LEW, EMA and ELISE: How to Check Your Electrician Is Actually Licensed

The one check most people skip

Electrical work in Singapore is regulated under the Electricity Act, and the regulator is the Energy Market Authority. Work on your fixed electrical installation must be carried out by a Licensed Electrical Worker, usually shortened to LEW.

Almost every contractor's website says they are licensed. Very few homeowners ever check. The check takes about two minutes and it is the single most useful thing you can do before letting someone open your DB box.

What an LEW actually is

An LEW is an individual, not a company. The licence belongs to a person and it is tied to their name and identity card. A company can employ or engage LEWs, but "the company is licensed" and "the person doing your work is licensed" are different statements, and the second one is what matters.

EMA issues licences in grades according to the scale of installation the holder is permitted to work on.

Grade 7, Licensed Electrician. Covers installations up to 45 kVA at low voltage. This covers essentially all normal home electrical work: power points, switches, light fittings, ceiling fans, water heater circuits and distribution board work. For a standard HDB flat, this is the grade you need.

Grade 8, Licensed Electrical Technician. Larger installations, typically up to 500 kVA. Relevant for large landed properties, shops, offices, food courts and small industrial premises.

Grade 9, Licensed Electrical Engineer. High voltage and major installations. Not relevant to a home.

So for a flat, a Grade 7 LEW is sufficient. Someone quoting you a Grade 9 for a socket installation is not giving you extra safety, they are giving you a bigger bill.

How to verify, step by step

Ask for the LEW's name and licence number. Not the company registration number, not a photo of a certificate on the wall. The individual's name and licence number.

Search the ELISE portal. EMA operates the e-Licence Information Services portal, which lets the public search for licensed electrical workers. Search the name or the licence number.

Check three things. That the licence exists, that it is currently valid rather than expired, and that the grade is appropriate for your job.

Ask who is accountable for the certification. On many jobs the LEW's role is to inspect, test and sign off the completed installation rather than to personally carry out every task on site, and that is a normal, lawful way for an electrical team to be structured. What actually matters to you is that a named, verifiable LEW stands behind the work and will issue the Certificate of Compliance. A contractor who cannot tell you who that person is has told you the real red flag.

A legitimate contractor will not be offended by any of this. Anyone who becomes evasive when asked for a licence number has told you something useful.

What happens if unlicensed work is done in your home

The consequences fall on the homeowner as well as the worker, which surprises people.

Legal exposure. Under the Electricity Act, engaging an unlicensed person for regulated electrical work carries penalties, and liability can extend to the property owner. Fines can run into the thousands.

Insurance. Most home and fire insurance policies require that electrical work was carried out lawfully. If an incident is traced to unlicensed work, an insurer has grounds to decline the claim. The saving on the job is trivially small next to a declined fire claim.

Property transactions. Unlicensed modifications discovered during a sale generally have to be rectified before the transaction proceeds. That means paying to remove the work and paying again to have it done properly, at a moment when you have no negotiating leverage and a completion date.

No certification. Work that was never done by an LEW cannot be certified, which means there is no documentation that your installation is compliant. That gap follows the property.

MCST requirements. In condominiums, management usually requires documentation before permitting works. Without it, you may not get access approval at all.

The Certificate of Compliance

For qualifying work, an LEW issues a Certificate of Compliance, or CoC. It certifies that the installation meets the Singapore wiring code, which is set out in the Code of Practice for Electrical Installations, commonly referred to as CP5.

You should expect a CoC for DB box work, rewiring, new circuits and renovation electrical handovers. It is often required by landlords, by condo management, and by buyers' solicitors later. Ask at quoting stage whether a CoC will be issued. Ask again on completion, and keep it with your property documents.

The questions worth asking a contractor

Who is the LEW on this job and what is their licence number. The most important one.

Will you issue a Certificate of Compliance, and is it included in the price.

Will the LEW be present, or supervising, or neither. Different jobs legitimately have different answers. What matters is that the answer is straightforward.

Have you done this specific kind of job before. HDB renovation electrical work and commercial fit out work are different disciplines.

Is the quote fixed and itemised, and what would cause it to change.

What testing will you do before handover. Insulation resistance, earth continuity and RCCB trip testing are the basics.

What warranty applies, to the workmanship and to the components, which are often different periods.

The reasonable version of this

None of this means you need to interrogate everyone who comes to change a light bulb. Small non notifiable jobs are not the concern.

Where it genuinely matters is anything involving your distribution board, any new circuit, any rewiring, and anything that will be concealed inside a wall or ceiling. Those are the jobs where poor work is invisible on the day and consequential later, and those are the jobs where you should ask for the licence number. The practical rule: if it is going inside a wall or inside the DB box, verify. If it is a bulb, do not worry about it.

Being straight about how contractors work

The electrical trade in Singapore, especially at the small residential end, involves a lot of subcontracting. Companies that quote your job and companies that perform it are often not the same, and the LEW may sit with either.

None of that is improper in itself. What matters is that a named, verifiable LEW is accountable for the installation and that someone takes responsibility for the certification and the warranty. A contractor who explains their arrangement plainly is a better sign than one who is vague about it. Ask who the LEW is and who takes responsibility for testing, sign-off and the warranty, and a good contractor answers in one sentence.