchanged, but any policy document on your shelf citing the 2017 Regulation is citing something that has been repealed.

Does it apply to you

Three questions decide whether testing is a legal obligation

Construction work answers the first one and stops. Everything else has to clear both limbs of clause 150, and most audits go wrong because only one of them was considered.

Scroll to see the full diagram →

What it means: the amber boxes are where a legal obligation actually lands. Construction and demolition work goes straight there with no environment test, on a fixed three month cycle, and it carries a penalty. Everything else has to pass through both gates. The grey boxes are not permission to ignore the equipment: they mean the specific clause 150 duty is not engaged, while the primary duty of care and your own risk assessment carry on exactly as before.

The practical value of the diagram is that it turns a vague compliance worry into a walk around the building. Most sites end up with a split answer: the workshop, the kitchen, the cleaner's trolley and everything that leaves the premises in a ute sit inside clause 150, while the monitors and desk lamps sit outside it. Testing the first group properly and on the right interval is cheaper and considerably more useful than tagging everything once a year because a competitor's website said so.

It also settles the argument about who is allowed to do the work. The regulation asks for a competent person, not a licensed electrician, and SafeWork NSW defines that as someone with the knowledge and skills acquired through training, qualification or experience. Plenty of testing companies are staffed by people who hold the testing unit and nothing else, which is lawful. The difference shows up at the moment something fails: a tester puts a fail tag on it and walks away, and an electrician can open the plug, find the loose earth, repair it and retest.

How often

Intervals are set by how equipment is used, not by your industry

AS/NZS 3760 lists environments and uses. Pages that relabel those rows as office, retail or warehouse are inventing categories, which is why no two of them agree.

How the equipment is used	Inspect and test	Portable RCD push button	Portable RCD trip time	Fixed RCD trip time
Construction, demolition and mining sites	3 months	Daily or before use	Under AS/NZS 3012	Under AS/NZS 3012
Factories, workshops, and places of manufacture, assembly, maintenance or fabrication	6 months	Daily or before use	6 months	12 months
Commercial cleaning equipment	6 months	Daily or before use	6 months	Not listed
Equipment or a supply cord that is flexed in normal use, is open to abuse, or is in a hostile environment	12 months	3 months	6 months	12 months
Equipment or a supply cord that is not flexed, not open to abuse and not in a hostile environment	5 years	3 months	6 months	2 years
Residential areas of hotels, motels, boarding houses, hostels, halls and accommodation houses	2 years	6 months	6 months	6 months
Hire equipment	Before each hire, then 3 months	Not listed	Not listed	12 months

Two rows do most of the work. The twelve month row is the one people mean when they say annual testing: anything whose cord gets flexed, anything that gets knocked about, anything in a hostile environment. Kettles, vacuums, extension leads, power tools, and the portable heater that gets dragged out every June all live there.

The long interval row is the one that surprises everybody, and it is worth being careful with rather than excited about. It applies to equipment that is not flexed, not open to abuse and not in a hostile environment, which is a genuinely narrow description. A monitor bolted to a desk in an air conditioned office qualifies. The lead running from it across the floor to a wall socket, and the four way board it shares with a heater, do not. Very few workplaces are all one row, and the honest answer for most sites is a register with two or three different intervals in it.

Hire equipment is the strictest of the lot for an obvious reason: nobody knows what the last customer did with it. It is tested before it goes out and every three months while it stays out.

On the bench

What a test actually consists of

Four things, and the cheapest one finds most of the faults.

Visual inspection

Standards New Zealand, which co-writes AS/NZS 3760, puts it plainly: more than 90 per cent of defects are detectable by looking, and damaged cords are the classic example. This is the step that gets rushed by people paid per tag, and it is the step that finds the fault that would have hurt somebody.

What it covers: the cord where it enters the plug and where it enters the body, because that is where conductors break; cracked or heat marked housings; bent or scorched plug pins; missing screws and covers; blocked ventilation; and the tell tale signs of a repair done with insulation tape at some point in the past.

Earth continuity

This one applies to Class I equipment only, because Class I is the design that relies on an earth connection to accessible metal parts to keep you safe. The test proves the path from the earth pin on the plug through to the chassis is intact and low enough in resistance to carry a fault current, with the limit set by the standard at one ohm.

An earth that has gone open circuit is the failure mode that turns a metal appliance into a live one the first time the basic insulation lets go, and nothing about the appliance's behaviour warns you beforehand. It works perfectly right up until it does not.

Insulation resistance, or leakage current

Insulation resistance is measured at 500 V DC and has to come in above one megohm. Where equipment contains surge protection the test is done at 250 V DC instead, because putting 500 volts across a metal oxide varistor damages the very device that was protecting the equipment. Getting that wrong is a good way to break a computer while proving it was safe.

For equipment with soft start circuitry or electronic switching, a leakage current measurement is used instead: up to 5 mA for Class I, and 1 mA for Class II gear and for cord sets. Either way, what is being proven is that the barrier between the live parts and your hand is still doing its job.

Polarity, on leads and boards

Extension leads, cord sets and power boards get one extra test: that active, neutral and earth arrive at the far end on the same terminals they left on. A transposed active and neutral leaves an appliance switched on its neutral, so the internals stay live with the switch off, and nothing about the way it runs will tell you.

It is far more common than it should be, and it is almost always a rewireable plug or socket that somebody fitted in a hurry. Leads are also the highest failure category on most sites, which is why they are worth doing first if a budget has to be staged.

Which tests apply comes down to whether the item is Class I or Class II. Class I protects you with basic insulation plus an earth connection to any accessible metal. Class II, usually called double insulated, protects you with two layers of insulation or one reinforced layer and does not rely on an earth at all, so there is no earth continuity test to do.

The way to tell them apart is the double square symbol, one square inside another, moulded into the housing or printed on the rating label. It is not the plug. A three pin plug does not make an appliance Class I, because plenty of double insulated equipment ships with a three pin plug whose earth pin goes nowhere. Testing that item as Class I produces a fail on a machine that was never meant to have an earth, and testing a Class I item as Class II skips the test that mattered most.

Common mistakes

Four things we correct on almost every new site

None of these are unusual, and the last one is the expensive one.

"We are an office, so everything is twelve monthly"

There is no office row in the standard. The categories describe flexing, abuse and hostile environments, and a single premises usually spans two or three of them.

Applying one interval to everything means over testing the fixed gear and, more importantly, under testing whatever leaves the building in the back of a vehicle.

"It has a three pin plug, so test the earth"

Class is decided by the double square symbol on the housing, not by the plug. Double insulated equipment is regularly supplied with a three pin plug and an unbonded earth pin.

The result is a fail tag on a perfectly good machine, an argument with the owner, and a testing record nobody trusts afterwards.

"It is brand new, so test it before we plug it in"

Safe Work Australia is explicit that brand new equipment which has never been put into use does not have to be tested before first use. It should still be visually inspected for damage in transit or installation.

Second hand, hired, repaired and serviced equipment gets no such exemption. Anything that has been apart is tested before it goes back into service.

"We had the test and tag done, so we are compliant"

Only half of it. Clause 165 is a separate duty covering the residual current devices themselves, and it lands on the person with management or control of the workplace.

Tagged appliances plugged into an RCD that no longer trips in time is the worst of both worlds: a folder full of paperwork and no protection behind it.

The forgotten half

Testing the appliance proves nothing about the thing protecting it

Two different tests, two different levels of proof, and only one of them needs an instrument.

Every tagged appliance on a site is plugged into a circuit, and on that circuit sits a residual current device whose entire job is to disconnect before a fault through a person becomes a fatal one. It is a mechanical device with a spring and a set of contacts, it sits untouched for years, and it degrades quietly. What an RCD is and why it is different from a circuit breaker is covered on our switchboard upgrade page. This section is about proving the ones you already have still work.

The first test is the button on the front marked T or TEST. Pressing it injects a small imbalance and the device should drop out immediately. Anyone can do it, it takes seconds, and clause 165 expressly does not require a record when it is done daily. It proves the mechanism releases. It proves nothing about how quickly.

The second test needs an instrument. A known residual current is injected and the disconnection time is measured in milliseconds. For the common 30 mA device the limit is 300 ms, and a device that trips in 280 ms passes while one that trips in 340 ms is legally and practically a failure even though it looks identical and the button still works. This is the test that catches an ageing device, and it is the one that gets left out of a cheap quote.

Intervals for both sit in the table above, and they are shorter than people expect: push button testing daily or before use in factories and cleaning work, three monthly for portable devices otherwise, and operating time testing at six or twelve months depending on where the device lives. Records are required for everything except the daily button test.

Portable RCDs deserve a particular mention because they lead the hardest life of any device on a site. They get dropped, rained on, driven over and left in the back of a ute all summer, and they are usually the last line of protection on gear being used outdoors on somebody else's property. They are also cheap enough that replacing a failed one is rarely worth arguing about.

How we run it

What a visit looks like

We scope it from an item count first, so the number you get is a number and not a range. Then we test out of hours where that suits you, which for most offices and retail sites it does, because unplugging equipment during trading is disruptive in a way that is easy to underestimate. Nobody needs to be on site while we work, though you or a manager are welcome to walk it with us.

Every item that passes gets a durable, non reusable tag carrying the tester's name and company, the test date, the retest date and a reference to AS/NZS 3760. That tag is doing double duty: clause 150 allows the required record to be attached to the equipment as a tag, so a properly filled out tag discharges the record keeping obligation for that item.

You also get a register: every item, its location, what it is, the result, the numbers behind the result and when it is next due. Recording the actual measured values rather than a bare pass is best practice rather than a legal requirement in Australia, and we do it anyway, because a lead whose insulation resistance has fallen from 200 megohms to 4 over two visits is still passing and is telling you something a pass or fail tag never would.

Failures come out of service on the spot with a fail tag, because the risk is somebody plugging it back in. Then, being licensed electricians rather than testers, we can usually fix it while we are standing there. A large share of failures are the plug, the lead or the cord grip rather than the appliance itself, and a new lead on a good machine beats sending it to landfill and buying another.

We work across offices, workshops, warehouses, cafes and restaurants, gyms, childcare and education, strata common property, and construction sites where the three month cycle and the tag colours are a condition of getting on site at all. For an apartment block, the common property equipment sits with the owners corporation and that is handled the way described on our strata electrical page.

Compliance

Who may do it, and what has to be kept

Licence 387609C Level 2 accredited & insured

The regulation asks for a competent person, defined by SafeWork NSW as somebody who has acquired, through training, qualification or experience, the knowledge and skills to inspect and test electrical equipment. A licence is one route to that rather than a legal prerequisite, and the nationally recognised unit for in-service testing is UEERL0003. We hold the electrical licence as well, which is what lets a failed item be repaired instead of condemned.

The record is not optional. Clause 150 requires it to show who carried out the testing, the date, the outcome and the date the next test is due, and to be kept until the next test or until the equipment is permanently removed from use. Clause 165 requires records of RCD testing on the same basis, with daily push button tests expressly excluded.

Construction and demolition work is the strict case. Clause 163 requires compliance with AS/NZS 3012, which is a legal obligation carrying a penalty rather than guidance, and it sets a three month cycle. The quarterly tag colours, red for December to February, green for March to May, blue for June to August and yellow for September to November, are published in the standard as a recommendation, but principal contractors enforce them as a condition of site entry, so in practice they are not optional either.

Where a failed item needs electrical repair work, that side is certified as electrical work. We lodge a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work within 7 days of testing, which since 1 July 2026 goes through the BCNSW eCert portal.

Good to know

Test and tag questions

Is test and tag a legal requirement in New South Wales?

Not for every workplace, and not for every appliance. Clause 150 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation sets two conditions and both have to be met: the equipment is supplied through a socket outlet, and it is used in an environment where normal use is likely to damage it or shorten its life, which the regulation describes as exposure to moisture, heat, vibration, mechanical damage, corrosive chemicals or dust. Hard wired equipment is outside it. So is plug in equipment that lives a quiet life on a desk. Construction and demolition work is different again: clause 163 makes AS/NZS 3012 compliance mandatory there with no environment test at all.

How often does equipment need to be inspected and tested?

AS/NZS 3760 sets the interval by how the equipment is used rather than by what industry you are in. Construction and demolition sites are 3 months under AS/NZS 3012. Factories, workshops and places of manufacture, assembly, maintenance or fabrication are 6 months, as is commercial cleaning equipment. Anything whose cord is flexed in normal use, is open to abuse, or lives in a hostile environment is 12 months. Equipment that is none of those things sits on a much longer interval. Hire equipment is tested before each hire and every 3 months during it.

Do I need to test and tag the appliances in my own home?

No. AS/NZS 3760 covers workplaces and the residential row in it refers to the residential parts of hotels, motels, hostels, boarding houses and accommodation houses, not private homes. The Work Health and Safety Regulation applies to workplaces, and a private house generally is not one, so there is no legal obligation on a homeowner. Plenty of people still have it done on power tools, extension leads and pool equipment because those are the items that actually get damaged, and that is a sensible reason rather than a compliance one.

Does the person doing it have to be a licensed electrician?

In New South Wales, no. The regulation asks for a competent person, which SafeWork NSW defines as someone who has acquired through training, qualification or experience the knowledge and skills to carry out inspection and testing of electrical equipment. A licensed electrician is one route to that, not the only one. We do it as licensed electricians anyway, and the practical difference shows up when something fails: we can find the fault and repair the item on the spot instead of putting a fail tag on it and leaving you to replace it.

What happens when an appliance fails?

It comes out of service immediately and gets a fail tag, because the risk of somebody plugging it back in is the whole reason the tag exists. Then it is either repaired and retested, or written off. A great many failures are the cord or the plug rather than the appliance, and a new lead on a good machine is the cheapest outcome available. You get told which test it failed and by how much, so the decision to repair or replace is yours and it is an informed one.

Do our RCDs need testing as well, and is that the same job?

It is a separate legal duty and it is the part most often missed. Clause 165 requires residual current devices at a workplace to be tested regularly by a competent person, and it puts that duty on the person with management or control of the workplace. There are two different tests. Pressing the test button proves the mechanism releases, and it does not have to be recorded if it is done daily. Injecting a measured residual current and timing the disconnection proves the device still operates fast enough, and that one needs an instrument and a record. A 30 mA device has to disconnect within 300 ms.

How does your pricing work?

Attending your job is a chargeable callout. We confirm what it costs when you book, and the price for the work itself is agreed before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice. For recurring site testing we quote per visit against the equipment count so the number does not move on you halfway through.

Where we work

Test and tag across Sydney

Based in Castlecrag, covering all of Sydney. A few of the suburbs we work in most:

Related work: the devices doing the protecting are covered under switchboard upgrades, transient damage to the equipment behind them under surge protection, and common property testing under strata electrical. Poolside equipment has its own rules on the pool electrician page. See the full list of locations we service.

Need a site tested, or a register that would survive an audit?

Upfront pricing, with the price agreed before we start. We measure and record the numbers, not just the result.

Call 0401 427 270 Request a quote