Gas compliance certificates in NSW: what you should be handed.
A new cooktop, a hot water swap, a bayonet for the heater, a gas line moved during a reno. All of it is gasfitting work, and all of it generates a certificate. Here is which certificate applies to you, what changed on 1 March 2026, and why the piece of paper matters years after the gasfitter has driven off.
In NSW, every piece of gasfitting work produces a certificate, whatever it cost and whether the property is a house, a shop or a factory. If the installation is connected to a gas network you get a Certificate of Compliance. If it runs on bottled LPG instead, you get a Certificate of Inspection.
The gasfitter has five business days after finishing to lodge it, and since 1 March 2026 it has to go through the BCNSW eCert portal. Emailed or posted copies of the old paper forms are no longer accepted. If nobody has mentioned a certificate to you, ask, because that paperwork is what your insurer and your conveyancer will want to see later.
What the certificate actually is
It is a signed statement from a licensed gasfitter that the work they did meets the standards it has to meet. Not a receipt, not a warranty, and not a general safety inspection of your whole house. It covers the work that was done, on the installation it was done to.
Which of the two you get depends on one thing only: whether the installation is connected to a gas network.
| Your setup | What you get |
|---|---|
| Natural gas, connected to the network | A Certificate of Compliance, lodged by the gasfitter with Building Commission NSW. |
| LPG, bottles or a tank, no network connection | A Certificate of Inspection, provided to the owner of the installation, with the gasfitter keeping a copy for five years. |
Most homes around Penrith, Kingswood and Cranebrook are on natural gas, so a Certificate of Compliance is the usual answer. Properties out toward the rural fringe and up through the lower mountains are more often on bottles, which puts them in the second row.
When one is required (shorter answer than you expect)
Effectively always. You need a licence to carry out any gasfitting work in NSW regardless of what the work cost, and regardless of whether the property is residential, commercial or industrial. There is no minor-works exemption that lets a small job skip the paperwork.
In practice that covers the jobs people do not think of as “gas work”:
- Installing or replacing a cooktop, oven, or gas heater.
- Swapping a gas hot water unit, even like-for-like in the same spot.
- Adding a bayonet point, or moving an existing one during a kitchen renovation.
- Running a new line for a barbecue, a pizza oven or a pool heater.
- Converting an appliance between natural gas and LPG.
- Repairs and alterations to existing pipework or appliances.
If a gasfitter has touched gas at your place, a certificate should exist. If one does not, that is worth a question rather than a shrug.
What changed on 1 March 2026
This is the part most people, and a fair few tradespeople, have not caught up with yet.
Certificates used to move around as paper and PDFs. From 1 March 2026, gasfitters must submit certificates of compliance and inspection through the BCNSW eCert portal, and emailed or posted copies of PDFs or forms are no longer accepted. The older MyInspections portal no longer takes gasfitting certificates either. The deadline itself is unchanged at five business days after the work is completed.
Nothing you have to do, and one thing worth checking. If a gasfitter emails you a scanned paper certificate and tells you it is “lodged”, that is no longer how lodgement works. Ask them to confirm it went through eCert. It costs you nothing to ask, and it is the difference between a record that exists and one that does not.
What you should actually be handed
At the end of a gas job, a reasonable set of paperwork looks like this:
- Your copy of the certificate, showing the gasfitter’s name and licence number, the address, the date, and a description of the work.
- A tax invoice that describes the same work, so the two documents agree with each other.
- The appliance paperwork: the manufacturer’s manual, model and serial number, and warranty registration details where they apply.
Keep all three together, somewhere findable, not in the drawer with the takeaway menus. The moment you need them is usually the moment you are already stressed about something else.
Why the paperwork matters later
The certificate is not really for the day of the job. It is for four moments that come later.
Insurance
After a fire or a gas incident, the first question is who did the work and whether they were licensed. A certificate answers that in one document. No certificate, and the answer becomes an investigation.
Selling the house
Buyers and their conveyancers ask about work done to the property. Being able to produce the certificates for the gas work is a small thing that takes a delay out of settlement.
If you are a landlord
You are responsible for the safety of the gas installation you are renting out. The certificates are your record that work on it was done properly, by someone licensed to do it.
Appliance warranty
Manufacturers commonly require that an appliance was installed by a licensed person to the relevant standard. When a unit fails at three years old, evidence of compliant installation is what keeps the claim alive.
Commercial and industrial sites: same rule, more of it
The licensing and certification rule does not change because the building is a kitchen, a workshop or a factory. What changes is the volume, and what it costs you to be missing it.
On a commercial site the certificate sits alongside a wider compliance file: appliance servicing records, gas train and regulator work, pressure testing at commissioning, isolation and lock-out procedures, and whatever the site’s own safety system requires. A venue with six burners and a combi oven has more gas assets than most houses have appliances, and each piece of work on them generates its own record.
The practical failure mode we see is not a business refusing to comply. It is a business that has had five different tradespeople through over eight years and cannot lay hands on any of the paperwork when an auditor or an insurer asks. If that sounds familiar, the fix is to start a file now and add to it, rather than trying to reconstruct history.
We cover the commercial side of this on our hospitality and retail and facilities maintenance pages.
A compliance certificate covers the work that was carried out. It is not a clean bill of health for every gas appliance and every metre of pipe in the building. If you want the whole installation assessed, that is a separate piece of work and it should be scoped and quoted as one.
What to do if you were never given one
Do not panic, and do not assume the worst. Work through it in order:
- Ask the gasfitter who did the job. Most of the time it exists and simply was not passed on. A phone call usually resolves it.
- Check the licence. NSW licences can be checked publicly. If the person who did the work was not licensed for gasfitting, no certificate is coming, and that is a different problem.
- Get the installation looked at. If the work cannot be traced to a licensed person, have a licensed gasfitter inspect what was done. Unlicensed gas work is not something to leave sitting.
- Report a defect if there is one. NSW has a process for defective gas installations, including defect notices attached to the installation itself.
Every gas job we do gets its certificate lodged, and you get a copy without having to ask. For commercial clients we keep the records on file for the site as well, so the file exists in two places rather than one. See our gas fitting page for what we do and do not take on.
Common questions
Do I need a certificate for a simple cooktop swap?
What is the difference between a Certificate of Compliance and a Certificate of Inspection?
How long does the gasfitter have to lodge it?
I am selling my house and cannot find the certificate. What now?
Can I do my own gas work if I am handy?
Does a compliance certificate mean my whole gas system is safe?
Where this comes from
Gas regulation in NSW sits under the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act 2017 and its 2018 Regulation, administered by Building Commission NSW. These are the pages this entry is based on.
Written 18 August 2026 and correct against NSW Government guidance on that date. General information for property owners and site managers in our service area, not advice on your specific installation. Building Commission NSW sets and revises these requirements.