Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990

The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990 is one of New Zealand's main public health compliance laws for smoking, vaping and regulated products. It is not just about banning smoking in a few places. It also controls how certain products are advertised, displayed, sold, packaged, notified and monitored.

For a business owner, the practical questions are usually straightforward. Can staff or customers smoke or vape here? Can we sell these products? What can be shown on shelves or online? What age checks are required? Do we need records, reports or product notifications? The answer depends on your role in the chain and the type of premises or products involved.

This Act reaches well beyond specialist tobacco or vape businesses. It applies to employers, managers, occupiers, operators, licensees, retailers, online sellers and parts of the product supply chain. The exact duty depends on the setting and the activity.

The contents of the Act show rules for workplaces, schools and early childhood education and care centres, aircraft, passenger service vehicles, certain travel premises, licensed premises, restaurants, casinos and certain gaming machine venues. It also regulates advertising, sponsorship, free distribution, rewards, visibility, age-restricted sales, vending machines, packaging, notification, enforcement and annual reporting.

Most breaches do not start with a deliberate decision to ignore the law. They usually start with routine business changes. A shop refit can create a visibility problem. A new website can miss required warnings. A junior staff member can make an under-18 sale. A workplace vehicle policy can overlook smoking or vaping rules.

This Act has also been amended many times. If your business still relies on older assumptions about vaping, product displays, notifications or smoked tobacco rules, your systems may no longer match the current law.

Part 1 prohibits smoking and vaping in workplaces. The Act also contains setting-specific rules for schools and early childhood education and care centres, aircraft, passenger service vehicles, certain travel premises, licensed premises, restaurants, casinos and certain gaming machine venues.

The offence provisions matter because they show who can be liable. Depending on the setting, responsibility may sit with an employer, managers of premises, an occupier, an operator, a licensee, a casino operator's licence holder or a class 4 gambling venue licence holder.

That means a business should not treat smoking and vaping as just a staff conduct issue. It is a legal compliance issue linked to the type of premises and the role your business plays in controlling that space.

Part 1A creates a separate rule for motor vehicles carrying child occupants. A person must not smoke or vape in a motor vehicle, whether moving or stationary, that is on a road and has a child occupant.

The Act includes limited exceptions. One is where the person smoking or vaping is the only occupant of the motor vehicle who is under 18. Another is for a vehicle manufactured for use as an occasional or permanent dwelling, if it is stationary on a road and in use as a dwelling.

This is an infringement offence. The Act supports an infringement fee of $50 or a court-imposed fine not exceeding $100. If your business uses vehicles, this rule should be built into driver policies and staff training.

Part 2 places strong controls on how regulated products are promoted and sold. The Act prohibits publishing regulated product advertisements, restricts certain oral communications, regulates sponsorship, prohibits free distribution, prohibits some supply arrangements with other products, and prohibits rewards involving regulated products.

The Act also says a regulated product must not be visible from a place of business. There are separate rules for automatic vending machines, including that regulated products must not be visible from outside the machine, the machine must not be located in a public place, and required health messages must be displayed.

For many retailers, the biggest risk is assuming compliance is only about age checks. Store layout, counter setup, posters, website wording, loyalty offers and product bundles can all create issues under this Act.

The Act prohibits the sale and delivery of regulated products to people younger than 18 years. It also prohibits supplying regulated products to them. There is also a separate prohibition on selling toy regulated products to people younger than 18 years.

The Act requires point-of-sale purchase age information and internet-sales purchase age information or warnings. It also defines approved evidence of age document by reference to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012.

In practice, this means your frontline process matters. Staff should know when to ask for ID, what ID is acceptable, how to refuse a sale, and how online ordering and delivery steps are checked.

The Act treats specialist vape retailers differently in some areas. It includes a specific subpart for approval as a specialist vape retailer. It also defines approved vaping premises and approved Internet site as premises or an internet site to which a person's approval as a specialist vape retailer applies.

The Act also includes an exemption heading for specialist vape retailers and vaping in approved vaping premises. That means a business should not assume a rule that applies to an approved specialist vape retailer also applies to a general retailer.

If your business sells vaping products and relies on specialist status, check that your premises and online channels match the approval framework you are operating under.

Part 3 deals with packaging and labelling of regulated products. It includes standardised packaging requirements, offences for non-compliant standardised packaging, required messages and information on regulated product packages, restrictions on sale of certain regulated products in small quantities, and restrictions on advertising, labelling and sale of oral use products.

The Act also shows that some older constituent testing provisions in Part 3 were repealed. That matters because businesses should not assume there is one universal testing duty applying to every regulated product in every circumstance.

There are also separate smoked tobacco product constituent provisions in Part 3A, including limits on constituents and annual testing for constituents of smoked tobacco products.

Part 4 creates a separate regime for regulated products that must be notified. The Act says a notifier must not sell a product unless it has been notified. The notifier must be a New Zealand resident or a company registered in New Zealand. The Act also covers pre-notification requirements, how to notify, expiry, adverse reaction notification, renotification, prohibited substances, prohibited flavours, colouring substances, maximum limits, warnings, recalls, suspension and cancellation.

The Act also includes annual testing for constituents of notifiable products and a power for the Director-General to require testing or further testing of a notifiable product. Those duties are tied to the notifiable product regime, not to every manufacturer, importer or distributor in all cases.

The Act separately includes an obligation of a person selling notifiable products and an obligation of a distributor in respect of smoked tobacco products in Part 1B. Retailers also have obligations under section 65 in the notifiable product regime.

Part 5 includes annual reporting requirements for manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers of regulated products, and record-keeping requirements for regulated products. If your business is in scope, compliance should be documented rather than left to informal practice.

The Act also gives enforcement officers significant powers. The Director-General appoints enforcement officers, and appointments can be limited to certain provisions or powers. Enforcement officers may enter a non-residential place at a reasonable time if they reasonably believe the Act applies there.

Once there, they may inspect the place and products, take photographs, videos or other recordings, take air samples, inspect advertising or display material, and use powers for the purposes set out in the Act. The Act also provides for search warrants and offences for obstruction or false and misleading information.

The Act creates a mix of offences and infringement offences. The official text clearly supports the penalty framework in section 17A for certain smoking and vaping offences under section 17. In general terms, some penalties differ depending on whether the offender is a body corporate or not.

For example, managers of premises who commit an offence against section 17(2A) are liable to a fine not exceeding $4,000 if they are a body corporate, or not exceeding $400 each if they are not. For other section 17 offences, the maximum is $4,000 for a body corporate and $400 for a person who is not. For an employer offence under section 17(8C), the maximum is $1,000 for a body corporate and $100 otherwise.

The Act also says the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 is not affected. Local authorities may also make bylaws providing greater protection from tobacco smoke than Part 1 provides. Businesses should therefore check this Act alongside health and safety duties and any relevant local rules.

This is a principal Act that is in force. The current consolidated version shown is as at 10 July 2026. The Act received Royal assent on 28 August 1990. Part 1 came into force 3 months after assent, Part 2 came into force on 16 December 1990, and the rest came into force on the day after assent unless otherwise provided.

The Act title was replaced on 11 November 2020. That date is important, but businesses should not assume every vaping-related change started on that exact day. The Act includes transitional periods after that date for visibility rules, notifiable product rules and related matters. The current version also reflects later amendments from 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026.