Infringement offences in the Emissions Trading Scheme

If you are required to submit an emissions return, you must submit it on time. If you don’t submit your emissions return on time, you may receive an infringement notice. A late or inaccurate emissions return may also incur a penalty.

Find out more about emissions returns and when to submit them

Read about penalties in the ETS

When calculating and reporting carbon emissions and removals for your emissions returns, you must:

• collect enough information to monitor and calculate the carbon emissions and removals in the forest
• keep records of the information and carbon calculations
• keep records of areas of post-1989 forest land in each emissions return and their forest type (radiata pine, Douglas-fir, exotic hardwoods, exotic softwoods or native species)
• keep records of the areas of pre-1990 forest land that were cleared
• store these records for at least 20 years.

The regulations for forestry in the ETS on the NZ Legislation website give more detail about what records you need to keep (Climate Change (Forestry) Regulations 2022):

• Collection of information by post-1989 forest land participants (regulation 49)
• Collection of information by pre-1990 forest land participants (regulation 22)

You must also provide information and produce documents when these are requested by our enforcement officers. Giving copies of your records to our officers when asked is a legal requirement. The law also says when we can ask for these. For example, we may ask to see your records if we want to verify the calculations supporting your emissions return.

If you don’t keep accurate records and provide these when asked, you may receive an infringement notice.

More about calculating carbon and emissions returns

Information supporting Forest Land Allocation Plan applications

You may have received New Zealand Units after applying to the Pre-1990 Forest Land Allocation Plan. This was a one-off scheme to allocate units to owners of pre-1990 forest land.

If so, you must keep copies of all the information submitted with the application. You must keep these records for at least 7 years after you received the last of the units in the allocation. This includes the information to create the digital mapping information that was submitted with the application.

You must notify us within 20 working days of deforesting pre-1990 forest land. Otherwise, you may be served an infringement notice.

You do not need to tell us about this if:

• the land was declared to be exempt land – this means there was a successful application to remove the obligation to notify us and pay New Zealand Units if the land is deforested
• you applied to offset the deforestation of pre-1990 forest land (by planting an offsetting forest to replace this forest land), the application was approved, and this new forest was established successfully
• you deforested 2 hectares or less of pre-1990 forest land during a mandatory emissions return period (2018–2022, 2023–2025)
• the land was permanently deforested by a natural event.

Guidance about deforesting pre-1990 forest land, who is liable, and what you'll need to do

Find out more about when deforestation obligations do not apply

You must tell us when the responsibility under the ETS for the post-1989 forest land is transferred to another party. This can happen when:

• buying or selling land
• receiving land through inheritance
• a forestry right or lease is created, expires, or is varied
• entering into a Crown-conservation contract (an agreement where public conservation land can enter the ETS)
• making certain changes to the membership of the unincorporated body that registered the land into the ETS.

In most cases, you must tell us about these changes within 20 working days after the ETS responsibility transfers to another party.

The only exception is when the change happens by "operation of law". In this case you must tell us as soon as you can. For example:

• where the responsibility for the land changes through an inheritance after someone passes away
• when a company is removed from the companies register.

If you don’t tell us when ETS responsibilities change, you may be served an infringement notice.

Find out more about how to notify us when forest ownership, rights or leases change

Appoint someone to help manage your involvement in the ETS

You may have applied for an emissions ruling. This is a type of application to ask us to rule on a particular question about some forest land. For example, you could ask for a ruling on whether your land is eligible to be registered as post-1989 forest.

You must let us know as soon as possible if something changes that is relevant to your application for an emissions ruling:

• while waiting for the outcome of an emissions ruling application
• after a ruling was made.

You must also let us know if you failed to comply with the conditions of an emissions ruling.

When you inform us about this sort of change, you must also tell us the date you became aware of this.

If you don’t tell us about these changes, you may receive an infringement notice.