Height Safety Law Changes: What Tradies Need to Know in 2026

If you work at height — whether you’re a builder, painter, roofer, scaffolder, or maintenance contractor — New Zealand’s health and safety rules are changing in ways that could directly affect how you work and what you’re legally required to do.

The changes have been brewing since mid-2025, and by mid-2026 the biggest reform to the Health and Safety at Work Act since it came into force a decade ago is now moving through Parliament. This article cuts through the legal language and explains what’s actually changing, what’s not, and what you should be doing now.

Why Are the Rules Changing?

The short version: the Government believes the current rules are too complex, too expensive, and often push tradies toward over-compliance.

Following a nationwide consultation roadshow in 2024, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden heard consistent feedback that the system was letting tradies down. Rules were confusing, prequalification requirements were repetitive and costly, and businesses weren’t always clear on what they actually needed to do to meet their legal obligations. The reforms are the Government’s direct response to that feedback.

The Big Picture: The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill

In February 2026, the Government introduced the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill. At its core, the Bill shifts the Act’s focus from treating every conceivable risk equally, to concentrating effort on critical risks — like the ones actually likely to cause serious harm or death.

For tradies working at height, this matters. Falls from height have long been the leading cause of serious injury and death in New Zealand construction. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, the construction sector recorded 645 reported injuries and 12 fatalities from falls.

The reform isn’t about taking height safety less seriously. It’s about making the rules clearer so businesses know exactly what they have to do, and aren’t wasting time and money complying with requirements that don’t actually reduce risk.

The Bill is expected to pass and come into force before Parliament rises in late September 2026. Until Royal Assent, the current law remains in full effect.

What’s Changing for Height Work Specifically

A Risk-Based Approach to Working at Height

This is the change most relevant to everyday tradies. Under the proposed reforms, officials are developing a risk-based hierarchy of controls for working at height. In plain English: the safety measure you’re required to use will need to match the actual danger of the job, rather than defaulting to the most expensive option every time.

The classic example the Minister has used: a simple gutter repair or minor electrical maintenance at height doesn’t necessarily require scaffolding. Under the new framework, a ladder or harness may be sufficient — and legal — for genuinely low-risk tasks.

This does not mean you can start skipping fall protection. The three-metre threshold for mandatory fall protection controls remains, and WorkSafe’s core expectation that risks be eliminated or minimised “so far as is reasonably practicable” does not change. What changes is that there will be clearer guidance on how to demonstrate you’ve done that, without defaulting to scaffolding every time out of uncertainty.

Scaffolding Certification Is Being Modernised

The scaffolding certification rules haven’t kept pace with how the industry actually works. The current Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995 define three categories of scaffolding — basic, advanced, and suspended — but the Scaffolding, Access and Rigging Association of NZ (SARNZ) has long operated with four categories: elementary, intermediate, advanced suspended, and restricted.

The mismatch has meant scaffolders sometimes need to complete training for types of work they’ll never do, just to hold the right ticket. The Government has confirmed that scaffolding certificate of competence categories will be updated to reflect current industry practice, with a review of certificate fees to follow.

For scaffolders and their employers, this should eventually mean less wasted training time and clearer pathways for certification.

Prequalification Is Getting an Overhaul

If you’ve ever had to fill out a different prequalification form for every new client or project, you’ll know how frustrating the current system is. One industry submitter reported completing 76 separate prequalifications in a single year.

WorkSafe has been directed to revise its prequalification guidance and develop free, nationally consistent templates that contractors can use across multiple clients. An Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) on overlapping duties — what happens when multiple trades share a worksite — is also being developed, which should reduce the uncertainty that drives over-use of prequalifications as a legal protection measure.

Approved Codes of Practice Now Carry More Weight

One of the more important but less-discussed changes is the strengthening of Approved Codes of Practice (ACoPs). Under the current rules, following an ACoP is voluntary and doesn’t automatically mean you’ve met your legal obligations — it’s just evidence you tried.

The Amendment Bill proposes giving ACoPs a formal “safe harbour” status. If you follow an ACoP for a specific risk, you’ll be deemed to have complied with the relevant HSWA duty. This is significant for height work because it means that once a clear working-at-height ACoP is in place, following it properly gives you genuine legal certainty.

Small PCBUs Get More Targeted Duties

A PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) is the legal term for anyone running a business — including sole traders and small operators. Under the Amendment Bill, small PCBUs (those with fewer than 20 workers for at least nine months of the year) will only be required to comply with the core HSWA duties as they relate to critical risks.

For most small trade businesses, this is likely to simplify your compliance obligations. However, working at height almost always qualifies as a critical risk. They’re not. What it means is that your paperwork and compliance effort should be more focused on the things that genuinely matter.

Specialist height contractors who operate across Auckland and Waikato with IRATA-certified technicians, are a good example of how small trade businesses already focus their compliance effort squarely on the critical risks that matter.

What Is NOT Changing

It’s worth being clear about what these reforms don’t touch, because there’s been some loose talk in the industry about “relaxed” safety rules.

The three-metre fall protection threshold is not changing. If there’s a risk of a fall of three metres or more, you must have suitable fall protection in place. That rule stays.

The five-metre notifiable work threshold is not changing. Scaffolding where a person can fall five metres or more is notifiable work, and must be completed by a certified scaffolder with the appropriate Certificate of Competence. That stays.

Confined space rules are completely separate and are not part of this reform. If your work involves confined space entry, the AS/NZS 2865 standard, entry permits, atmospheric monitoring requirements, and standby person obligations all remain exactly as they are.

IRATA certification requirements are not affected by this reform. Rope access technicians must still hold current IRATA qualifications at the appropriate level for the work being supervised.

What You Should Do Now

The Amendment Bill is still before Parliament and some details may change before it passes. Here’s the practical guidance for now:

Keep operating under current rules. Until Royal Assent (expected late 2026), nothing has legally changed. WorkSafe is still enforcing the existing regulations.

Watch for the new working-at-height ACoP. When it’s published, following it carefully will give you the strongest possible legal position. Sign up for WorkSafe updates at worksafe.govt.nz.

Review your prequalification setup. Once the new free WorkSafe templates are available, consolidating onto them will save you significant time and cost. Worth tracking when these are released.

If you’re a scaffolder, watch the certificate of competence review. Updates to the four certification categories and fee structures are coming. Check with SARNZ for the latest on timing.

Don’t use the reform as a reason to drop safety standards. The Government has been explicit: the goal is proportionate safety, not less safety. WorkSafe’s enforcement focus is shifting toward critical risks — and fall from height sits firmly in that category. Getting caught cutting corners during a reform period is not a good look.

The Industry View

Not everyone is comfortable with the pace of change. SARNZ, the industry body for scaffolders, has acknowledged the reform while cautioning that scaffolding regulations exist for a reason — they directly saved lives when first introduced. Their position is that any changes must keep safety front and centre and not be driven primarily by cost reduction.

That tension is worth keeping in mind. The reforms are genuinely intended to reduce compliance burden without reducing safety outcomes. How well that balance is struck in the final rules will depend on how effectively industry voices feed into the consultation process.

The Bottom Line

New Zealand’s height safety rules are being modernised for the first time in decades. The core changes include a risk-based approach to height work, updated scaffolding certification, a streamlined prequalification system, and stronger ACoPs. This is good news for tradies who’ve long felt the current system was both confusing and disproportionate.

But the fundamentals of height safety don’t change: falls kill people, and the legal duty to prevent them remains. The reform is about making it clearer and simpler to do the right thing.

If you work at height, now is the time to understand these changes, engage with the Select Committee process if you have something to contribute, and prepare your business for a smoother compliance framework when it arrives.