Forklift training and certification in New Zealand

You don’t need a car licence, unless you drive the forklift on what NZTA deems as a ‘road’. A forklift ‘licence’ is the Operator’s Certificate, often called an OSH certificate.

The requirement in the HSWA 2015 is that the PCBU makes sure workers are trained and competent in the work that they do, and to follow an Approved Code of Practice or do it a better way. Most companies do this with an operator’s certificate, which you can do on this website.

It’s a record that an operator has completed forklift theory training and passed a practical assessment. The practical can be conducted by a representative of the PCBU (e.g. a supervisor), or an external trainer, and a certificate will be issued. A useful certificate names the operator, the date, the assessor and the specific machine types covered. Because there’s no register, the certificate and the training records you hold are the only evidence you have that the operator was competent. This is important if you ever have to demonstrate that to an investigator.

No. Unit standard 10851 is not required for a forklift operator’s certificate. Some companies ask for it because a client or a site rule specifies it, and some providers imply it’s compulsory because it supports their pricing. It isn’t. The one place a unit standard is genuinely required is the F endorsement, which needs unit standard 18496 because NZTA requires it as part of the driver licensing system. Note that unit standards are being replaced by skill standards, with unit standards expiring in December 2027.

They come from two different legal systems. The operator’s certificate covers workplace competence and is a health and safety matter under HSWA 2015. The F endorsement sits on the driver licence and is a road licensing matter under NZTA rules. You need the F endorsement only if the forklift is driven on a public road, which includes places the public can access whether or not they’re formed roads. If your forklift never leaves the yard or the warehouse, the operator’s certificate is what you need and the endorsement is an expense with no purpose. Read more here.

The Approved Code of Practice recommends three years. You can set a shorter interval if your operation warrants it, and some high-throughput sites use two. Don’t set a longer one: extending beyond three years produces a worse health and safety outcome than the Code recommends, which puts you outside what HSWA 2015 allows. The F endorsement works differently: once obtained it stays valid as long as the driver licence remains current, so a driver can hold a current endorsement and an expired operator’s certificate at the same time. Read more here.

Yes. Nothing in the Act or the Code requires an external assessor. A supervisor who understands forklift operation can assess an operator against a checklist and issue the certificate. In-house assessment often produces a better result, because the assessment happens on the machines your operators actually use, in the environment they actually work in, and the supervisor doing the assessing ends up with a clear picture of how their operators perform. Effectively, a supervisor’s day-to-day role is constantly monitoring forklift operator’s so a practical assessment is part of their skillset already; a checklist puts structure around it.

No. Accreditation through Competenz is a useful signal if you don’t know the trainer, and irrelevant if you do. The Approved Code of Practice doesn’t make it mandatory and no part of HSWA 2015 requires it. What matters is whether the operator is competent, not who signed the paperwork.

Fifteen. Regulation 46 of the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 prohibits anyone under 15 from working at or with machinery, or assisting with that work. For an F endorsement the effective minimum is 17.5, because the endorsement requires a full class 1 licence. A 15-year-old can legally operate a forklift in a workplace, which surprises most employers, though the PCBU duty to ensure competence and supervision applies exactly as it does to anyone else.

The theory is the same across counterbalance, reach truck, order picker, walkie stacker and sideloader. The practical is not. Operators need specific induction and practical training on each machine type they use, and on each attachment fitted. That training can be done in-house, by the manufacturer or distributor, or by an external trainer. Any provider selling you a separate “reach truck licence” is charging you for something that doesn’t exist. What’s needed is machine-specific practical training recorded against the certificate the operator already holds.

Yes. The certificate belongs to the operator and a new employer can accept it. But the new employer still carries the HSWA 2015 duty, so they should satisfy themselves that the operator is competent on their machines, in their layout, with their loads, before letting them work unsupervised. Accepting a certificate at face value and skipping induction is a common and expensive mistake. The easiest way around it is to do the forklift operator’s certificate online course.

An Australian high-risk work licence is not automatically recognised here, and competence should be assessed locally. Employers can accept it at their discretion.

Make sure operators are trained and competent, supervise them until they are, provide machine-specific training for every forklift and attachment in use, keep the training records, and manage renewals before certificates expire. The PCBU carries the duty and can’t hand it to the training provider or to the operator. In practice the part that catches people out is renewals: certificates expire quietly, and an expired certificate is one of the first things an investigator looks for.

No. A PCBU must not impose a levy or charge on a worker for anything done or provided in relation to health and safety, and operator training falls squarely inside that. You can’t deduct it from wages, and you can’t require workers to pay for it themselves and claim it back. If a worker is being trained because your business needs forklift operators, the business pays for it.