Who has to be licensed on a bathroom renovation

Three trades on a bathroom are licensed and one of the most important is not. Sanitary plumbing needs a person authorised under the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006. Prescribed electrical work needs a registered electrical worker who gives you a certificate of compliance. Structural work is restricted building work and needs a Licensed Building Practitioner. Tiling and waterproofing are not licensed at all, so the check there is the membrane system, the training and the records.

The table

Plumbing

The PGDB's consumer guidance is blunt: homeowners cannot fix or unfix sanitary plumbing. That is not a recommendation, it is the scope of the Act. And the Building Act reinforces it from the other direction: the plumbing exemptions in Schedule 1 sit in Part 2, headed “Sanitary plumbing and drainlaying carried out by person authorised under Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006”. Doing your own waste run does not just risk a leak, it takes the job outside the exemption that made it consent-free.

Self-certification, from 7 September 2026

This is new and widely misunderstood. From 7 September 2026, certifying plumbers and certifying drainlayers can apply to the PGDB for a self-certification endorsement. To get it they must hold a current certifying licence, complete the Board's online training, have appropriate insurance, have appropriate business systems and recordkeeping, and pay an application fee and audit levy of $2,260.

What it means for a homeowner is narrower than it sounds. The Board tells consumers the choice only arises “if your plumbing or drainlaying work needs a building consent”: you can use an endorsed plumber who self-certifies eligible work, or have a building consent authority inspect it. Self-certification is not automatically on a licence, and only endorsed plumbers can do it. You can search the Board's public register for an endorsed plumber near you.

Electrical

A bathroom is a wet zone with rules about where fittings can go, so the lighting, the extractor fan and any heated towel rail are a registered electrician's work. The EWRB publishes consumer guidance on what documentation you should get, including the certificate of compliance for prescribed electrical work. Get it, and keep it with the rest of your records.

Restricted building work

Most bathroom renovations do not involve any. Once you are removing or altering a wall, or touching the building envelope, you are into restricted building work and need a Licensed Building Practitioner, who issues a record of work. This is why our Reconfigure scope is on a waitlist rather than a buy button: we are not going to sell work we cannot yet staff with the right licence.

The unlicensed half of the job

Tiling and waterproofing are where bathrooms actually fail, and neither is licensed. There is no register and no minimum qualification. What exists instead is the membrane manufacturer's system and its installation instructions, which the installation is judged against, and the photographic record of whether they were followed. Bathroom waterproofing covers what to ask.

What we hold, and what we do not

Bathroom Renovation NZ is the contracting party. We are not a plumbing company, not an electrical company and not a Licensed Building Practitioner. A partner bathroom crew does the strip-out, carpentry, waterproofing and tiling. A licensed plumber and a registered electrician do the restricted work and supply their own records. We say so on how it works, and in the disclosure statement that goes with a contract.