Do You Need a Licence to Paint or Tile Your House in New Zealand?

Short answer: no. In New Zealand, painting and tiling are not classed as "restricted building work," so you don't need a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP) to do them — whether you're a tradesperson or a homeowner having a go yourself. But there's a bit more worth understanding about why that's the case, and where the lines actually sit.

What the licensing rules are really about

New Zealand's licensing system is built around one core idea: protect the parts of a home that keep people safe and dry. The Building Act 2004 introduced Restricted Building Work (RBW) — work that's critical to a building being structurally sound and weathertight. Since 1 March 2012, that work has to be done or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner.

RBW covers the bones of a house: foundations, framing, roofing, and cladding — plus the design of those elements, and certain fire safety systems in apartment buildings. The thinking is straightforward. If a foundation is poured wrong or cladding is installed badly, you often can't see the problem until it's done real damage. That hidden risk is exactly what licensing is there to manage.

Where painting and tiling sit

Painting and tiling don't touch the structure or, in the eyes of the rules, the weathertightness "system" of a building. They're finishing work. Just as importantly, the quality of the result is visually verifiable — if a paint job is patchy or tiles are laid unevenly, you can see it straight away and get it fixed. There's no hidden structural consequence lurking behind the finish.

So neither painting nor tiling is restricted building work, and neither requires an LBP. That's true for the professional you hire and for you as the homeowner.

It's worth being honest about one nuance, though. Finishes like paint and tile do play a protective role — paint helps shield surfaces and timber from moisture, and tiling in a wet area forms part of keeping water where it belongs. And critically, "no licence needed" doesn't mean "no rules." Even exempt finishing work still has to meet the relevant performance standards of the Building Code — paint protecting the surface it covers, tiles being durable and properly adhered, and moisture being kept where it should be. So while you don't need a licence to paint or tile, the standard of the work still has to stack up.

The bigger thing to understand sits just beneath the tiles — and it's where the rules get a lot more serious.

Waterproofing is a different beast

This is the part homeowners most often get caught out by. In a bathroom, shower, or other wet area, the waterproof membrane under the tiles is not finishing work and is not treated casually by the rules. It's regulated.

Wet-area waterproofing has to comply with Building Code clause E3 (Internal Moisture), and the membrane systems themselves are covered by the standard AS/NZS 4858 for wet-area membranes, with MBIE's Internal Wet-area Membrane Systems Code of Practice setting out how it's done. That means specific, measurable requirements — for example, the membrane extending up the walls in a shower to the required height, covering the full floor, and being correctly sealed and lapped at every junction and penetration. Poor waterproofing is one of the most common and most expensive bathroom remediation problems in New Zealand homes, which is exactly why it's held to this standard.

Two important consequences flow from that. First, creating a new tiled wet-area shower this requires a building consent, altering existing waterproofing may requires a building consent, check with your architect or local council.  The waterproofing can fall into restricted building work — meaning it must be done or supervised by appropriately licensed people, not by an unlicensed DIYer. (Simply replacing tiles without disturbing the membrane underneath may not trigger this; installing or renovating the membrane itself usually does.)

In practice, membrane systems are also tied to the product and the applicator. These are proprietary systems, and they generally need to be installed strictly to the manufacturer's specification — often by an applicator certified for that particular system — so the warranty and the compliance paperwork (such as a producer statement) actually hold up. If you ever make a water-damage insurance claim or sell the house, that documentation is what proves the waterproofing was done properly. Without it, an insurer can decline the claim.

It's also worth noting this area is changing. The government has signalled a dedicated waterproofing licence is on the way, after which internal wet-area waterproofing is expected to become explicitly restricted building work — meaning only licensed waterproofers, or people supervised by them, will be able to do it, with Records of Work filed accordingly. The direction of travel is clear: waterproofing is being treated as serious, regulated work, not a finishing touch.

So the honest summary on waterproofing is this: it sits in a completely different category from the paint and tile that go over the top of it. If your project involves a wet area, that's the point to bring in a qualified waterproofer using a certified system — and to check with your council about consent before you start.

Homeowners can absolutely do their own painting and tiling

This is the part many people aren't sure about. You don't need any exemption, declaration, or council paperwork to paint your own walls or tile your own splashback. Most everyday DIY — minor repair, maintenance, and cosmetic work like painting and tiling — has never required a consent or a licence, and nothing about that has changed. Homeowners can carry on doing this work exactly as they always have.

That's distinct from the owner-builder exemption, which is a separate thing people sometimes confuse with everyday DIY.

That exemption exists for homeowners who want to do restricted building work on their own home (structural or weathertightness work). To use it you have to live in or intend to live in the home, do the work yourself or with unpaid friends and whānau, and not have used the exemption on another home in the past three years — and you still need a building consent.

Painting and tiling don't fall into this category at all, so for those jobs the exemption simply doesn't come into the picture.

A quick word on quality

Not needing a licence isn't the same as it not mattering who does the work. A poor paint job fails early and leaves surfaces exposed; uneven poorly laid tiles crack, lift,  the finishing work still has to meet the Building Code's standards for durability and moisture protection, even when no consent or licence is required. 

So the practical takeaway splits cleanly in two. For the finishing — painting and tiling — you're legally free to do it yourself or hire whoever you like, and the job just needs to meet the standard the code expects.

But the waterproofing beneath a wet-area floor or shower is a different matter entirely: that's regulated work, often needs consent, and is best left to a qualified waterproofer using a certified system with the paperwork to back it up. Get that part right, and the tiles on top are the easy bit.



This article is general information based on New Zealand's Building Act 2004, the Building Code (including clause E3, Internal Moisture), and the AS/NZS 4858 wet-area membrane standard, drawing on guidance from MBIE / Building Performance (building.govt.nz). Rules around waterproofing — including a proposed dedicated waterproofing licence — are changing, so for any wet-area project check the current requirements with your local council