The New Zealand government will accept toys that have been safety-tested in the United States or Europe, so they can be sold here without being tested again locally.

Right now, any toy sold in New Zealand has to meet our Product Safety Standards (Children's Toys) Regulations 2005. That's the legal rulebook for toy safety here. The new approach means if a toy has already passed US or European safety checks, that counts — we won't require a separate New Zealand test.

This makes practical sense. Testing every toy sold here twice — once overseas and once in New Zealand — is expensive and wasteful. Our market is small compared to the US or Europe, so it doesn't make sense to run our own separate testing system. Instead, we use the international standards that already exist.

There's a complication with Europe, though. The EU recently updated its toy safety rules. In April 2025, European lawmakers approved new toy safety regulations, which became official as Regulation (EU) 2025/2509. These replace the old toy safety directive from 2009 — but both versions will run side by side for a while. It's like changing rules in the middle of a game: the old rulebook is still valid, but the new one is coming in too.

The government has to decide which version it will recognise — the old EU rules, the new EU rules, or both during the transition. That matters for companies importing toys. If New Zealand says "we recognise the old EU rules" and then later says "now we only recognise the new EU rules," importers have to recertify everything.

European toy safety rules are among the toughest in the world. They cover chemical safety, physical dangers, and whether toys are tested properly. The new rules are stricter, especially for digital toys — ones with wireless connections or internet capability. If New Zealand chooses to recognise the newer, stricter version, toy importers will need to meet a higher bar.

The government hasn't yet explained exactly how this will work legally — whether it will change the existing toy safety regulations, issue a separate notice, or do something else. It also hasn't said whether recognition will apply to all toys or just some kinds.

For toy companies, the upside is simpler: no double testing, no duplicate paperwork. The downside is that once New Zealand accepts a foreign standard, the government becomes limited in what it can do if a toy turns out to be dangerous. It can't quickly impose extra safety rules above what the US or EU already requires, and it can't act as fast on recalls. That's a real tension in how smaller countries manage product safety.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is handling this. The agency has been reviewing New Zealand's consumer protection laws and is working through exactly these kinds of questions about how our safety rules fit with overseas ones.