HVAC and refrigeration ("fridgie") work has one ticket you cannot skip — ARCtick for refrigerant handling — and it sits on top of your electrical or refrigeration trade qualification. Here is the year-one kit, the rates, and the tax-and-super reality. (Figures indicative 2025.)
The licensing — ARCtick on top
Any work installing, servicing or repairing equipment with refrigerants needs an ARCtick Refrigerant Handling Licence (and a Refrigerant Trading Authorisation for the business), run nationally by the Australian Refrigeration Council — separate from, and on top of, your core trade qualification and any electrical licence the work needs (see Electrical, Plumbing, Gas & ARCtick Licensing). Gas-heater work brings combustion and flueing obligations, and the industry is mid-transition to lower-GWP "A2L" mildly-flammable refrigerants, which carry their own handling and equipment requirements — worth staying current on.
The starter kit ($3-8k, two tiers)
-
"Trade tomorrow" (~$3,000-4,500): quality hand tools (
$300-700), a manifold or digital gauge set ($250-800), a 2-5 cfm vacuum pump (~$300-800), and a CAT-rated multimeter/clamp, plus flaring tools, benders, a leak detector and a thermometer. -
"Serious HVAC business" (~$5,000-8,000+): adds a recovery machine (
$900-1,800, often the biggest line item), a flue gas analyser ($1,200-2,500 for gas-heater work) and smart bluetooth gauges and scales.
Buy the daily-use gear (hand tools, gauges, vacuum pump, test gear, scales); hire, borrow or partner on the recovery machine and analyser early (cluster the recoveries, or split the margin with a tech who has combustion gear), and line-item the big specialty kit (duct lifters, large nitrogen rigs) to the client on early big jobs. See Tooling Up.
Rates and first-year income
Indicative 2025 (incl-GST): residential AC service ~$80-110/hr, commercial ~$100-140/hr, with metro east-coast residential charge-out around $90-130/hr (minimum first hour). Installed pricing: a back-to-back single split ~$900-1,700 labour, a complex split $1,400-3,000+, and a ducted full-home job $8,000-16,000+. Translating to solo, 20-25 billable hours a week plus the odd install gives a realistic first-year take-home-before-tax of $70-90k (lean diary) to $90-130k (a good install mix) — if the diary is full and you are not destroying margins on supply-and-install.
Tax and super (sole trader)
There is no separate business tax rate — your HVAC net profit is your personal taxable income, and you lodge an individual return every year (even under the tax-free threshold). The 2025-26 resident brackets: $0-18,200 nil; $18,201-45,000 at 16%; $45,001-135,000 at 30%; $135,001-190,000 at 37%; $190,001+ at 45%; plus the 2% Medicare levy. Super is not compulsory on your own drawings, but you can make personal deductible (concessional) contributions up to the $30,000 cap (2025-26), taxed at 15% in the fund — so a fridgie on $90k taxable who puts $10-20k into super trades a 30% marginal rate for 15% (see Sole Trader Super & Retirement and Income Tax for Sole Traders).
Common mistakes
- Doing refrigerant work without ARCtick (or the business Trading Authorisation).
- Buying a recovery machine and analyser up front when hiring or partnering is cheaper in year one.
- Treating the tax bands as a flat rate (it is progressive — the first $18,200 is tax-free).
- Skipping super entirely instead of using the deductible concessional contribution.
Know someone who needs this?
Keep reading
Was this guide useful?
Didn't find what you were looking for?
Spotted something wrong or out of date? Email us at hello@kilnguides.co.uk.
In crisis? Lifeline 13 11 14 ·