Yes, it applies to you — but it can be simple and affordable
Health and safety law in New Zealand applies to every business, no matter how small — including sole traders and the self-employed. The good news: what you must do scales to your size and risk. A small, low-risk business needs far less than a large, high-risk one, but it still has to manage its risks.
Yes. The HSWA applies to every PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking), and that expressly includes sole traders, self-employed people, partnerships and small companies.
The common belief that “we're too small to worry about health and safety” is simply wrong. There is no size threshold below which the law switches off. What changes with size is not whether the duties apply, but how much you need to do to meet them — which is where the idea of “reasonably practicable” comes in.
You hold the primary duty of care: to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of your workers and of anyone else who could be affected by your work.
In practice, for most small businesses that means having sensible basics in place and being able to show them:
You don't need a thick manual — you need the right basics, kept current, and easy to prove.
The law is proportionate. What you must do is weighed against the level of risk — so a low-risk, one-person business does far less than a large, high-risk operation.
“Reasonably practicable” weighs how likely harm is and how serious it could be against what it takes to control it. For a home-office consultant the risks are modest and the controls are light; for a small construction or manufacturing firm the risks are higher and more is expected. The principle is the same for everyone — manage your risks — but the amount of work is matched to the hazards you actually have.
| Your situation | What's typically expected |
|---|---|
| Sole trader, low-risk (e.g. home-office consultant) | Basic hazard awareness, safe equipment, managing risks to clients and visitors, light record-keeping. |
| Small team, moderate risk (e.g. cafe or small trade) | Documented hazards and controls, inductions, training records, incident reporting, first aid. |
| Small business, higher-risk (e.g. construction, manufacturing) | A full health and safety system, safe operating procedures, contractor management, and often prequalification (SiteWise, PreQual or Totika). |
Illustrative only — your actual requirements depend on the specific hazards and risks of your work.
Even with no employees, you must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, your own health and safety and that of anyone affected by your work — such as clients, other contractors and the public.
And when you carry out work for another business — for example, as a subcontractor — that business has duties to you as one of its workers, and you share overlapping duties with it. In practice, that is also why you may be asked to prequalify (SiteWise, PreQual or Totika) before you can win certain work: the business engaging you needs to check your health and safety is sound.
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Yes. A sole trader is a PCBU under the HSWA and must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, their own health and safety and that of anyone affected by their work, such as clients, other contractors and members of the public.
Yes. Even with no employees, you still have duties to other people who could be affected by your work, and to yourself if you are self-employed. The HSWA does not switch off just because you work alone.
No. There is no exemption for being small. The HSWA applies to every business; what changes with size is how much you need to do to meet your duties, because the requirements scale with the level of risk.
As much as is reasonably practicable for your size and risk. A low-risk, one-person business needs only light, sensible basics; a higher-risk small business needs more, such as documented procedures and, in some industries, prequalification. The duty is proportionate to the hazards you have.
Not always, but many clients and main contractors require a prequalification rating — SiteWise, PreQual or Totika — before they will award work. If you want to win that kind of work, having a sound health and safety system ready is what gets you across the line.
