How Often Does Emergency Lighting Need Testing in QLD? (AS 2293 Explained)

Byron Knight, Licensed Electrical Contractor

QLD Lic. 1511406 · 20+ years’ experience · Gold Coast & SEQ · Updated September 2026

Most building owners and committees know emergency lighting has to be tested. Far fewer can name the interval, who’s allowed to sign it off, or what specifically happens when a cycle gets missed. And almost nobody knows about the deadlines Queensland attaches once a fault is found — which is where most non-compliance actually happens.

This is the schedule, the sign-off requirements, and the Queensland obligations that sit on top of the standard — for commercial buildings and body corporate schemes across the Gold Coast and South East Queensland.

The testing schedule

What “every six months” actually means

The interval is a ceiling, not a target — a test at seven months is a missed cycle, not a slightly late one. Scheduling at roughly five-month intervals gives breathing room for access issues, contractor availability and the rescheduling that happens in occupied buildings.

The test itself isn’t a visual check or a button press. Mains power to the emergency lighting circuits is deliberately cut, and every fitting must run on its internal battery for the full 90 minutes without dimming below required output or dropping out. Ninety minutes is the design figure because that’s the window a real evacuation and emergency response needs — not the first ten minutes of one.

What the discharge test actually catches

A fitting can look completely normal — indicator on, no fault light, lens clean — and still fail at minute forty. That’s the whole reason the test exists in its current form, and what makes a genuine 90-minute discharge different from the quick functional check some buildings have been sold as “testing”.

What we typically find when a building hasn’t had a proper discharge test in over a year:

• Batteries that hold charge but not capacity. The most common failure by a wide margin. The fitting illuminates on cue, runs for twenty or thirty minutes, then fades. Nothing looks faulty until it’s under load for the full duration
• Chargers that have quietly stopped charging. The battery is fine; the circuit keeping it topped up has failed. Undetectable without a discharge test
• Fittings that never come on at all. Usually where a circuit was isolated during unrelated works and never restored — common after a fit-out
• Reduced output from dirty or aged diffusers. The fitting works, but illuminance on the escape path has dropped below the design. This is what the annual clean prevents
• Exit signs with failed LEDs on one side. Still visibly lit from one approach, effectively invisible from another

If your current contractor’s report shows every fitting passing every time with no replacements ever recommended, it’s worth asking specifically whether a full 90-minute discharge is being performed, or just a functional check. A fitting that passes a functional test can still fail a discharge test.

The Queensland deadlines nobody mentions

The testing interval gets all the attention. In practice, the obligations that follow a failed test are where buildings fall over, and the Building Fire Safety Regulation puts hard dates on all three.

1. Critical defect: 24 hours. A person carrying out maintenance who becomes aware, or ought reasonably to be aware, of a critical defect must give the occupier a critical defect notice in the approved form within 24 hours of carrying out the maintenance.
2. Repairs: one month. Where the record of maintenance shows repair or corrective action is required, the occupier must ensure it’s carried out no later than one month after the maintenance was performed, unless they have a reasonable excuse. The Regulation gives examples — no qualified person available due to remoteness, or a delay obtaining parts — which is a narrow gate, not a general one.
3. Occupier statement: 10 business days. The occupier must prepare an occupier statement at the intervals set by QDC part MP6.1, and give the commissioner a copy within 10 business days of being required to prepare it.

That third one is the obligation most commonly missed entirely, because it sits with the occupier rather than the contractor. Testing the lights and never lodging the statement is still non-compliance.

What the record of maintenance has to contain

An untested building and a tested-but-unrecorded building look identical to an inspector. The Regulation is specific about what the record must state:

• A description of the installation the maintenance was carried out on
• The name and licence number of the appropriately qualified person who carried out the maintenance — or who personally supervised it
• The date the maintenance was carried out
• A brief description of the maintenance
• That the maintenance complied with QDC part MP6.1
• The results, including whether the installation was considered in proper working order, the details of any repair or corrective action required, and the details and date of any repairs actually made
• A signed statement from the person who carried out the maintenance certifying those matters are correct
• Any critical defect notice you’ve been given for an installation in that record

Note the licence number requirement. It isn’t optional detail — it’s a stated content requirement of the record, which makes “ask for the licence number” a compliance step rather than a courtesy. You can check it on the Electrical Safety Office’s electrical licence search.

The ten-year rule nobody budgets for

Emergency luminaires have a defined service life, and at around the ten-year mark replacement is required rather than continued servicing — regardless of whether the fitting is currently passing tests.

This catches building owners out badly. A property that has depreciated its fittings over a twenty-year schedule, and has been quietly passing six-monthly tests for a decade, receives a quote for building-wide luminaire replacement it has made no provision for. In a multi-storey block with emergency and exit lighting through every corridor, stairwell, lobby and carpark, that’s a capital item rather than a maintenance line.

The fix is a planning exercise: know the install date of your fittings, and put the replacement in the sinking fund or capital works plan well before year ten. A contractor running your regular testing should be flagging it years ahead, not on the invoice.

Who can sign off a test in Queensland

The Regulation requires the occupier to ensure maintenance of each prescribed fire safety installation is carried out by an appropriately qualified person. For the electrical work involved in a discharge test and any subsequent repair, that means a licensed electrical contractor — the same requirement that applies to any fixed electrical work under the Electrical Safety Act 2002, as covered in what you can legally do yourself in QLD.

Two things worth verifying about whoever currently tests your building: that they hold a current QLD electrical contractor licence, and that they’re performing and recording a genuine 90-minute discharge rather than a shorter functional test written up as though it were a full one.

Self-contained vs central battery systems

Most Gold Coast commercial and strata buildings run self-contained fittings, where each luminaire has its own internal battery. Those follow the schedule above.

Buildings with a central battery system — one bank powering emergency lighting across the site — have a different regime, typically six-monthly functional testing of the system alongside an annual full-duration test. If you’re not certain which your building has, that’s the first thing to establish, because getting the regime wrong means being non-compliant while believing you’re covered.

Getting a lapsed building back on schedule

Catch-up testing falls under emergency and exit lighting repairs and maintenance. The sequence:

1. Establish when the last genuine discharge test was performed, and whether the record shows a full 90 minutes.
2. Book a catch-up discharge test across the whole building. This doubles as an audit of what’s actually installed and what condition it’s in.
3. Rectify every failed fitting, recorded against its location — and remember the one-month clock starts from the maintenance date.
4. Establish the install age of the luminaires, so the ten-year replacement can be planned rather than discovered.
5. Set the recurring six-month schedule from that date, put the annual inspection in the same calendar, and diarise the occupier statement.

A lapsed building isn’t in an unrecoverable position, but the gap doesn’t close itself and it doesn’t get cheaper by waiting.

On the Gold Coast, specifically

The buildings we most often find lapsed are mid-rise strata through Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach and Labrador, where the committee has changed hands and the testing schedule left with the previous manager. Mixed-use buildings are the other pattern — where ground-floor commercial tenancies and residential lots above have different parties assuming the other one arranged it.

Where that boundary sits is set out in body corporate vs unit owner electrical responsibilities. Common area emergency lighting is the body corporate’s, and the occupier duties in the Regulation are what make that more than a billing question. If a fitting in your building is showing a fault indicator right now, why emergency exit lights flash covers what that signal means and how urgent it is.