Amendment 1 to AS/NZS 4417.2 moves electric vehicle supply equipment from Level 1 to Level 3. From the date of application, every EV charger supplied in the participating jurisdictions needs a certificate of conformity and an EESS registration — existing models included.
On 12 February 2026 Standards Australia published AS/NZS 4417.2:2020 Amendment 1:2026. Among other changes, it adds electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) to the Level 3 list. The amendment carries a two-year lead-in, so the date of application is 12 February 2028.
That sentence is doing a lot of work, so here is what it means if you sell, import or install EV chargers in Australia.
Where EV chargers sit today
Since ERAC's information bulletin 20-013, EVSE — wall-mounted AC chargers, portable Mode 2 charging cables with an in-cable control and protection device, and the like — has been treated as Level 1 in-scope equipment. Level 1 is the lightest tier: no equipment registration, no certificate. The Responsible Supplier must hold evidence that the product is electrically safe, mark it with the RCM, and produce that evidence if a regulator asks.
In practice this has meant many chargers on the Australian market are supported by an IEC 61851-1 CB report, sometimes with Australian deviations addressed and sometimes not, and nothing else. That has been lawful. From 12 February 2028 it will not be.
What Level 3 requires
Level 3 is the highest tier, the one that already covers products such as power supplies and hair dryers. It carries two obligations that Level 1 does not:
- A certificate of conformity issued by a recognised certifier — a state or territory regulator, or an accredited certification body — against the applicable standards. A test report on its own is no longer enough; the certifier reviews the report, the construction and the marking, and issues the certificate.
- Registration of the equipment in the national EESS database, linked to that certificate and to a registered Responsible Supplier, before the equipment is supplied.
The RCM must still be applied. The difference is that from the date of application the RCM on an EV charger will be backed by a certificate number that anyone can look up.
Existing products are not grandfathered
This is the point most suppliers miss. The obligation attaches to the act of supply on and after 12 February 2028, not to when the model was first sold. A charger you have supplied since 2022 needs a certificate of conformity and an EESS registration exactly as a new model does. If it does not have both on the date of application, it cannot be sold in the participating jurisdictions until it does — and stock in the channel is stock you cannot move.
So the question for every EVSE model in your range is not will we need to do this eventually but can we get a certificate and a registration in place, with a margin, before February 2028.
The standards a certifier will assess against
The amendment lists the applicable standards for EVSE as IEC 61851-1, IEC 62752 (the in-cable device used in Mode 2 cables), AS/NZS 4777.2 where the charger is bidirectional or otherwise feeds the grid, and the heat and fire requirement of AS/NZS 60335.1 clause 30.2 — each as appropriate to the product. Cord-connected units also need to satisfy the Australian plug and supply-cord requirements.
Three things we routinely find in existing evidence files that a certifier will query:
- The wrong edition. A CB report against a superseded edition of IEC 61851-1 or IEC 62752 is the first thing a certifier notices. Some of these products were tested a long time ago.
- No clause 30.2 assessment. The glow-wire and needle-flame requirements for unattended equipment are an Australian expectation that an international report frequently does not cover at all.
- National differences not addressed. Rated voltage and frequency, marking, and the Australian plug are the usual gaps, and each is a re-test or a supplementary report, not a paperwork fix.
Why February 2028 is closer than it looks
Two years sounds generous. Work backwards from it and it is not:
- A certifier's queue is measured in weeks at the best of times. In the months before a date of application it is measured in months, because every supplier of every affected product is in the same queue.
- If the certifier finds a gap, you are back to a laboratory, and laboratory capacity for EVSE testing in this region is limited.
- Registration can only follow the certificate, and the registration has to be checked and linked before the first unit ships under the new regime.
The realistic plan for a range of more than a handful of models is: evidence review across the range in 2026, gap testing in the first half of 2027, certificates and registrations in hand by the end of 2027, and the last weeks before the date of application kept clear for the model that turns out to have a problem.
The same amendment reaches further than EV chargers
Amendment 1 also moves battery energy storage system equipment and portable power stations to Level 3 on the same date, 12 February 2028, and adds heat pump water heaters and cord extension sets at Level 2 from 12 February 2027. If you supply a home battery, the Level 3 certificate is now a second obligation alongside the CEC listing we wrote about here, and the two use overlapping but not identical evidence. Worth planning together rather than twice.
What to do now
- List every EVSE model you supply, with its current test evidence and the edition of each standard the evidence cites.
- Confirm that your Responsible Supplier registration is current — Level 3 registrations hang off it.
- Have the evidence reviewed against the standards the amendment names, and get the gaps in writing before you approach a certifier.
- Decide, per model, whether it is worth certifying. Some low-volume models will not be, and knowing that now is cheaper than knowing it in January 2028.
We do this work as a fixed-scope review across a range, and we coordinate the testing and the certification application from there. Start with the audit; the rest follows from what it finds.
This article states the position as at 10 September 2026. Regulatory requirements change, and it is general information rather than advice on a specific product. We confirm the instrument and the standard edition in force at the time of each project.