Plumbers signing off their own work. Granny flats going up without a building consent. A new planning system to replace the Resource Management Act.
More homes are being consented than a year ago, build costs have started climbing again and interest rates have turned upward.
Here’s what has changed so far in 2026, what’s still before Parliament, and the dates to put in the diary.
Self-certification is now real for one trade. The Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Act 2026 came into force on 30 June, and applications opened with the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board on 7 September. Building and Construction Minister Simon Watts said more than 60 plumbers and drainlayers were approved in the first week.
The scheme is voluntary, and only certifying plumbers and drainlayers with a Board endorsement can take part. The job still needs a building consent. What changes is the inspection, because an endorsed practitioner can certify eligible work instead of waiting for the council.
The Board lists the application fee and audit levy at $2,260. The Government estimates self-certification will save up to four days and $1,600 per build. Its release said the scheme covers most residential plumbing and drainlaying, a range of commercial work and some onsite wastewater systems used in rural areas.
Builders are further back in the queue. Cabinet agreed in April 2025 to an opt-in self-certification scheme for house builders working on a whole dwelling, with councils still issuing a nominal consent. No Bill for it has been introduced.
Inspection waits have shortened anyway. In a speech to the Constructive conference, Watts said 62 of the 64 building consent authorities reporting wait times met the Government’s target in the June 2026 quarter, with 97.8% of around 87,000 inspections done within three working days.
Granny flats became consent-exempt on 15 January. The Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Act 2025 covers single-storey dwellings with a floor area of 70m² or less. The owner needs a project information memorandum (PIM) from the council before work starts, and the work must be done by people authorised to do it.
A matching National Environmental Standard under the RMA started the same day, and an amendment clarifying how setbacks are measured followed in September. From 8 October, a further Order also allows exempt granny flats to use certified composite structural building products that hold a registered product certificate. The Government said in April that its guidance document had been downloaded more than 52,000 times, though no count of finished units has been published.
Overseas products are reaching sites faster too. Under the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Act 2025, the first round of recognition in October 2025 covered more than 90,000 WaterMark-approved products.
A second round in February 2026 added 54 recognition notices covering around 38,274 products, and building consent authorities must accept recognised products as compliant. The Government said plasterboard, cladding, windows and doors were among the products it expected to look at next.
The biggest change still to come is the Building Amendment Bill. Chris Penk, building and construction minister at the time, described it as the most significant reform of the building system in 20 years.
It passed its first reading on 30 June, and it’s now with Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee, which is due to report by 29 December 2026.
As introduced, the Bill would replace joint and several liability with proportionate liability, so each party pays its own share of a defect. It would require a home warranty for new homes and for consented residential work worth $100,000 or more, covering defective work for at least one year and structural defects for 10 years. Design professionals would need professional indemnity insurance.
The Bill would also cut the time councils have to issue a PIM from 20 working days to 10. It sets a 10-working-day consent track for solar or sustainable homes of up to three storeys, lets off-site granny flats be built before a PIM is issued, and lets councils hand their consenting functions to a stand-alone, council-controlled or private consent authority. The liability, insurance and warranty parts would start on the first anniversary of Royal assent, so none of it applies yet.
Earthquake-prone building rules have been rewritten as well. The Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2026 passed unanimously in September.
The Government said Auckland, the Chatham Islands and the upper North Island low seismic zone come out of the system straight away, and that around half the buildings currently designated earthquake-prone are expected to come off the list. Most of the Act starts on 1 July 2027, when only unreinforced masonry and certain multi-storey concrete buildings will stay in scope.
The Ministry for Regulation has named building and construction as the subject of its next regulatory review, with recommendations due to ministers in early 2027.
The Resource Management Act’s replacements are now law. The Planning Act 2026 and the Natural Environment Act 2026 passed their third readings on 22 September and received Royal assent on 30 September. The RMA itself stays in force until its repeal date is set by Order in Council, so existing consents and plans still apply on site.
Chris Bishop, Minister for RMA Reform, said more than 100 planning documents will be replaced by 17 regional combined plans, and a new Planning Tribunal will be set up in 2027. Many parts of both Acts start on dates set by Order in Council.
Fast-track consenting has kept moving. The Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 had approved 37 projects by mid-October, the latest being Winstone Aggregates’ Hunua Quarry in Auckland, according to fasttrack.govt.nz. This year’s approvals include the Belfast to Pegasus section of State Highway 1 in Canterbury, Auckland’s North West Rapid Transit project, more than 1,200 dwellings at Delmore in Ōrewa and 250 homes at Mt Iron Junction in Wānaka.
Health and safety law has changed, but not yet on site. The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 received Royal assent on 9 July and comes into force on 1 April 2027.
The Act refocuses the system on critical risks and limits an officer’s due diligence duty to their role as an officer. In businesses with fewer than 20 workers, officers’ due diligence covers critical risks only.
The Act also gives approved codes of practice a safe harbour, so a business that follows one is taken to have complied for that risk. Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden launched a new code of practice for residential construction on 16 October. It takes effect on 1 April 2027 and may be granted safe-harbour status after that date.
Retention money rules haven’t changed this year, and they still have teeth. Since 5 October 2023, retentions under the Construction Contracts Act have been trust property, kept in a separate account at a registered New Zealand bank and reported on at least every three months. A firm that breaks the rules faces a fine of up to $200,000 per offence, and its directors can be charged too unless they show they took all reasonable steps.
Training has been restructured. Eight Industry Skills Boards started on 1 January 2026, including the Construction and Specialist Trades Industry Skills Board, and BCITO now delivers work-based training as a private training establishment.
Under the 2025 vocational education Amendment Act, the skills boards can provide work-based training only until 31 December 2027, so their programmes must move to a tertiary provider by then. Te Pūkenga must be disestablished by 31 March 2027 at the latest.
Apprentice numbers fell sharply in 2025. Ministry of Education figures show total apprentices dropped 14% to 59,720 and new entrants fell 24%. Construction still hosted 49% of all apprentices, or 29,040 learners.
Immigration settings changed at both ends of the skills range. From 1 June, Accredited Employer Work Visa applicants for skill level 3 roles must meet an English standard of IELTS 4.0 or equivalent. Two new skilled residence pathways were due in August, including a trades and technician pathway for people with a relevant Level 4 qualification, four years’ experience and 18 months working in New Zealand at the median wage.
The pipeline is fuller than a year ago. Stats NZ says 41,268 new homes were consented in the year ended August 2026, up 21%. Auckland consented 17,264, up 19%, and Canterbury 8,933, up 35%, while non-residential consents were worth $8.9 billion, up 2.2%.
Work on the ground is following. The value of building work put in place was $8.2 billion in the June 2026 quarter, up 5.2% on a year earlier. Residential work rose 11% and non-residential work fell 3.4%.
Costs are moving again. Stats NZ’s capital goods price index shows residential building costs up 2.8% in the year to the June 2026 quarter, non-residential up 2.2% and civil construction up 5.2%. Cotality’s Cordell Construction Cost Index rose 1.7% in the September quarter, the fastest quarterly rise since late 2022, taking annual growth to 4.8%.
Kelvin Davidson, Cotality NZ’s chief property economist, said pricing for upcoming work is starting to rise. “Builders have absorbed some cost increases, particularly where existing projects are covered by fixed-price contracts.” He named PVC and other petroleum-based plumbing inputs, sealants, roof and ceramic tiles, reinforcing and structural steel among the products going up, along with fuel and freight.
Interest rates have turned. The Reserve Bank held the Official Cash Rate at 2.25% in February, April and May, then raised it to 2.50% in July and 2.75% in September. In its September statement, the Bank said annual inflation rose to 4.1% in the June quarter, and its Monetary Policy Committee judged the OCR may need to increase further.
Liquidations have eased slightly in construction. Centrix’s September credit indicator recorded 755 construction liquidations in the year to August 2026, equal to 0.9% of construction firms and down 1% on the year before. Construction was still the largest sector for insolvencies, at 21% of company insolvencies in August, and building completion services liquidations rose 46%.
Public money is coming through. The Budget 2026 Fiscal Strategy Report shows $7 billion of new capital funding, less $1.3 billion of savings, for a net capital package of $5.7 billion. That includes $1.8 billion for the Cambridge to Piarere Expressway, and the Budget lifted the capital allowance for Budget 2029 to $5 billion.
Te Waihanga, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, published the National Infrastructure Plan on 17 February. It says the country spends more than $20 billion a year on infrastructure and expects that to rise to slightly more than $30 billion a year by the 2050s, in 2023 dollars. The Government’s June response fully supported 13 of the Plan’s 16 recommendations and supported the other three in principle.
Te Waihanga’s National Infrastructure Pipeline was worth $290 billion at the end of June 2026, with $95.8 billion fully funded and $71.2 billion under construction. About $17.5 billion of projects were expected to start construction within the following 12 months. Chief executive Geoff Cooper said a new investor assurance process will be in place from 1 November.
All of this goes to voters on 7 November, with advance voting from 26 October. National says a re-elected National government would let qualified engineers sign off certain building work without a council inspection, and would set up a specialist consent authority for large commercial buildings. Labour’s Start Work Now policy would allocate $2.9 billion of capital for Kāinga Ora to build more state houses and give apprentices $1,000 towards tools and equipment.
The Green Party says it would build tens of thousands of quality, affordable public homes. ACT’s infrastructure policy says people should be free to build on their own property unless they cause material harm, and it would add a $6-a-day infrastructure surcharge to temporary work visas. NZ First would require fast-track housing projects to show the roads, pipes and water they need exist and are funded, and Te Pāti Māori’s Tāmaki Makaurau housing priorities call for large-scale investment in Māori-led housing developments.
The next dates are close. The select committee reports on the Building Amendment Bill by 29 December, and the health and safety changes start on 1 April 2027.
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