An electrical contracting business in Australia typically sells for 2.5x to 4.5x EBITDA, with goodwill ranging from $50K for a sole trader with one van to $1.5M or more for an established commercial electrical business with a solid contract book and a licensed team. The spread is enormous — and it almost always comes down to the same question.
Have you built a business, or have you built yourself a job?
The Owner-Operator Gap
This single factor does more to determine your sale price than revenue, margins, or how long you’ve been in the trade. A sole trader doing $700K in revenue — two vans, good margins, phone ringing constantly — might sell for $60K–$120K in goodwill. A business doing the same revenue with four licensed electricians on staff, a maintenance contract book, and Simpro running the scheduling when the owner is on site in Karratha? That’s worth $300K–$500K.
A one-person electrical business is a job. A five-person electrical business with contracts is a business. The difference in sale price can be five times or more.
The test is simple: if you went on holiday for three weeks, what happens? If the business keeps running — jobs get scheduled, invoices go out, clients get answered — you have a business. If revenue stops the moment you stop answering the phone (which, in most owner-operated electrical businesses, is a mobile with a cracked screen and 47 unread messages), you have a job.
What Electrical Business Buyers Are Actually Paying For
Buyers are not paying for your turnover. They’re paying for transferable, predictable cash flow — and that changes which parts of your business they value most.
Maintenance contracts are the highest-value asset in any electrical business. A contract book with $150K in annual recurring maintenance revenue — commercial landlords, strata schemes, industrial facilities on a service agreement — can add $150K–$300K in goodwill on its own. The catch: those contracts need to be with the company entity, not a personal arrangement because the facilities manager knows your name. If the strata manager calls your mobile directly and the work is a handshake deal, that’s not a transferable contract. It walks out the door when you do.
Licensed electricians who will stay are the second major driver. Australia has a well-documented shortage of licensed electricians — the Clean Energy Council has been flagging supply constraints since 2022, and the solar installation boom has tightened this further. A buyer paying for your business is also paying for your team. If you have six licensed electricians likely to stay post-sale, that retention value is priced into your multiple. If it’s you and two apprentices, the buyer has a licensing and staffing problem from week one.
Commercial versus residential mix matters more than most owners realise. Residential electrical is competitive, price-sensitive, and driven by Google Reviews and marketing spend. Commercial and industrial electrical — service contracts with property managers, new construction packages, industrial maintenance retainers — is stickier, higher-margin, and generates the predictable cash flow that buyers can underwrite with confidence. A business doing 70% commercial work commands a meaningfully higher multiple than one doing 70% residential.
EBITDA Multiples for Electrical Businesses in Australia
I saw an electrical contractor last year who had a commercial business doing $4.5M in revenue and $600K in EBITDA — genuinely solid numbers. He expected a 5x multiple based on what a mate in construction had recently achieved. His advisors came back with 3.5x. The reason: 40% of his revenue was concentrated with two clients, and one of those clients was his brother-in-law’s development company. Concentration risk gets discounted directly off the multiple, and family relationships do not survive due diligence in the way owners expect.
That story illustrates the range:
| Business Profile | EBITDA Multiple Range |
|---|---|
| Owner-operator, residential focus, owner-dependent | 1.5x – 2.5x |
| Mixed residential/commercial, small team of 3–5 | 2.5x – 3.5x |
| Commercial focus, 8+ licensed staff, maintenance contracts | 3x – 4.5x |
| Specialist industrial/solar, recurring revenue, diversified clients | 3.5x – 5x |
These are EBITDA multiples, not revenue multiples. Your EBITDA figure needs to be normalised first — add back owner’s salary above a market replacement rate, one-off expenses, and personal costs run through the business. A business generating $250K normalised EBITDA at a 3.5x multiple is worth $875K in goodwill, plus the value of vehicles and equipment separately.
Rule of thumb: a well-run electrical business doing $1.5M in turnover should be generating $150K–$300K in EBITDA. At current market multiples, that’s $450K–$1.35M in business value before fleet and equipment.
What the ATO Data Shows About Electrical Margins
The ATO publishes benchmark data from actual electrical services business tax returns, covering thousands of businesses across Australia. Understanding these benchmarks matters because buyers will compare your financials against them.
| Annual Turnover | Total Expenses / Turnover | Implied Net Margin |
|---|---|---|
| $50K – $200K | 51% – 68% | 32% – 49% |
| $200K – $500K | 59% – 75% | 25% – 41% |
| $500K+ | 75% – 86% | 14% – 25% |
(Note: the ATO excludes auto electricians and air conditioning specialists from this category — they’re benchmarked separately.)
Labour costs for larger electrical businesses run 23–34% of turnover. Cost of sales — materials and subcontractors — runs 30–41%. If your numbers sit significantly outside these ranges, a buyer will ask why. “We run lean” only works if three years of financial statements back it up.
Buyers will also scrutinise:
- Revenue per licensed electrician per year — $250K–$400K is a reasonable range for commercial work; significantly below that suggests pricing or utilisation issues
- Debtor days — trade businesses often let receivables blow out; anything above 45 days is a red flag
- Client concentration — more than 20% of revenue from a single client is a risk that gets priced in
- Quote conversion rate — low conversion rates suggest your pricing is out of market, or you’re quoting work you’re not going to win
The Solar and Renewables Premium
This is where Australian electrical businesses have a genuine opportunity that didn’t exist five years ago. Electrical contractors accredited with the Clean Energy Council for solar PV and battery storage installations are attracting buyer interest — particularly from private equity platforms consolidating in the clean energy space.
A traditional electrical contractor doing $2M in revenue trades at standard multiples. The same business, with 40% of revenue from commercial solar installations, CEC Design and Install accreditation across the team, and existing relationships with solar system suppliers, is often attracting an additional premium of 0.5x–1x EBITDA from the right buyer. Energy transition buyers will pay for accreditations, supply chain relationships, and demonstrated capability in a way that a traditional trade acquirer simply doesn’t.
In Western Australia, the combination of mining services electrical (FIFO maintenance work for resource companies on site in the Pilbara and Goldfields) and commercial solar is creating some of the more interesting electrical business valuations we’re seeing. Mining services revenue runs at higher day rates than residential, but it’s cyclical — buyers factor that in. A business that has deliberately diversified from pure mining services into commercial solar and strata maintenance has de-risked its revenue base, and that shows directly in the multiple a buyer will offer.
Licence Transferability: The Issue Nobody Mentions Early Enough
Electrical work in Australia is tightly regulated, and this creates a structural constraint on your buyer pool that’s worth understanding before you start any sale process.
Each state requires a licensed electrical contractor to be responsible for all work performed. In Western Australia, the buyer of your business must hold (or immediately employ) a licensed electrical contractor before they can operate. A corporate acquirer buying your company entity does not automatically inherit your contractor licence — licence classes are held by individuals, not companies.
This creates a practical problem. If you are the only licensed contractor in your business, you’ve created the key person risk that buyers discount hardest. The fix is straightforward but slow: adding a licensed employee as a co-nominated contractor now, running for 12–18 months before sale, removes that risk from the conversation entirely. It directly increases your multiple and expands your buyer pool to include corporate acquirers who couldn’t otherwise operate without you staying on indefinitely.
If your contractor licence is the only one in the business, you’ve created a dependency that limits who can buy you — and limits what they’ll pay.
What Your Business Might Actually Be Worth
| Business Profile | Likely Goodwill Range |
|---|---|
| Sole trader, residential, 1–2 vans | $30K – $100K |
| 2–5 staff, mixed work, basic systems | $150K – $350K |
| 5–10 staff, commercial contracts, job management software | $350K – $800K |
| 10–20 staff, diversified revenue, manager-run | $700K – $1.5M+ |
| Specialist industrial/solar, 15+ staff, recurring revenue | $1.2M – $3M+ |
Vehicles, tools, and equipment are valued separately. A well-maintained fleet of five vans at current replacement cost adds $300K–$400K on top of goodwill. A 10-year-old fleet that needs replacing is a negotiating point — for the buyer.
Who Buys Electrical Businesses?
Larger electrical and facilities management groups are the most consistent acquirers. A business doing $4M–$8M in revenue with 15–20 staff is a natural acquisition target for a national facilities management company looking to bring subcontracted electrical work in-house or expand geographic coverage. These buyers understand the trade, move quickly, and typically want you to stay for 6–12 months post-settlement.
PE-backed trade services roll-ups have become increasingly active in Australia. These platforms — several are now operating out of Sydney and Melbourne with national reach — acquire multiple trade businesses and consolidate them under shared back-office functions. They typically target businesses with $150K+ EBITDA and a management team that can operate without the founder. Expect structured deals with earn-out components tied to revenue and EBITDA targets over two to three years.
Clean energy platforms are a newer buyer category specific to electrical. As institutional capital continues flowing into Australian rooftop and commercial solar, aggregation plays are emerging. If your business has meaningful solar revenue and CEC accreditation, this buyer category is worth understanding — they value the capability, not just the cash flow.
Individual licensed electricians stepping up represent the traditional buyer for smaller businesses. A senior electrician with 15 years of experience, a contractor licence, and some savings wants to skip the startup risk. These buyers are hands-on, understand the work, and are often the best cultural fit for businesses doing under $2M in revenue.
Related Reading
- How Much Is My Plumbing Business Worth? — valuation principles for a closely related trade
- How Much Is My Construction Business Worth? — for builders and project-based contractors
- Preparing Your Business for Sale — the 12-month checklist before going to market
- Tax on Selling a Business in Australia — CGT, small business concessions, and what you actually keep
Getting Ready
The best time to start preparing is 18–24 months before you want to go to market. Get your licensed team expanded and formalise their employment arrangements. Convert handshake maintenance agreements into documented contracts with the company entity. Move to proper job management software — Simpro, Fergus, or Tradify — so there are three years of clean operational data for a buyer to review. And get clean, normalised EBITDA figures from your accountant before any conversation starts.
Use our valuation calculator for a quick estimate, or contact us directly for a confidential discussion about your electrical business.