Under Twenty — are you a small PCBU on 1 April 2027?

Are you a small PCBU on 1 April 2027?

The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 splits every business in two on 1 April 2027. A small PCBU — fewer than twenty workers, for at least nine of twelve months — has to identify and manage its critical risks. Everyone else still has to manage every risk.

The catch is what counts as a worker. Section 19 counts contractors and subcontractors, the people those contractors employ, labour-hire staff, apprentices, trainees, people on work experience and volunteer workers. A firm with fifteen on payroll and eight subcontractors has twenty-three workers — and every headcount report it owns says fifteen.

What this will not tell you

It does not decide what your critical risks are. That is the actual work, and it depends on what you do, not on how many people do it.
It will not answer on a partial year. Nine out of twelve is not a rate to be scaled: three qualifying months out of four is an unanswered question.
It is not legal advice, and it is not a WorkSafe product.

Twelve months of headcount

What this will not tell you