House Renovation

Quick answer: Under the shed and sleepout rules in NZ’s Building Act, a single-storey detached building up to 10 m² needs no building consent and, since 23 October 2025, no Schedule 1 boundary distance. From 10 m² to 30 m² it is also exempt if it sits at least 1 metre from the boundary and any house, and is either built from lightweight products to B1/AS1 or done under a Licensed Building Practitioner. A sleepout can’t have a toilet, shower or kitchen. A new self-contained granny flat up to 70 m² runs under a separate exemption, Schedule 1A, which needs a PIM first.

That’s the short version. The longer one matters because the rules for sheds, sleepouts, garages and granny flats have moved three times in twelve months, and a lot of what’s online (including the first version of this page, written in late 2025) describes a law that has since changed. Below we set out what Schedule 1 and Schedule 1A of the Building Act 2004 actually say, as read on legislation.govt.nz on 12 October 2026, and where Auckland Council’s rules still apply on top.

Not sure whether your project needs a building consent? Sonder Architecture’s free building consent checker tests it against the Schedule 1 exemptions in about a minute.

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What changed, and when: four dates behind the new shed rules

If you last looked at backyard consent rules a couple of years ago, a fair bit has happened since. The government eased the boundary distances for small detached buildings, added a consent exemption for roof-mounted solar, created a brand new exemption for small stand-alone homes, and then tweaked that one again. Here’s the sequence, taken from the amendment notes printed under each clause of the Act.

Date	What changed	Instrument
31 Aug 2020	The 10 to 30 m² exemptions (Schedule 1 clauses 3A and 3B) created	Building (Exempt Building Work) Order 2020
23 Oct 2025	Distance condition removed for buildings up to 10 m²; set at 1 metre for 10 to 30 m²; roof-mounted solar exemption added	Building (Exempt Roof-mounted Solar Panel Arrays and Building Work) Order 2025 (SL 2025/216)
15 Jan 2026	Schedule 1A: new stand-alone dwellings up to 70 m² can be built without a building consent	Building and Construction (Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Amendment Act 2025
8 Oct 2026	Schedule 1A widened: certified composite structural products allowed; existing on-site water and drainage systems may be used	Building (Exempt Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Order 2026 (SL 2026/270)

Two things in that table trip people up. First, the 2025 change was about distance, not size. The 10 m² and 30 m² limits were already in place from 2020. What moved in October 2025 was how close those buildings can sit to a boundary or a house. MBIE’s news item on the change says the old setback conditions were removed for buildings under 10 m² and reduced to a minimum of 1 metre for buildings from 10 to 30 m², and it lists garden, tool and bike sheds, garages, small sleepouts and greenhouses as the kind of building it covers.

Second, the granny flat exemption is not part of Schedule 1 at all. It lives in its own schedule, Schedule 1A, with its own conditions and its own paperwork. A 25 m² sleepout and a 60 m² granny flat are governed by different parts of the Act, and mixing them up is where most of the bad backyard advice comes from.

One more date worth knowing: the consolidated Building Act on legislation.govt.nz was still the version as at 26 September 2026 when we read it on 12 October 2026, so the 8 October changes sit in the separate Order rather than in the reprinted schedule. If you’re reading the Act yourself, read Schedule 1A together with SL 2026/270.

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Shed and sleepout rules in NZ: the 10 m² and 30 m² exemptions, clause by clause

Schedule 1 gives you three ways to put up a small detached building without a building consent. All three share the same basic shape: one storey, with the floor no more than 1 metre above the supporting ground and the building no more than 3.5 metres high above that floor. After that they split on size and on who does the work.

Up to 10 m²: clause 3

A detached building of up to 10 m² of floor area is exempt as long as it doesn’t contain sanitary facilities or facilities for storing drinking water, and doesn’t include sleeping accommodation unless it’s used in connection with a dwelling and has no cooking facilities. That last condition is the one that lets a tiny sleepout work: a bunk room for the teenager, used with the main house, with no kitchenette.

There used to be a second subclause setting how close the building could sit to a boundary or a house. It was repealed on 23 October 2025. So under Schedule 1 a garden shed of 10 m² or less now has no boundary distance at all. That does not mean you can put it anywhere: the Unitary Plan still has a say, which we come back to below.

10 to 30 m²: clause 3A, the lightweight route

Between 10 and 30 m², clause 3A exempts a detached building built from lightweight building products for the walls and roof, and in accordance with Acceptable Solution B1/AS1 for timber or steel buildings. It carries the same rules on sanitary facilities, water storage and sleeping accommodation as clause 3, plus one more: if anyone sleeps in it, it must have smoke alarms.

The distance rule is the 1 metre one. The exemption doesn’t cover a building closer than 1 metre to any residential building or to any legal boundary. Note the wording: a residential building, not any building. Schedule 1 doesn’t set a gap between two sheds. Measure from the legal boundary, which isn’t always where the fence is.

10 to 30 m²: clause 3B, the LBP route

Clause 3B covers the same size band without the lightweight and B1/AS1 conditions, but with a different trade-off: any design or construction work has to be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner. The sanitary, water, sleeping, smoke alarm and 1 metre rules are the same as clause 3A. In practice, 3B is the route for a 10 to 30 m² building that doesn’t fit the B1/AS1 recipe, and it puts the LBP’s name on the job. You can check any LBP’s licence on the public register at lbp.govt.nz before you sign anything.

The 30 m² sleepout: what it can and can’t have

Searches for “30m2 sleepout rules” usually want to know one thing: can it be a proper room? Under clauses 3A and 3B, yes as a bedroom and no as a home. It can have beds as long as it’s used in connection with a dwelling, it has smoke alarms and it has no cooking facilities. It can’t have a toilet, shower or basin, because those are sanitary facilities, and it can’t store potable water. Any wiring still has to meet the electrical safety rules, so check with a licensed electrician what you can and can’t do yourself.

The moment you want a bathroom or a kitchen out the back, Schedule 1 stops helping. The options become a building consent, or a new self-contained dwelling under Schedule 1A if it meets those conditions.

Rule	Up to 10 m² (cl 3)	10 to 30 m², lightweight (cl 3A)	10 to 30 m², LBP (cl 3B)
Storeys and height	1 storey; floor up to 1 m above ground; up to 3.5 m above floor	Same	Same
Distance to boundary or house	None in Schedule 1 (since 23 Oct 2025)	At least 1 m	At least 1 m
Materials	No condition	Lightweight walls and roof, to B1/AS1	No condition
Who does the work	Anyone	Anyone	Designed or built by, or under, an LBP
Sleeping	Only with a dwelling, no cooking	Only with a dwelling, no cooking, smoke alarms	Only with a dwelling, no cooking, smoke alarms
Toilet, shower, drinking-water storage	Not allowed	Not allowed	Not allowed

Source: Building Act 2004, Schedule 1 clauses 3, 3A and 3B, read on legislation.govt.nz on 12 Oct 2026.

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Garages, decks, pergolas and solar: the other backyard exemptions

Sheds and sleepouts get the headlines, but Schedule 1 covers most of what goes on in an Auckland backyard. Each item has its own clause and its own limits.

Detached garages

There’s no separate garage clause for a small new garage. A detached single-storey garage of up to 30 m² is assessed under the same clauses 3, 3A and 3B as a shed, which is why MBIE’s October 2025 news item lists garages alongside sheds and sleepouts. If your garage plan is over 30 m², or attached to the house, it falls outside these clauses and you’re into a building consent. If you’re weighing up a new garage, the garage calculator linked at the end of this post takes a few questions and we’ll email you an Auckland price range.

Decks and pergolas

Clause 24 exempts a deck, platform, bridge or boardwalk from which it is not possible to fall more than 1.5 metres, even if it collapses. That’s a test of the fall height, not the deck’s size. Clause 6 exempts building work in connection with a pergola, in exactly those few words. Both still have to meet the Building Code, so a low deck that people can fall from still needs its edges thought about. These are the jobs the decks and pergolas our outdoor team builds most often start with.

Solar panels

Since 23 October 2025, clause 28D exempts roof-mounted solar panel arrays of up to 40 m² in total, supported by a frame attached to the roof with structural fixings, where the design wind speed doesn’t exceed 44 m/s or the site is in a wind zone no greater than high. MBIE says arrays over 40 m², or in a higher wind zone, can also go without consent if a Chartered Professional Engineer carries out or reviews the design. Ground-mounted arrays are a separate clause (28C): outside a rural zone, up to 20 m², no more than 4 metres high and at least 5 metres from any house, road, railway or legal boundary.

Repairing or replacing an old shed

Clause 7 lets you repair or replace all or part of an outbuilding without consent if it stays within the same footprint, the replacement is comparable, the building is detached and no more than one storey, and it isn’t intended for public use. Swapping a rotten 1980s shed for a like-for-like one on the same pad is the classic case. Making it bigger, or turning it into a bedroom, isn’t.

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Exempt from consent isn’t exempt from Auckland Council’s rules

This is the part people skip, and it’s the part that comes back at sale time. A Schedule 1 exemption removes the need for a building consent. It doesn’t remove anything else.

The Building Code still applies

Section 17 of the Building Act is one line long: all building work must comply with the building code, whether or not a building consent is required. Section 42A then makes the Schedule 1 exemptions conditional on the work complying with the Code and not breaching any other enactment. So an exempt sleepout still has to stand up, keep the weather out and be safe to sleep in. Auckland Council says plainly that it doesn’t check or inspect exempt work, so the risk of getting it wrong sits with you as the owner.

The Auckland Unitary Plan

When people search for Auckland Council shed rules, what they usually run into is the Unitary Plan rather than the Building Act. MBIE’s own note on the October 2025 change tells owners to check their project against the local district plan and the Resource Management Act before they start, and for Auckland that district plan is the Auckland Unitary Plan. Zone rules on things like yards, height and how much of a site can be built on apply to an exempt shed exactly as they do to a house extension. A 9 m² shed hard against the fence can be fine for the Building Act and still breach a zone rule. The Sonder Architecture guide to sleepout consents and Unitary Plan overlays walks through how those planning rules interact with a sleepout, and their architectural designers check a site’s zone as part of a design.

How many sheds can I have on my property?

Schedule 1 doesn’t put a number on it. Clauses 3, 3A and 3B each describe a single building and the conditions it has to meet; none of them caps how many exempt buildings a section can carry. Each one has to meet its own clause, including the 1 metre gap to the boundary and to any house for anything over 10 m². The practical limit is usually the Unitary Plan’s zone rules on how much of the section can be covered, so two or three sheds on a tight Ponsonby or Grey Lynn section can run out of room on paper long before they run out of grass.

Putting exempt work on the property file

Exempt work doesn’t appear on your property file unless you put it there. Auckland Council lets owners add a record of exempt building work, with drawings of what was built, through an online form. The fixed fee listed on the page when we read it on 12 October 2026 was $305. Council puts the responsibility for confirming the work really is exempt on the owner, ideally with professional advice, and notes that the record is helpful if you later sell. A sleepout with drawings on file is an easier conversation with a buyer than one with nothing.

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Granny flats up to 70 m²: the Schedule 1A exemption as at 12 October 2026

The original version of this post said granny flats were coming in early 2026. They arrived on 15 January 2026, and they look different from what was announced in 2025. Schedule 1A applies to a small stand-alone dwelling: a building that is stand-alone, wholly new (not an addition to or alteration of an existing building), single storey, with a floor area of 70 m² or less. That floor area is measured between the finished internal faces of the external walls, so the 70 m² is inside the walls, not the footprint.

What qualifies

Clause 2 of Schedule 1A sets the build requirements. The main ones: a maximum height of 4 metres above the floor, a floor no more than 1 metre above the ground, no mezzanine, at least 2 metres from any other residential building or legal boundary, a lightweight roof of no more than 20 kg/m², wall cladding of no more than 220 kg/m², electric or gas heaters only, and no level-entry shower that needs a waterproof membrane. Water supply, plumbing and drainage have to follow named Acceptable Solutions, and the dwelling must connect to council or utility networks where they’re available. It can include a garage with internal access, as long as the whole thing still fits the 70 m² and every other condition.

Notice the 2 metre gap. A Schedule 1 sleepout needs 1 metre from the boundary; a Schedule 1A granny flat needs 2. On a narrow Auckland section that metre decides which one is even possible.

What changed on 8 October 2026

The Building (Exempt Small Stand-alone Dwellings) Order 2026 made two changes. The frame can now be either lightweight steel or timber, or a certified composite structural building product: a product with a registered product certificate (CodeMark) that includes steel, timber or a wood-based product and forms part of a roof, floor or wall. MBIE’s news item on the change says this includes some structural insulated panel (SIP) systems and solid timber building systems, used within their CodeMark scope and the maker’s instructions.

The second change is about services. A granny flat may now use an existing on-site system, such as a wastewater or stormwater system that already served a house on the site, provided it satisfies the Building Code. MBIE adds that if the property is already connected to council or utility networks, you may be able to use or modify those connections, but the utility provider must agree the existing connection is suitable. When we read Auckland Council’s granny flat page on 12 October 2026, its condition list still described steel or timber framing only, so go by the Act and the Order on that point.

The PIM and the paperwork

Here’s the catch the early coverage missed: an exempt granny flat is not paperwork-free. Section 42B says no building work may start until council has issued a project information memorandum (PIM) for the dwelling on its final site, and work may continue only until that PIM lapses. All building work, plumbing, drainlaying, electrical work and gasfitting has to be done by people authorised to do it. The land can’t be subject to a natural hazard unless adequate protection is made, and the dwelling can’t straddle two allotments.

When the work is finished, the owner has 20 working days to send council the records of work, the electrical and gas certificates, and a set of final design plans. Missing that deadline is an infringement offence with a fine of up to $1,000. Auckland Council’s page lists the PIM base fee at $537 (non-refundable, additional charges may apply), notes the PIM process may attract a development contribution, and says you still need approvals for network connections and anything else the site requires, along with the resource management rules for detached minor residential units. The Act also lets you choose a full building consent for a qualifying dwelling if you’d rather have one.

Sleepout or granny flat: where the line sits

The cleanest way to think about it: a sleepout is a bedroom that happens to be outside, and a granny flat is a home. Schedule 1 sleepouts can’t have sanitary facilities or cooking and must be used with the main house. A Schedule 1A dwelling is self-contained by design, with its own kitchen and bathroom, and in return it carries the PIM, the 2 metre gap, the LBP requirements and the completion paperwork. Granny flat design and consent is Sonder Architecture’s lane in our group, and their granny flat guide goes through the design side in more depth. If you’re weighing up prefab options, see our post on container homes versus a conventionally built granny flat.

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Converting an existing garage or shed: where the exemptions stop

It’s a common question from homeowners who already have a building out the back. Can the old double garage in Henderson or Titirangi become a sleepout or a granny flat under the new rules?

Not under Schedule 1A. The granny flat exemption only applies to a dwelling that is wholly new, and the Act spells out that this means not an addition or alteration to an existing building. A garage conversion, however good the bones, is an alteration to an existing building, so the 70 m² exemption doesn’t cover it.

Schedule 1 doesn’t give you a garage-to-bedroom shortcut either. Clauses 3, 3A and 3B describe what a detached building can be; they’re not a licence to change what an existing building is used for. Whether a particular conversion needs a building consent depends on the work involved, which can include new insulation, linings, windows, plumbing or a change of use. That call belongs with Auckland Council or an LBP, made before anything is stripped out.

Converting the garage you already have is often still the better option on a section that can’t fit a 2 metre gap, because it uses a structure that’s already there. It’s also work Superior Renovations does regularly: our page on turning a detached garage into a studio or teenager’s retreat covers the scope, from home offices and teenager retreats to self-contained granny flats, and the consent work that comes with it.

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Before you build: a checklist, and where we fit

Whatever you’re putting up, run through these before you spend money:

1. Measure the floor area. Under 10 m², 10 to 30 m², or 70 m² internal for a granny flat: each is a different clause.
2. Find your legal boundary, not your fence line, and measure the gap to it and to any house.
3. Decide what the building is for. Sleeping needs smoke alarms over 10 m²; any toilet, shower or kitchen takes you out of Schedule 1.
4. Check your Unitary Plan zone rules, or have someone check them for you.
5. Line up the licensed people: an LBP if you’re using clause 3B or building a granny flat, and a licensed electrician for any wiring you can’t legally do yourself.
6. Keep the drawings and receipts, and consider adding the work to your property file.

Where does Superior Renovations come in? We’re a design-and-build renovation company, so our natural place in all this is when the backyard building is part of a bigger plan for the house: a garage conversion, a new deck, or a reno where the shed has to move to make room. Every job gets a dedicated project manager, we have our own in-house Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP #BP156911), and the price is fixed before work starts. Where a project needs consent drawings, Sonder Architecture’s architectural designers do that work, and we build it.

For anything that sits close to a line in the tables above, our advice is the same as council’s: confirm it with Auckland Council or an LBP first. A ten-minute phone call costs less than taking down a shed. If you want to see how we run the bigger consent jobs, our post on how the building consent process works for a renovation sets it out step by step. You can also talk it through with us at our showroom at 16B Link Drive, Wairau Valley.

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