Which New Zealand occupations require registration and which do not — four different legislative designs, and why 'regulated' means four different things

“Is this occupation regulated in New Zealand?” is the wrong question, because New Zealand’s statutes answer it in four different ways and the differences change what a foreign qualification is actually worth.

Some Acts make it a crime to do the work without a licence. Some make it a crime only to use the title, leaving the work open to anyone. One binds the employer rather than the practitioner. And the health scheme does something different again: it restricts claiming to be a practitioner, requires a practising certificate to practise within a registered scope, and closes only a handful of specific clinical activities.

Two widely repeated beliefs fall over on the statutes. Engineering is not a practice-regulated profession in New Zealand — only the title “chartered professional engineer” is protected. And accountancy is less regulated than it was: the provision requiring accountants and auditors to be qualified was repealed in 2015.

The four designs

Occupation	Act and section	Practice restricted?	Title protected?	Design
Immigration advisers	Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, ss 63–64	yes	yes	both
Real estate agents	Real Estate Agents Act 2008, ss 6, 141	yes	yes	both
Cadastral surveyors	Cadastral Survey Act 2002, ss 57–58	yes	yes	both
Electricians	Electricity Act 1992, ss 74, 162	yes (prescribed electrical work)	not located	practice restricted
Plumbers, gasfitters, drainlayers	Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006, ss 8–10, 123	yes	not located	practice restricted
Builders	Building Act 2004, ss 84–85	yes, but only for restricted building work	not located	practice restricted, narrow
Financial advice providers	Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, s 388(ba)	yes, at entity level	n/a	entity licensing
Lawyers	Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, ss 21, 24	yes, but only in the reserved areas of work	yes	both, narrow
Health practitioners	Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, ss 7–9	claiming restricted; practising certificate required in scope; only declared “restricted activities” closed outright	yes	hybrid
Chartered professional engineers	Chartered Professional Engineers of New Zealand Act 2002, s 7	no	yes	title only
Veterinarians	Veterinarians Act 2005, s 32	no	yes	title only
Chartered accountants	NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants Act 1996, s 14	no (s 15 repealed 2015)	yes	title only
Teachers	Education and Training Act 2020, ss 92–93	no offence found — the duty falls on the employer	not located	employment restricted

Design 1 — the work is closed

Electricians. “A person must not do any prescribed electrical work, or assist in doing any prescribed electrical work, unless that person is authorised to do so under this section.” Breach carries “a fine not exceeding $50,000 in the case of an individual, or $250,000 in the case of a body corporate”, and there is a separate offence for the employer who allows it. Note the scope limiter: the restriction attaches to prescribed electrical work, with carve-outs for supervision, trainees and certain domestic work.

Plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers. Three parallel sections in the same terms — “A person must not do any sanitary plumbing… unless that person is authorised”, and the same for gasfitting and drainlaying. The penalties are not parallel: sanitary plumbing and drainlaying attract a fine “not exceeding $10,000”, gasfitting “not exceeding $50,000 in the case of an individual, or $250,000 in the case of a body corporate.”

Real estate agents. Both halves are closed. Section 6(1): “A person must not carry out any real estate agency work unless the person… is licensed under this Act”. Section 6(2): “No person may hold himself or herself out to the public as ready to carry out any agency work” without a licence. Lawyers and conveyancers are exempt, with a payment restriction — they “may carry out any real estate agency work but… is not entitled to be remunerated for that work by commission”.

Immigration advisers. The strictest occupation in this set, and the only one carrying imprisonment: a person who knowingly provides immigration advice unlicensed “is liable to… imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years or a fine not exceeding $100,000, or both.” Holding out is a separate offence. The exemption list at s 11 is worth reading in full if you work in international education — it covers “persons who provide immigration advice in an informal or family context only, so long as the advice is not provided systematically or for a fee”, lawyers, public servants, community law centres, citizens advice bureaux, and offshore advisers dealing only with student visa applications.

Builders. Narrower than it looks. “All restricted building work must be carried out or supervised by a licensed building practitioner”, with a fine up to $50,000 — but only restricted building work, declared by Order in Council, and s 85(3) preserves an owner-builder exemption. General building work is not licensed.

Cadastral surveyors. Both restricted, with an odd asymmetry: doing unlicensed cadastral survey work attracts “a fine not exceeding $1,000”, while misusing the title attracts “a fine not exceeding $5,000”. The title is punished five times harder than the work. And the Act covers cadastral surveying — boundary definition — not surveying in general.

Lawyers. Title protection at s 21 sits alongside a ring-fenced core of work at s 24, defined at s 6 as advice on the direction or management of proceedings, appearing as an advocate, and representing a person in proceedings. Everything outside the reserved areas is open, and s 25 expressly permits an overseas lawyer to provide “legal services that do not involve carrying out work in any of the reserved areas of work”.

Financial advice. The licence sits on the firm, not the person: “A person must not provide any of the following market services without holding… a market services licence… (ba) acting as a provider of a financial advice service”. Individual advisers operate under a provider’s licence, and there is a wholesale carve-out — a provider with no retail clients for that service need not be licensed.

Design 2 — only the name is closed

This is the design people misread most often, and three significant occupations sit in it.

Chartered professional engineers. Section 7 is headed “Protection of title of chartered professional engineer” and does exactly that: “No person, other than a chartered professional engineer, may use in connection with his or her business, trade, employment, calling, or profession— (a) the title ‘chartered professional engineer’; or (b) any words, initials, or abbreviations of that title…”, with a fine “not exceeding $5,000”. There is no provision anywhere in the Act making it an offence to practise engineering, to offer engineering services, or to call yourself an “engineer” without the qualifier. So the widely repeated claim that engineering is a regulated profession in New Zealand is wrong as usually stated. What is regulated is one specific title. What that title unlocks, and how an overseas engineering qualification is mapped to it, is in Engineering New Zealand: accord vs non-accord and which accord applies to your engineering qualification.

Veterinarians. Drafted on the same template: “No person, other than a veterinarian, may use in connection with his or her business, trade, employment, calling, or profession— (a) the title ‘veterinarian’…”, fine up to $10,000, with a parallel provision for “specialist”. No offence of performing veterinary work appears in the Act. One caveat we can support but not resolve: the Act’s disciplinary provisions cross-refer to the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act 1997, so restricted veterinary medicines and activities are likely controlled there. We have not read that Act and are not asserting its contents.

Chartered accountants. The title provision is detailed — it is an offence to describe yourself in writing “as a chartered accountant or a chartered accountant in public practice or an associate chartered accountant… or an accounting technician”, or to use “the initials CA, ACA, FCA, FACA, CA (PP), ACA (PP), or AT” without entitlement, fine up to $5,000. But the section that once required qualification to practise is gone. The statute now reads, in its entirety: “15 Accountants and auditors must be qualified [Repealed] Section 15: repealed, on 1 July 2015, by section 13 of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants Amendment Act 2014 (2014 No 65).” Anyone may practise as an accountant in New Zealand; only the designations are protected. (Statutory audit is governed separately and is not covered by this page.)

Design 3 — the employer is bound, not you

Teaching is the one occupation here where we could find no offence provision at all directed at the practitioner. The Education and Training Act 2020 imposes the duty on the employer:

“An employer may not permanently appoint a person to any teaching position if the person does not hold a practising certificate.”

“An employer may not continue to employ in a teaching position a person who holds neither a practising certificate nor an authorisation if the person is not under the general supervision of a person who holds a practising certificate.”

And the relief-teaching tolerance: an employer may not keep employing an uncertificated, unauthorised person beyond “20 half-days or any greater number of half-days the Teaching Council has allowed in any particular case.”

The accurate statement is therefore not “you cannot teach in New Zealand without registration”. It is: a school cannot permanently appoint you without a practising certificate, and cannot keep you beyond narrow limits without one. An unregistered person may work under general supervision, or unsupervised for up to twenty half-days a year. That distinction matters if you are planning the sequence in which to arrive, work and register. The registration requirements themselves are in Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand: overseas teacher requirements.

Design 4 — the health hybrid

The Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 does three separate things.

Section 7 closes the claim: “A person may only use names, words, titles, initials, abbreviations, or descriptions stating or implying that the person is a health practitioner of a particular kind if the person is registered”, and no person may “claim to be practising a profession as a health practitioner of a particular kind” without registration and a current practising certificate. Fine up to $10,000.

Section 8 requires the certificate: “Every health practitioner who practises the profession in respect of which he or she is registered must have a current practising certificate issued by the responsible authority.”

Section 9 closes specific activities, and only those declared: “No person may perform, or state or imply that he or she is willing to perform, an activity that, by an Order in Council made under this section, is declared to be a restricted activity unless the person is a health practitioner who is permitted by his or her scope of practice to perform that activity.”

The professions and their authorities are set out in s 114 and Schedule 2. The Schedule pairs the Chiropractic Board, Dietitians Board, Medical Radiation Technologists Board, Medical Council, Medical Sciences Council, Nursing Council, Occupational Therapy Board, Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board, Physiotherapy Board, Podiatrists Board and Psychologists Board with their professions; s 114(2)–(5) adds the Dental Council, Midwifery Council, Osteopathic Council and Pharmacy Council. Further professions can be designated by Order in Council under s 115.

Australia’s health scheme is structurally similar and worth reading alongside it — see Ahpra’s National Boards and protected titles.

So what should you actually do

Find your occupation’s design before you make a study decision, because the design tells you what a qualification is for.

If the work is closed, the qualification is a gate: you cannot start without it, and the study decision is urgent. If only the title is closed, the qualification is a market signal rather than a permission — you can work while you obtain it, and the cost-benefit is different. If the constraint falls on the employer, the sequencing question is about employment terms rather than about legality.

And do not reason across the Tasman. An occupation whose title is protected in Australia may be entirely unregulated in New Zealand, and vice versa. Where you hold registration in one country, the shortcut is a statute rather than a qualification — see how Trans-Tasman mutual recognition transfers NZ registration — and where the profession is unregulated on one side, the study decision changes shape entirely, as in when a profession is not regulated in Australia.

What this page does not do

It is not legal advice, and it is not a complete list of New Zealand’s regulated occupations. Every quotation above is from the current version of the named Act on legislation.govt.nz, read on 3 September 2026; those pages carry no overall “last updated” line, only per-section amendment notes, and several of these Acts were amended during 2026. Where we say a title-protection provision was “not located”, that means we did not find one in the Act we read — not that none exists anywhere in New Zealand law. Where an Act restricts a class of work (“prescribed electrical work”, “restricted building work”, “reserved areas of work”), the boundaries of that class are set by regulations or Orders in Council we have not read. Check the Act, and take advice before relying on any of this.