Licensed in another state: can an agent work on a Queensland sale?

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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Coolangatta and Tweed Heads are one continuous town with a state border running through it. An agency on the southern side may know the buyers who want a Queensland apartment a few streets away, and may well know its owner. Whether one of its agents can take that listing is a legal question, and the answer is the same for a Tweed agency as it is for one in Melbourne, Perth or Auckland.

The question is not confined to the border. An owner who lives interstate may prefer the agent who sold their last home. An agency may want to follow a client north. An agent who relocates will want to start work on arrival.

This guide explains how an agent licensed in another state or in New Zealand may lawfully work on a Queensland sale or letting. It covers the scheme Queensland has stayed out of, the scheme it does use, what the Office of Fair Trading asks of an applicant, which Queensland rules then govern the work, and what a seller can sensibly ask before signing with an agent based elsewhere. The sources are the Office of Fair Trading's pages, the Property Occupations Act 2014, the Commonwealth's guidance on mutual recognition and a Queensland Government statement on the automatic scheme.

The starting rule: Queensland work needs a Queensland licence

The Office of Fair Trading states the rule in the first line of its page on transfers, last updated on 14 May 2026: a person must hold a Queensland licence or registration to work as a property agent in Queensland.

The rule follows the property and the work, not the agent's address. The Property Occupations Act 2014 creates the licence categories, and section 24 lists them as auctioneer, real estate agent and resident letting agent. An interstate licence is issued under another parliament's Act. It proves that its holder is trained and of good standing somewhere else. It is not, by itself, any of the three Queensland documents.

Acting without the Queensland document has consequences that the regulator spells out in a related context. Its page for people taking over a letting business says a person without a licence cannot collect rent, manage property or take any commission or fees, and can be fined for acting as a licensee or taking any reward. An agent who cannot lawfully take a reward for a Queensland sale has nothing to offer a Queensland seller until the licensing is in order.

The automatic scheme that stops at the border

Readers who follow occupational licensing will have heard of automatic mutual recognition, and may assume it solves the problem. In Queensland it does not.

The Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workplace Relations explains the scheme on its mutual recognition page. Part 3A of the Mutual Recognition Act 1992 provides for automatic deemed registration. A worker licensed for an eligible occupation in one state or territory is taken to be registered for the same activities in another, without a further application and without a further fee. The worker has to keep the home licence current and comply with the laws of the second state. Governments have exempted a range of occupations on safety grounds, and in some cases the worker must notify the second state before starting.

The same page then sets the limit. It says automatic deemed registration is available in all states except Queensland, and adds in a separate sentence that Queensland is not currently participating in the scheme.

Queensland's caution was public from the beginning. On 11 December 2020 the then Treasurer, Cameron Dick, issued a statement headed "Queensland to retain veto on automatic mutual recognition". It said the state had secured clauses in the intergovernmental agreement that allowed it to withdraw from the scheme in whole or in part, and that people arriving from interstate would continue to engage with Queensland's regulators. The examples he gave were fire safety, electrical and plumbing work, not property. The practical result for property agents is the one the Commonwealth page records.

Mutual recognition: the route Queensland does use

The older scheme remains, and it is the one the Office of Fair Trading applies. Under Part 3 of the Mutual Recognition Act 1992, the Commonwealth page explains, the holder of a registration or licence in one state or territory can receive a registration or licence in a second jurisdiction for an equivalent occupation. The person applies to the local registration authority, proves the existing licence and pays a fee. Each state decides for itself which occupations it licenses, and the Commonwealth department has no part in the decision.

A matching arrangement runs across the Tasman. The same page describes it as allowing the holder of an Australian or New Zealand registration to obtain one in the other country after notifying the local registration authority and paying any fee.

For property, the local registration authority is the Office of Fair Trading. Its page says most interstate or New Zealand property agent licences can be transferred to the Queensland equivalent under mutual recognition. The word that matters is equivalent. Recognition converts a licence into its counterpart; it does not upgrade it, and where another jurisdiction's licence classes no longer line up with Queensland's, there is nothing to convert.

Recognition rests on the licence already held. A new Queensland applicant attaches proof of qualifications; the transfer page asks instead for a copy of the current licence. Everything else remains: the agent still applies, still pays, still passes a criminal history check and still waits for a decision.

What transfers and what does not

The regulator's page names three cases in which mutual recognition is not available, and each catches people who assume otherwise.

The second and third exclusions have a stated reason. The page says changes to the law in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory mean a Class 2 real estate agent licence from either is not equivalent to a Queensland real estate agent licence. A holder of one makes a fresh Queensland application and is assessed like any other applicant.

That matters on the Gold Coast border more than anywhere. The agent across the street in Tweed Heads holds a New South Wales document, and New South Wales documents figure in two of the three exclusions.

The corporate exclusion affects agencies, and it is dealt with further below.

The transfer application

The process is on paper. The applicant lodges the form in person at an Office of Fair Trading counter or posts it to the Industry Licensing Unit in Brisbane.

The attachments are few. The applicant supplies a copy of the current interstate or New Zealand licence and a certified copy of one identity document: a birth certificate or extract, a driver licence, a passport or a citizenship certificate. A person whose name has changed adds the original or a certified copy of the official record of the change. The page reminds applicants that a photocopy is not a certified copy. Certification is done by a justice of the peace, a commissioner for declarations, a solicitor, a barrister or a notary public, and originals should not be posted.

The criminal history check is described as thorough, and a fee applies to it. Applicants born in New Zealand, or holding a New Zealand passport, obtain their New Zealand criminal history, or a letter confirming there is none, from that country's Ministry of Justice. The regulator accepts only an original dated within one month of being sent. It says the New Zealand check can take up to 20 working days and is free.

The four to six weeks assume a complete file. If information or fees are missing, the office asks for them, and an application left incomplete may be withdrawn. An applicant who withdraws, or is refused, may be entitled to a partial refund, and the criminal history fee may be refunded if the check has not started.

Working while the application is assessed

The transfer page contains the one provision that lets an interstate agent start before the Queensland document arrives. An applicant may keep working while the application is assessed, on three conditions. The agent must follow any restrictions on the existing interstate or New Zealand licence. The agent must stop working if that licence expires. And the agent must keep the receipt for the transfer application fee and show it to an inspector if asked.

The order of events matters. The allowance belongs to an applicant, a person who has lodged the form and paid. It does not cover an agent who intends to apply, or one who works on a Queensland listing for months on the strength of the home licence alone.

It also has a visible side. During those weeks the agent has no Queensland licence to produce, because none has been issued. What the agent can produce is the interstate licence, which must still be current, and the fee receipt. A seller dealing with an agent in that position is entitled to see both.

Mutual recognition carries a licence across the border. It does not carry the agent across without an application.

Which Queensland rules govern the work

A transferred licence is a Queensland licence, and everything that attaches to a Queensland licence attaches to it. The Commonwealth's summary of the principle is short: a worker in a second state complies with that state's laws. The regulator's page closes on the same note, telling new licensees that they must meet the legal requirements once licensed or face penalties.

Four sets of Queensland rules stand out for someone trained elsewhere.

The appointment. The Queensland Government's page of property industry forms says Form 6, the residential agent appointment or reappointment, must be given to the client before any property agent service is performed. Commercial property has its own version, Form 6A. The form is Queensland's own, and it is the one a Queensland seller should be handed, whatever paperwork the agent uses at home.

Disclosure. The same page lists Form 8, the disclosure to a potential buyer, which sets out referral relationships and commissions and, for developers, interests in the property. It notes that penalties apply for failing to disclose. Form 7 covers an agent or developer with a beneficial interest in the sale.

Conduct. The Property Occupations Regulation 2014 sets conduct standards by class of licensee. They are Queensland's own text, and an agent who learned another state's rules of conduct has a new set to read.

The business itself. The Act asks for a business address at which documents can be served, which section 31 says cannot be a post office box, and a nominated principal place of business where there is more than one. Section 19 defines the person in charge of a place of business as the person who personally supervises, manages or controls it. An agent who runs Queensland work from an interstate office has to fit that structure.

The regulator may also shape the licence itself. The transfer page says Queensland may attach conditions to the Queensland licence or registration so that its holder can operate in the state, and section 54 of the Act gives the chief executive the power to impose conditions that limit or prohibit particular activities. An agent's Queensland document may therefore be narrower than a locally issued one, and its conditions bind.

Trust money handled in Queensland

Deposits and rents are where the differences between jurisdictions are least forgiving, because the money is someone else's.

The Office of Fair Trading defines trust money as money handled on behalf of someone else. Its trust account pages for the property industry are organised around the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014, a Queensland statute. Under it, the opening or closing of a trust account, or a change to its name, is notified to the regulator on Form 5. An agent with a trust account must appoint an auditor. The audit report is prepared by a qualified auditor and lodged with the office, and the auditor must report certain matters to the department immediately.

The regulator's pages also describe a special trust account, which may be used for money paid toward the sale of a property, and they set out separately how trust money is received, receipted and withdrawn.

The consequence for an agent arriving from elsewhere is that the Queensland notification, the Queensland auditor and the Queensland audit report all belong to a trust account kept under the Queensland Act. An interstate agent who will hold a deposit on a Queensland sale needs to settle, before the contract is signed, whose trust account will receive it and under which regime that account is audited.

For the seller, the matter reduces to one question about the contract: who is named to hold the deposit, and can that party's Queensland standing be verified?

Interstate agencies and the corporate licence

An agency is usually a company, and the transfer page is unambiguous about companies: mutual recognition is not available for corporate real estate licences. An interstate agency that wants to carry on business in Queensland applies for a new corporate licence.

This is the point at which an individual's recognition and an agency's ambitions part ways. A principal who transfers a personal licence in six weeks has not thereby licensed the company through which the agency trades and invoices. The company makes its own application, and the Act's requirements about places of business and persons in charge apply to it.

The consequence shows up on the appointment form. The seller appoints a licensee, and the name on the form should be a name that holds a Queensland licence. Where an interstate brand appears on the marketing and a different entity appears on the form, the entity on the form is the one the seller has engaged.

Working in conjunction with a Queensland licensee

Many interstate agents never transfer at all. They bring a buyer or a seller to a Queensland agency and share in the result.

The Real Estate Institute of Queensland describes a conjunction as an arrangement between two agencies to bring about one sale, in which the listing agency is the one appointed by the seller. The licensing logic set out above explains why this suits a cross-border sale. The Queensland agency holds the appointment, performs the services that Queensland reserves for its licensees and answers to the Office of Fair Trading for them. The interstate agency's part is settled between the two firms.

The limit is the one already described. Introducing a client is one thing; negotiating a Queensland sale for reward is work the Queensland licence exists to cover. Where the line falls in a particular arrangement depends on what each agency actually does.

What a Queensland seller should check

None of this requires a seller to become a licensing expert. It suggests a short list of questions, each of which a properly organised agent can answer at once.

The first question has a time dimension. An agent who has lodged a transfer application may lawfully work in the meantime, but the allowance ends if the home licence expires, and it is bounded by whatever restrictions that licence carries. A campaign that will run for months deserves a firmer footing than an application in progress, and it is reasonable to ask when the Queensland document is expected.

The second deserves a moment with the form itself. Because corporate licences do not transfer, the company behind a familiar interstate brand may not be the body licensed in Queensland. The appointment form shows who is.

The New South Wales exclusions deserve a thought on the southern Gold Coast in particular. A salesperson holding a New South Wales registration, or an agent holding a Class 2 licence, cannot use mutual recognition at all, and needs a new Queensland application decided before working north of the line.

An agent from another state can serve a Queensland seller well. Knowledge of the buyers a property will attract is not confined by borders, and a seller who has dealt with one agent for years has good reason to return. Queensland's rule is that the person who does the work is on its own books: holding its licence, using its forms and answering to its regulator.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

About Kooky and Shaka →