Does a two person lift double the weight that can be handled?

It changes which assessment you use. The first question in WorkSafe's screening flowchart asks whether the load is handled by one person, so a two person lift takes you out of the screening values and into a full assessment. The New Zealand Manual Handling Assessment Charts have a team handling section for this. Two people also add coordination, uneven load sharing and restricted vision, so the assessment differs and the number does not simply double.

Is There a Legal Lifting Weight Limit in New Zealand?

Q: Where does the 25 kilogram lifting figure come from?

From screening values in WorkSafe New Zealand's Lifting and lowering screening tool. The tool states that the screening values are not safe load limits or acceptable weight limits. The values change with the sex of the worker, the height of the hands during the lift and how far the load is held from the body, so a figure quoted without those conditions does not mean anything.

Q: Is there a legal weight limit for workers under 15?

There is a duty, and it sets no number. Regulation 45 of the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 requires a PCBU with management or control of a workplace to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that no worker aged under 15 is required to lift any weight or perform any task if that would be likely to be harmful to the worker's health. The penalty is up to $10,000 for an individual and up to $50,000 for any other person.

Q: Is the 2001 New Zealand Code of Practice for Manual Handling still relevant?

WorkSafe still publishes it and notes that it has not been updated for the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Under section 226 of that Act an approved code confers no enforceable obligation of its own, but is admissible in proceedings as evidence of whether a duty has been complied with, and a court may rely on it in determining what is reasonably practicable. You may do something different where it meets an equivalent or higher standard.

The short answer

There is no legal maximum lifting weight in New Zealand. No number appears in the Act, none appears in the regulations, and no agency publishes one.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 does not contain the phrase "manual handling" at all. It does not contain the word "weight". It contains no weight in kilograms. The word "lifting" appears twice in the whole Act, both times inside the definition of machinery, in the phrase "a lifting machine, a lifting vehicle".

What the Act does is put the duty on the business. Section 36(1) requires a PCBU to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers. Section 36(3) then spells parts of that out, including "the provision and maintenance of safe systems of work" at paragraph (c), and at paragraph (f) "the provision of any information, training, instruction, or supervision that is necessary to protect all persons from risks to their health and safety arising from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking".

The distinction that matters: a screening value tells you whether a task needs a closer look. A weight limit would tell you what is allowed. New Zealand has the first and not the second, and WorkSafe's own tool says so in as many words.

The only weight rule in the regulations is about age

The Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 use the word weight three times. One is in the definition of combustible dust. The other two both sit inside regulation 45, headed "Duty to ensure young persons do not perform harmful tasks":

A PCBU with management or control of a workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that no worker aged under 15 years is required to lift any weight or to perform any task if lifting the weight or performing the task would be likely to be harmful to the worker's health.

Read it closely and there is still no number in it. The test is whether the lift would likely harm that worker's health, which is a judgement about the person and the task. Breaching it carries a fine of up to $10,000 for an individual and up to $50,000 for any other person.

The only figure in kilograms anywhere in those regulations is 700 kilograms, and it has nothing to do with lifting. It sits in regulation 47, which deals with young people driving or riding on certain vehicles, and it is there to exclude machinery with a mass of 700 kilograms or less from the definition of a vehicle.

So where does 25 kilograms come from?

From a screening tool. WorkSafe publishes a Lifting and lowering screening tool, and it carries this line:

The screening values are not "safe load limits" or acceptable "weight limits".

The values in it change with the sex of the worker, the height of the hands during the lift and how far the load is held from the body. The same carton can sit inside the screening value when it is picked up at knuckle height against the body, and outside it when the same person reaches for it at shoulder height at arm's length. A number quoted on its own has been separated from the hand height and the reach distance that produced it.

The United Kingdom does not set limits either. The Health and Safety Executive's manual handling guidance states: "The weight of a load is important, though the law does not set specific weight limits."

For the current values, go to WorkSafe's tool. It is free, and the values there sit alongside the conditions that apply to them.

A supervisor watching a lift being done in a New Zealand warehouse, clipboard in hand, while a worker picks a carton off a pallet — A supervisor watching a lift being done.

What WorkSafe expects you to do instead

The screening tool works as a flowchart with nine questions plus the screening value. In outline, it asks whether the load is handled by one person, whether it can be grasped easily with two hands, whether conditions are reasonable, whether the worker has a stable body position, whether the torso stays free from twisting, whether the task is simple, whether lifts happen at least two minutes apart, whether the load is at or under the screening value, and whether the handling happens inside the lifting zones.

If every answer is yes and the load is at or under the screening value, the tool says you can treat the risk as low and stop there. If any answer is no, or the load is over the value, you move to a full risk assessment.

That full assessment has a name and a matching tool for each kind of task:

NZMAC, the New Zealand Manual Handling Assessment Charts, for lifting, lowering, carrying and team handling. WorkSafe adapted it from the United Kingdom HSE's version.
NZRAPP for pushing and pulling.
NZART for repetitive upper limb tasks.
Separate guidance for moving and handling people, which is its own field.

Picking the wrong one produces a tidy assessment of the wrong risk. Moving a loaded trolley is a push and pull task and belongs in NZRAPP, whatever the load on it weighs.

The code of practice, and what it says about limits

New Zealand has a Code of Practice for Manual Handling, published in June 2001 by the Occupational Safety and Health Service of the Department of Labour together with the Accident Compensation Corporation. It was written under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and points at sections 5, 6, 12, 13 and 14 of that Act. WorkSafe still publishes it and notes on its own website that it has not been updated to reflect the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and its regulations.

On the question in front of us, the code is direct. At page 21 it says:

It is unhelpful to prescribe specific weight limits (because of the complexity of the way the different risk factors combine), but the risk of harm increases with increasing weight or force.

An approved code still carries weight in a proceeding even though it creates no obligation of its own. Section 226 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 says a code confers no rights or obligations enforceable in civil or criminal proceedings, but is admissible as evidence of whether a duty has been complied with. The court may have regard to it as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk assessment or risk control, and may rely on it in determining what is reasonably practicable. Doing something different is allowed where it meets an equivalent or better standard.

Two workers in hi-vis vests carrying a long beam between them down a warehouse aisle — A two person carry takes the task out of the screening values.

Why one number was never going to work

Weight is one input among several. The screening tool's nine questions only mention weight once. The rest are about grip, body position, twisting, how complicated the movement is, how often it repeats and whether the hands stay inside the lifting zones.

A load under any number you care to pick will still injure someone if it is lifted from the floor with a twist, forty times an hour, at the end of a shift, by a worker who has never been shown another way to do it. A heavier load lifted twice a day at waist height with a clear path and a stable stance may be the lower risk of the two. This is the reason the 2001 code gives for refusing to set limits in the first place.

Myths worth retiring

"The legal limit is 25kg." No limit exists in New Zealand law, and WorkSafe's tool says its values are not limits.
"It is 25kg for men and 16kg for women." Screening values vary by hand height and by distance from the body as well as by sex. Quoting one cell of a grid strips out the conditions that produced it.
"If we stay under the number we are fine." The tool only lets you stop at the screening stage when all nine questions are also yes.
"Light loads do not need assessing." Frequency and posture carry risk on their own, which is why the flowchart asks about twisting and about lifts happening less than two minutes apart.
"There is a separate legal limit for young workers." Regulation 45 sets a harm test for workers under 15, not a weight.
"Our team did a manual handling course so we are compliant." No course makes a business compliant. Compliance is the outcome of what the business does about its own risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and training is one part of that.

A worker standing at a scissor lift table that holds a carton at waist height, with stock and a pallet behind her — A scissor lift table holding the work at waist height.

A sensible order of work

List the lifting, lowering and carrying tasks people actually do, in the words they use for them.
Run each one through WorkSafe's screening tool, using the current values from the tool itself.
Take anything that fails the screen into NZMAC, or into NZRAPP or NZART where those fit the task better.
Fix what the assessment finds, working down the hierarchy of control in regulation 6. Training is one control among several and sits well down that list.
Train the people doing the task and the people who design it, and keep a record of what was covered and when.
Reassess when the task, the load, the layout or the people change.

Common questions

Is there a maximum weight a worker can lift in New Zealand?

No. Neither the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 nor the General Risk and Workplace Management Regulations 2016 sets a maximum lifting weight. The Act does not use the phrase "manual handling" or the word "weight" at all. The duty is the general one in section 36 to ensure health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable, which includes safe systems of work and the training, instruction and supervision necessary to protect people.

Where does the 25 kilogram figure come from?

From screening values in WorkSafe's Lifting and lowering screening tool. The tool states that the screening values are not safe load limits or acceptable weight limits. The values change with the sex of the worker, the height of the hands during the lift and how far the load is from the body, so a figure quoted without those conditions does not mean anything.

Is there a different limit for women?

There is no limit for anyone, so there is no different limit for women. WorkSafe's screening values do differ by sex, and they also differ by hand height and by how far the load is held from the body. They are a trigger for a closer look at the task, not a rule about who may lift what.

Is there a legal weight limit for workers under 15?

There is a duty, not a limit. Regulation 45 of the General Risk and Workplace Management Regulations 2016 requires a PCBU with management or control of a workplace to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that no worker aged under 15 is required to lift any weight or perform any task if that would be likely to harm the worker's health. The penalty is up to $10,000 for an individual and up to $50,000 for any other person.

Does a two person lift double the weight we can handle?

It changes which assessment you use. The first question in WorkSafe's screening flowchart asks whether the load is handled by one person, so a two person lift takes you out of the screening values and into a full assessment. NZMAC has a team handling section for exactly this. Two people also add coordination, uneven load sharing and restricted vision, so the assessment differs and the number does not simply double.

Is the 2001 Code of Practice for Manual Handling still relevant?

WorkSafe still publishes it, and notes that it has not been updated for the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. Under section 226 of that Act an approved code confers no enforceable obligation of its own, but is admissible in proceedings as evidence of whether a duty has been complied with, and a court may rely on it in determining what is reasonably practicable. You may do something different where it meets an equivalent or higher standard.

Which assessment tool should we use?

NZMAC for lifting, lowering, carrying and team handling. NZRAPP for pushing and pulling. NZART for repetitive upper limb tasks. Moving and handling people has its own separate guidance. All are published by WorkSafe, and NZMAC is adapted from the United Kingdom HSE's manual handling assessment charts.

Current as at 14 September 2026. This article is general information about New Zealand law, not legal advice, and no training course makes a business compliant on its own. Check the current text of any legislation, regulation or guidance before you rely on it.

Training for the people doing the lifting

Manual Handling for Staff covers safe technique and on the job sign off. Manual Handling for Leaders covers assessing the task, choosing controls and designing the risk out.

See Manual Handling for Staff