NCC 2025: Four jurisdictions have adopted it; NT remains outside the rollout

NCC 2025 was released on 1 May 2026, and jurisdictions could adopt it from that date subject to their own implementation arrangements.

They have not adopted it together.

For roughly the next year, the same building can be subject to different construction codes depending on which side of a border it sits — and contractors, certifiers and designers working nationally have to run two codes at once.

Where each jurisdiction stands

Source: the Australian Building Codes Board's own state and territory adoption table.

Three things in that table are easy to miss.

Victoria and Tasmania allow no transition at all. Western Australia and the ACT adopted on the same day but give twelve months in which either edition may be used. Same start date, very different obligation.

South Australia has split the code down the middle. It took the Plumbing Code of Australia from 1 May 2026 but leaves the Building Code of Australia until 1 May 2027. For a year, an SA project is being plumbed to NCC 2025 and built to NCC 2022. That is not a subtlety a national process will catch on its own.

The Northern Territory has not adopted NCC 2025. Not "yet to confirm a date" — the ABCB table records the position as not adopted. Anyone assuming a national code applies in the Territory is assuming something that is not true today.

What that means in practice

If you work in one state, this is a date to diarise. If you work across borders, it is an operating problem.

Design and documentation. A design produced to NCC 2025 in Victoria does not automatically comply in New South Wales, and vice versa. Practices working nationally need to know which code each project is being assessed against, and to record it.

Product specification. Where NCC 2025 changes performance requirements, products specified for a Victorian project may not be what a New South Wales project requires — or may exceed it, at cost.

Certification. Certifiers assess against the code in force in their jurisdiction at the relevant time. Transitional arrangements — like the ACT's six months — mean two codes can be live simultaneously in one jurisdiction.

Tendering. A tender priced on NCC 2022 assumptions for a project that will be assessed under NCC 2025 carries a compliance gap. On long-lead projects in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, work being priced now may be built under a code adopted in 2027.

The changes that matter most

The most significant technical changes apply to new commercial buildings, and are directed at reducing energy use and emissions in support of the transition to net zero.

On-site solar becomes mandatory for some building classes. NCC 2025 introduces new requirements for renewable energy generation for Class 3 and Class 5 to 9 buildings, through mandatory on-site solar photovoltaic systems.

That is a material change to commercial and multi-residential projects. It affects:

• Structural design — roof loading for PV arrays
• Electrical design — inverters, switchboards, metering, connection
• Roof space allocation, competing with plant, services and access
• Cost planning — a scope item that did not previously exist on many building types

Water management provisions are strengthened, particularly for apartments and larger, more complex buildings.

The commercial consequence of staggered adoption

There is a subtler effect worth naming.

A builder in Victoria is already pricing mandatory PV into commercial work. A builder in New South Wales is not, and will not until 2027. For a year, projects on either side of the Murray carry materially different scope for the same building type.

That matters for anyone comparing tender prices across states, for national contractors normalising their cost data, and for suppliers of PV, switchboards and roof structure — whose Victorian demand steps up a year before their New South Wales demand does.

What to do now

1. Confirm which code applies to each live project, and record it in the project file. Do not assume it follows the date the contract was signed.
2. Check transitional arrangements, not just adoption dates. The ACT's six-month window means either code may apply to an approval in that period.
3. Price NSW and Queensland long-lead work against 2027 adoption. Anything being designed now for construction after adoption should be tested against NCC 2025.
4. Watch the Northern Territory, the only jurisdiction recorded as not adopting NCC 2025 at all.

What to watch

1. Whether the Northern Territory adopts NCC 2025, and on what timing.
2. Whether the Northern Territory adopts at all, and on what timing. It is currently the only jurisdiction recorded as not adopting.
3. Whether NSW or Queensland move their dates — a year is a long commitment in a contested policy area.
4. How the PV requirement is applied in practice in Victoria, which will be the first jurisdiction with delivered projects under it.

Published 17 September 2026 · Updated 23 September 2026