New Zealand and Australian Framework Levels Line Up Officially — the Qualification Names Sitting on Them Do Not

The official side-by-side comparison of the New Zealand and Australian qualifications frameworks exists, it is free, and it says the levels match one for one: AQF level 1 to NZQCF level 1, all the way to level 10 against level 10. NZQA publishes that table. The joint referencing report behind it is a public PDF.

And both documents immediately tell you the table settles less than it looks like it settles. NZQA’s page: “It does not guarantee that New Zealand or Australia will automatically recognise a qualification as equivalent.” The report: “the outcomes of the referencing process do not entitle any holder of an Australian or New Zealand qualification to claim automatic recognition.”

What follows is the table, what it was actually built to do, and the places where the two systems put identically named awards at different levels — which is where people get hurt, because a level match across frameworks does not survive contact with award names.

One naming point first, because half the confusion starts here: New Zealand’s framework has not been called the NZQF since 2022. NZQA’s own history page records that in 2022 “Micro-credentials were included in the framework and its name was changed to the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework (NZQCF)”, and that in 2025 “The level descriptors and qualification-type descriptions were updated.” Documents still saying NZQF are either older or behind.

The official table

From NZQA’s recognition-arrangements page, verified 3 September 2026:

Australian Qualifications Framework	New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework
Level 1	Level 1
Level 2	Level 2
Level 3	Level 3
Level 4	Level 4
Level 5	Level 5
Level 6	Level 6
Level 7	Level 7
Level 8	Level 8
Level 9	Level 9
Level 10	Level 10

That is the whole result. Ten levels, straight across.

What “referencing” means, and what it was for

The report defines the exercise: “Referencing is a process that results in the establishment of a relationship between the levels of national qualifications frameworks and the robustness of the quality assurance systems that underpin the education and training systems. Referencing seeks to make a statement about the broad compatibility of qualifications frameworks, without adjustments to either of the qualifications frameworks being made.”

So it is a statement about two systems, not about two certificates. Its stated purpose is to “support transparent and consistent recognition decisions” by people who have to make them — providers, employers, regulators. It was produced by a Joint Working Group of Australian Department of Education and Training officials and NZQA, using principles adapted from the European Qualifications Framework referencing criteria, and it involved international experts and consultation in both countries.

Two limits on how far you can push it. First, the copyright date on the report is 2015, and both frameworks have moved since: New Zealand renamed its framework in 2022 and refreshed its descriptors in 2025, while the AQF has added an Undergraduate Certificate and a level 7 Vocational Degree. The level mapping has not been withdrawn — NZQA still publishes it — but the qualification-type detail inside the report is a 2015 snapshot, and the framework sites are the current text.

Second, the report is candid that not every level fell out of a mechanical comparison: “For most levels, the structural and technical comparison informed an appropriate reference, but for some levels, further research was required to make a more robust and comprehensive comparison.” Level 9 is the clearest case in the text, where the report records outright differences — the NZ level 9 application outcome “refers to responsibility for leadership within the profession, whereas the AQF refers to responsibility as a practitioner”, and adds “Leadership within the profession is more complex than having responsibility as a practitioner.” The levels were still judged comparable, but by reading the qualification descriptors alongside the level descriptors, not by matching level text alone.

Mismatch one: Graduate Certificate and Graduate Diploma sit a level apart

This is the expensive one, because the words are identical and the levels are not.

In the AQF, the Graduate Certificate and the Graduate Diploma are level 8 qualification types, alongside the Bachelor Honours Degree. They are postgraduate awards.

In the NZQCF, the Graduate Certificate and the Graduate Diploma are level 7 qualification types, alongside the Bachelor’s Degree and the level 7 Diploma. NZQA describes the Graduate Certificate as “Designed primarily as a vehicle for degree or equivalent level diploma graduates to pursue further study at an advanced undergraduate level”, requiring “a minimum of 60 credits, including at least 40 credits at level 7 or above”. The Graduate Diploma “Allows degree graduates to pursue a significant body of study at an advanced undergraduate level”, requiring “a minimum of 120 credits, including at least 72 credits at level 7 or above”.

New Zealand’s level 8 equivalents are differently named: the Postgraduate Certificate (“A minimum of 60 credits at level 8 or above”) and the Postgraduate Diploma (“A minimum of 120 credits at levels 7 and above, with a minimum of 72 credits from level 8”).

Australia does not make that split. The 2015 referencing report explains why, in a footnote: the former AQF Advisory Board reviewed the question in 2000, and “At the time the distinction was considered to be too difficult to make in practice and had the potential to confuse both employers and students. No change to the Graduate Certificate and Graduate Diploma was made.”

The practical consequence is direct. A New Zealand Graduate Diploma and an Australian Graduate Diploma are not the same framework level, and a document that says “Graduate Diploma” tells an assessor nothing until they know which country’s framework issued it. Australian assessing authorities already treat graduate diplomas with caution in their own right — VETASSESS states that it “will not be assessing an Australian Graduate Diploma or comparable overseas postgraduate diploma, either alone or in combination with underpinning sub-degree qualifications, for comparability to the educational level of an Australian Bachelor degree.” See when a graduate diploma counts.

Mismatch two: “Diploma” means one level in Australia and three in New Zealand

The AQF places the Diploma at level 5, and puts the Advanced Diploma and the Associate Degree at level 6. Those are three distinct qualification types with three distinct names.

The NZQCF has Diplomas at level 5, level 6 and level 7, and has no Advanced Diploma and no Associate Degree at all. The level is carried in the qualification’s own title — “Diploma level 5”, “Diploma level 6”, “Diploma level 7” — not in a different word.

The credit requirements differ accordingly. A level 5 diploma needs “a minimum of 120 credits at level 4 or above including at least 72 credits at level 5 or above”; a level 6 diploma the same shape one level up; a level 7 diploma “a minimum of 120 credits at level 5 or above including at least 72 credits at level 7 or above”, and it is explicitly a post-experience award — “A programme of study leading to a level 7 diploma builds on significant prior achievement within the same or a related area of study”, with entry “open to those who have achieved 120 credits at level 5 or above or equivalent”.

So a New Zealand Diploma can be at the same framework level as a Bachelor’s Degree, or two levels below it, and only the full title says which. If your paperwork says “Diploma” and drops the level, an Australian reader has no way to place it.

Mismatch three: New Zealand counts credits, Australia counts a qualification type

The NZQCF is a credit-based framework. NZQA states: “One credit represents 10 notional hours of learning and assessment”, and “A learner studying full-time can usually earn 120 credits in a year.” Every qualification type carries a minimum credit specification: Bachelor’s Degree, “a minimum of 360 credits at levels 5 to 7, with a minimum of 72 credits at level 7 or above”; Master’s Degree, “a minimum of 120 credits at levels 8 and above, with at least 40 credits at level 9”.

The AQF does not work that way. It specifies qualification types with learning-outcome descriptors and a volume of learning, and it is not a register — the referencing report draws the contrast: “the NZQF is a unified framework with a dual purpose: to set out the architecture of the New Zealand qualifications system, and to act as the single repository for all quality assured qualifications in New Zealand. The AQF is also a unified framework with qualification types at each level, but it is not an accredited qualification repository.”

That structural difference shows up at level 8. NZQA allows a Bachelor Honours Degree to be either “a 480-credit (or more) degree with study at an advanced level that requires a particular level of achievement, or a discrete 120-credit degree following a Bachelor’s degree” — two quite different objects under one name, with an explicit special case for “degrees in which professional or accreditation requirements make it difficult to meet the 120-credit level 8/9 requirement, e.g. degrees in law or engineering.” An Australian assessor reading a New Zealand honours transcript has to establish which of those two it was.

The schooling boundary is a fourth difference, and it is a framework-scope one

NZQA states it plainly on the comparison page: “Australia does not include Senior Secondary Certificate of Education qualifications as a level in the AQF. New Zealand includes National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) qualifications on the NZQCF.”

The AQF confirms the Australian half — “Senior Secondary Certificate of Education qualifications are not located at a particular level in the Australian Qualifications Framework.” NCEA levels 1 to 3 sit on the NZQCF at levels 1 to 3.

This is not a disagreement about difficulty; it is a difference in what each framework is for. But it means the low levels of the two frameworks are not populated by the same kinds of thing, and a level-number comparison there is the least informative part of the table.

What to do with this

1. Cite the level, not the award name, when writing to an Australian body. “NZQCF level 7 Graduate Diploma” is unambiguous. “Graduate Diploma” is not.
2. Put the full New Zealand qualification title on everything — the level is part of the title for certificates and diplomas, and dropping it destroys the information.
3. Do not treat the referencing table as an entitlement. Both publishers say it is not one. What it buys you is that an Australian decision-maker starts from a position of trust in the New Zealand quality-assurance system, not from a conclusion about your certificate.
4. For a qualification decision about your own document, you still need a decision-maker. Which one depends on what you want to do with it: assessment, registration and admission are three separate decisions. If the direction of travel is into New Zealand rather than out of it, NZQA’s own service is described in NZQA IQA versus an Australian skills assessment.

This site summarises published frameworks. It is not NZQA, not the body that maintains the AQF, and not an assessing authority, and nothing here is a prediction of how any body will place a specific qualification.