Queensland test and tag requirements, and the interval nobody quotes

The interval is set by the type of work

This is the thing that catches people out, so it is worth stating on its own.

The same extension lead has a different testing interval depending on whether it is plugged in behind a reception desk, used by a cleaner, taken onto a building site or used on a farm. The Regulation divides workplace electrical equipment up by the kind of work being performed, and each division has its own rules.

So the first question is never "what is it". It is "what is it being used to do".

What actually counts as the equipment

Before the intervals, it is worth knowing what is in scope, because it is narrower than most people assume and the Regulation defines it tightly as specified electrical equipment.

Across the board it means gear with a current rating of not more than 20A: cord extension sets, portable outlet devices such as powerboards, and other equipment connected by a flexible cord and plug to low voltage supply. Fixed wiring is not in this part at all, and portable safety switches are dealt with separately.

For office work and service work there is an extra condition that almost nobody quotes. That third category, the general plug in equipment one, only counts where the item is moved during its normal use for the purpose of its use.

That is a real narrowing. A monitor or a desktop machine that sits in one spot and is never moved does not fall into that category, while the extension lead and the powerboard feeding it plainly do, because they are named in their own right without the movement condition. If you have been quoted to tag every item in an office, it is a fair question to ask which category each one falls into.

Office work and service work

These are covered by section 138, and the intervals surprise most people.

If the equipment is used only for office work, it must be inspected and tested by a competent person at least once every 5 years. The Regulation's own example of office work equipment is a powerboard or extension lead supplying office equipment.

Otherwise, which in this division means service work, it is at least once every year. The Regulation's examples of service work equipment are a portable vacuum cleaner used in a hotel and a hand held blow dryer used in a hairdressing salon.

Five years for an office is a great deal longer than the annual cycle most businesses are sold, and a lot longer than many people believe is legal. If you run an office and you are paying for annual testing, you are buying more than Queensland law requires. That may still be a perfectly sensible thing to do, and plenty of insurers, head contractors and clients ask for more than the legal minimum. Just know which one you are buying.

The safety switch alternative

This is the part that almost never gets mentioned, and for some businesses it changes everything.

Section 138 is written as a choice. The equipment must not be used for service or office work unless it is either inspected and tested at those intervals or connected to a safety switch.

Read that again, because it is an or, not an and. Where the equipment is protected by a safety switch, the testing interval obligation in that section is satisfied by the safety switch instead.

For a business with a lot of plug in equipment in areas already covered by safety switches, that is a genuinely different compliance position from the one most people assume they are in. It is also a good argument for bringing an older board up to scratch: the protection does a job beyond the obvious one.

Two cautions. It does not remove your general electrical safety duty, and it does not make an unsafe appliance safe. Damaged equipment still has to come out of service. And if your client, insurer or head contractor asks for tagging regardless, that is a contractual matter, not a legal one.

Manufacturing work, where the safety switch is not a choice

Manufacturing work has its own section, section 133, and it is stricter in both directions.

The intervals turn on insulation rather than on the setting. Equipment that is double insulated is inspected and tested at least once every year. Equipment that is not double insulated is at least once every 6 months. The Regulation's examples are a hand held grinder and a hand held drill plugged into a socket outlet in a light engineering workshop.

The important difference from office and service work is the safety switch. Under section 138 the safety switch is an alternative to the testing interval. Under section 133 it is an addition: the equipment must be tested at those intervals and be connected to a socket outlet for which a safety switch has been installed.

So if you run a workshop, do not carry the section 138 logic across. Having everything on safety switches does not buy you out of the testing cycle in a manufacturing setting, and the cycle is as short as six months on gear that is not double insulated.

Construction work is a different standard

If the work is construction work, section 140 applies and it points at a different standard entirely: AS/NZS 3012, electrical installations for construction and demolition sites, not AS/NZS 3760.

That is where the three month retest cycle and the quarterly colour rotation come from. If you want the colours and which months they cover, test and tag colours sets them out.

Section 140 also restricts pre tagging. A tag showing a test or retest date must not be fitted to the equipment covered by AS/NZS 3012 clause 3.1 unless the item is new, or it has actually been tested by a competent person and found to comply, with the tag carrying the retest date and identifying details of the tester.

Rural and amusement work

Rural industry work sits in section 141 and works differently again. Rather than a fixed retest clock, it requires specified electrical equipment to be visually inspected for electrical safety defects before it is connected to a socket outlet, proposed work to be assessed for stated electrical risk factors, and control measures put in place where those risk factors are present.

Amusement work is the strictest of the lot, under section 129: inspected and tested by a competent person each time the equipment is assembled on site, and in any event at least once every 6 months. Devices and rides rated at not more than 20A also have to be connected to a safety switch.

For amusement work the inspection has defined content: the competent person decides the safety of earthing, insulation and connections, decides whether any safety switch complies with AS/NZS 3760 when tested, and makes a visual examination of cabling, plugs, sockets, light fittings, enclosures and motors.

Safety switches have their own rules

Separately from the equipment testing above, the safety switches themselves must be tested, and here AS/NZS 3760 does carry legal force because the Regulation calls it up directly.

A safety switch must not be used unless it complies with AS/NZS 3760 when tested. Fixed safety switches must be tested by a competent person immediately after they are connected, and then at the intervals stated in AS/NZS 3760.

Portable safety switches are treated more simply: test them by pushing the test button immediately after connection, then at the intervals in AS/NZS 3760.

If a safety switch is not working properly, a durable tag warning people not to use it goes on immediately and it comes out of use. Same rule as a failed appliance.

Who is allowed to do it

The Regulation requires a competent person, which turns on experience, qualifications and training rather than on holding a particular ticket. For straightforward in service testing of plug in equipment, that does not have to be a licensed electrician.

Two things it does not let you do. Testing does not authorise repair: it is an offence under the Electrical Safety Act 2002 to repair electrical equipment without the appropriate electrical work licence, so the moment something needs fixing rather than tagging, it goes to a licensed person.

And competence has to be real. If you are nominating someone in house, be able to say what their training was, because that is the question you will be asked after an incident rather than before one.

The tag, and the record question

When a competent person tests an item and finds it safe, a durable tag goes on carrying the prescribed details: at least one of the test date or the date it is next due for retesting, plus details identifying who did the testing. Those identifying details can be the individual's name, their electrical contractor licence number, the contracting company's name, or the company's licence number.

There is no colour requirement anywhere in this, outside construction work.

On records: for amusement work the Regulation is explicit that a written record of the test details must be made. More broadly, the practical reason to keep a register is not that a specific section demands a particular form of it, it is that you cannot demonstrate compliance you did not record. In my experience the failure is almost never the testing. It is that nobody can find the evidence two years later when an insurer asks.

Keep it in a form somebody else can read without you in the room. That is the only real test of a register.

New equipment, and the one thing you must not do

Brand new equipment does not need to be tested before it goes into service, and a tag may be attached to it on the basis that it is new.

What you must not do is attach a tag to anything else without the test behind it. Section 138 is explicit: a tag must not be attached unless the equipment is new, or it has been inspected and tested by a competent person and the tag was attached by that competent person.

So a box of tags filled in at the desk to satisfy an audit is not a shortcut, it is a breach. It is also the thing that unravels fastest when something goes wrong, because the tag carries the name or licence number of whoever is supposed to have done the test.

If you want this done properly for a Sunshine Coast business, with records that survive an audit, it is part of what we do under preventative maintenance. What it costs depends on how many items you have, how spread out they are and how much of the existing record we can carry forward, so it is quoted against a real count rather than a guess.

Common questions