NSW legislation and regulation
Building Productivity Reforms
The NSW Government is proposing reforms to building laws to support industry productivity, modernise building approvals and accelerate housing delivery while maintaining construction quality.
Design and Building Practitioner Regulation amendments
Changes to the regulation that were due to commence on 1 July 2025 have been deferred.
These changes relate to the expansion of Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 to class 3 and 9c remedial work and building practitioner professional indemnity insurance.
Reforms to building fire safety
Changes to building fire safety regulation in NSW are being introduced to make buildings safer and increase compliance with fire safety measures.
These changes affect building owners, developers, fire safety practitioners, certifiers and building practitioners.
Licensing requirements for medical gas work
Changes to licensing requirements for working on medical gas systems in medical and health facilities came into effect on 1 October 2022.
Security of Payment laws
These changes came into effect 1 March 2021. For all owner occupier construction contracts entered into before 1 March 2021, the previous laws will continue to apply.
Building product safety laws
The Building Products (Safety) Act 2017 came into effect from 18 December 2017.
The laws prevent the use of unsafe building products in building and construction, by identifying, restricting and rectifying building products which pose a safety risk in buildings.
Industry practices and requirements
Building fire safety requirements under AS 1851-2012
From 13 February 2026, all class 1b and class 2 to class 9 buildings in NSW must have essential fire safety measures inspected and tested in accordance with AS 1851-2012 (unless there is a performance solution in place).
New portal for certificates of compliance and inspection
The BCNSW eCert portal streamlines how specialist trades submit their certificates of compliance and inspection.
From December 2025, electricians, gasfitters and medical gasfitters can start to use the portal. It will become mandatory to use BCNSW eCert in March 2026.
Strata building bond percentage increase
A change has been made to the Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 to defer the increase to the strata building bond percentage rate from 2% to 3% until 1 July 2025.
Enforcement of Supervision Practice Standard for apprentices in the electrical industry
Compliance with the supervision practice standard (SPS) became mandated on 1 September 2024.
Any person, company or organisation acting as an employer of electrical apprentices must follow the SPS.
Updates to National Construction Code (NCC)
The NCC is amended every three years and technical proposals to change the NCC are considered during this cycle
The current edition of the Code is NCC 2022 Amendment 2, which came into effect on 29 July 2025.
Decennial liability insurance (DLI)
Decennial (ten year) liability insurance (DLI) is being proposed as a type of insurance to cover any potential costs to fix serious defects of critical building elements for up to 10 years.