A single date now sits between a gas-connected design and a knockback at permit stage. The number that decides it is not the contract date.
Last updated: July 2026
From 1 January 2027, a building surveyor in Victoria will not be able to issue a building permit for a new home that connects to mains gas. Every new house, and most new commercial buildings, will have to be designed as all-electric. For any builder still signing gas-connected work today, that is the fact to plan around, because the rule is triggered by the date the building permit is issued, not the date the client signed.
This is not a proposal or a consultation. The rule is set out in the Building and Plumbing Amendment Regulations 2025, gazetted as Statutory Rule 140 of 2025, which inserts a new regulation 37A into the Building Regulations 2018. That new regulation, headed “Refusal of building permit”, states that a relevant building surveyor must not issue a building permit for a new home where the surveyor is aware that a new reticulated gas connection relates to the building work. The regulations commence on 1 January 2027. What follows is what actually changes, where the traps sit, and why the shift matters even for builders who never pour a slab in Victoria.
What does all-electric mean under the new rules?
An all-electric home is one designed and built without a reticulated natural gas connection. Space heating, hot water and cooking run on electric appliances, typically reverse-cycle systems, heat pump hot water and induction cooktops. Bottled or reticulated LPG is not affected by the ban, so outdoor barbecues and regional LPG use can continue.
What is actually changing on 1 January 2027
Victoria has been tightening the rules on gas in new homes for a while, but the change lands in stages, and the 2027 date is the one that closes the gaps.
Since 1 January 2024, new homes, apartments and residential subdivisions that require a planning permit have already been barred from connecting to reticulated natural gas. That came in through Amendment VC250 and clause 53.03 of the planning provisions. The catch was the words “require a planning permit”. A large share of standard new homes do not trigger a planning permit at all, so they sat outside the rule.
From 1 January 2027, that gap closes. Under the Building and Plumbing Amendment Regulations 2025, the requirement moves from the planning system into the building permit system. All new homes must be all-electric to receive a building permit, whether or not a planning permit was ever needed. The building surveyor becomes the checkpoint.
A second date follows on 1 March 2027. From then, when a gas hot water system in an existing home reaches the end of its life and cannot be economically repaired, it must be replaced with an electric alternative such as a heat pump. That is a repair-and-replace rule for existing housing stock, separate from the new-build rule, but worth knowing if renovations and maintenance are part of your work.
The date that decides it is the permit date, not the contract date
This is the part that catches people, so it is worth being blunt about it.
The rule bites on the building permit issue date. A contract signed in 2026 does not lock in a gas connection. If the client signs now, the design carries gas, and the permit is not issued until after 1 January 2027, the surveyor cannot approve it as drawn. The job then has to be redesigned as all-electric before it can proceed, which is the worst possible moment to be changing hot water systems, cooktops and heating layouts.
A contract signed in 2026 does not lock in a gas connection. The permit date is what the surveyor checks.
The practical move is simple. For any Victorian job you are pricing or signing between now and the end of 2026, work backwards from the permit date, not the sale date. Build in a realistic buffer for design, documentation and approval, and be honest with yourself about how long permits are actually taking in your area. If there is any risk the permit slips past 1 January 2027, design the home all-electric from the start. It is far cheaper to specify it once than to unpick a gas design late.
The distributor side of this lines up with the same date. Under guidance from gas network businesses, a home whose building permit is approved before 31 December 2026 may still be able to connect to gas, and a gas service installed before that date can allow a meter to follow. After 1 January 2027, new homes are no longer eligible for a gas connection. So the end of 2026 is the real line in the sand, and the permit is what sits on it.
There is a narrow exemption worth knowing about. Where a building surveyor is satisfied that substantial progress was made before the regulations take effect, there is a pathway under the Building Act that can allow a permit to still issue. But that is a judgement call the surveyor makes on the specific facts of the job. It is a safety net, not a plan. Treating it as a plan is how disputes start.
Why this is bigger than a compliance date
Victoria builds more than 50,000 new homes a year, and by the state government’s own account roughly 40,000 of them currently connect to the gas network. That is the scale of what is being switched off at the front end. This is not a niche rule affecting a handful of sustainable builds. It is the default setting for an entire state’s new housing.
For builders, the immediate implications are concrete. Your standard specification changes. Hot water moves to heat pump or electric. Cooking moves to induction. Space heating moves to reverse-cycle. The gas rough-in disappears from the plumbing scope, and the electrical load on the home goes up, which has knock-on effects for switchboards, cabling and sometimes supply. None of this is difficult once it is your normal way of working. The pain only comes from being caught mid-transition with half your jobs designed the old way.
It also changes the conversation with clients. Some buyers still ask for gas cooktops out of habit. From 2027 that is not an option a builder can offer on a new Victorian home, and it is better to have that conversation at selection stage than at handover.
Where the market is already heading
Even outside Victoria, the direction is hard to miss, and it is being driven by economics as much as regulation. Nearly two in five Australian homes now have rooftop solar, and battery installations have surged on the back of the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program. All-electric, solar-ready homes are shifting from an upsell to something closer to a standard expectation, in the same way insulation and energy-efficient appliances did before them. This is part of a longer story about how new methods and standards reshape the way homes are built, and builders who get comfortable with all-electric design now are simply ahead of where the rest of the country is drifting.
The caution worth keeping is that electrification is not a free win on every job. A poorly specified all-electric home with an undersized system and no solar can cost a client more to run, not less. The builders who do this well treat it as a design decision, sizing systems properly and thinking about the whole-of-home energy picture, rather than swapping a gas appliance for an electric one and hoping the numbers work.
What builders should do before the end of 2026
There is a straightforward runway here, and the businesses that use it will barely feel the change.
Review your standard house designs now and prepare all-electric versions of your core range, so you are not redesigning under pressure. Confirm your electrical and hot water specifications, and talk to your suppliers and trades about lead times on heat pumps and induction, because a whole state switching at once will move demand. Update your contracts and selection processes so gas is not offered on Victorian new builds carrying into 2027. And for every job currently in the pipeline, check the likely permit date against 1 January 2027 and flag anything at risk.
None of that requires waiting for more detail. The rule is set. The only variable is how prepared each builder chooses to be.
Frequently asked questions
From 1 January 2027. From that date a building surveyor cannot issue a building permit for a new home that connects to mains gas, so new homes must be designed all-electric. A separate rule from 1 March 2027 requires end-of-life gas hot water systems in existing homes to be replaced with electric.
The trigger is the building permit issue date, not the contract date. Homes with a permit issued before 1 January 2027 are not caught. Where a surveyor is satisfied substantial progress was made before the rules take effect, there is a narrow pathway that can still allow a permit, but it is a case-by-case judgement, not a guarantee.
Yes. The rules apply to reticulated natural gas. Bottled or reticulated LPG is not affected, so outdoor barbecues and regional LPG hot water and cooking can continue.
No. Existing homes are not forced to disconnect. Gas cooking and space heating in existing homes can continue and be repaired. The one new obligation is that from 1 March 2027, an end-of-life gas hot water system that cannot be economically repaired must be replaced with an electric alternative.
The mandatory all-electric new-build rule is a Victorian regulation. Other states have not adopted the same requirement. That said, the market shift toward all-electric, solar-ready homes is national, so the design approach is increasingly relevant everywhere.
The Good Builder Take
This is a knowledge-gap story, not a burden story. The rule is fixed, the runway is real, and the builders who redesign their core range now will hand it to a surveyor in 2027 without a second thought. The ones who get hurt are the ones who keep signing gas-connected jobs into late 2026 without watching the permit date. Treat the permit date as the deadline, get one all-electric version of each of your standard homes ready, and the change becomes a non-event. It is also worth seeing this in the context of the wider forces reshaping the market builders work in, because all-electric is one of several shifts moving in the same direction at once.
The Good Builder Podcast digs into how changes like this actually land for builders and trades on the ground. If you want the practical read rather than the press release, that is where to find it.
Published: July 2026
Source: Building and Plumbing Amendment Regulations 2025 (Vic), Statutory Rule 140/2025, regulation 37A, at legislation.vic.gov.au.
General information only. This article does not constitute legal or financial advice. Builders should confirm current requirements with their building surveyor and the relevant Victorian authorities before acting.
0 Comments