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Fourth draft update to guidance on labelling veterinary medicines

Have your say

New Zealand Food Safety is inviting public comment on the updated 'Labelling veterinary medicines' guidance document. This consultation opened on 20 October and will close at 11:59pm on 1 December 2026. 

The 'Labelling veterinary medicines' guidance document provides the detailed information that must be on a label of a veterinary medicine registered in New Zealand under the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines (ACVM) Act 1997. 

This is the fourth draft consulted for the revised guidance, with the original revision work starting in 2022. This final revised guidance has had updates to all major sections of the document. A complete change history is included in the draft document as Schedule 1.

The revised document has also expanded on "additional guidance" in text boxes to provide examples and more detailed information. This guidance is to help registrants produce informative labels that comply with regulatory expectations.

Consultation document

The document sets out general and specific guidance for label content of veterinary medicines requiring registration under the ACVM Act. This includes compulsory requirements related to regulatory statements mandated by conditions of registration and expectations for the structure and content of labels. 

A first draft of the revised guidance was presented for public consultation between 11 July and 16 August 2022. After considering submissions and actioning further revisions, a second draft was presented for targeted consultation between October and December 2024. The third draft was consulted between 18 December 2025 and 15 February 2026. 

This latest version of the revised guidance summarises the responses received from the third round of consultation and presents the final content intended for publication.

Draft labelling veterinary medicines – guidance document [PDF, 853 KB]

Submissions from the third consultation held in 2025–2026

Submissions summary: Labelling veterinary medicine – 2026 [PDF, 141 KB]

Previous public consultations

18 December 2025 and 15 February 2026

11 July and 16 August 2022

Making your submission

Email your feedback on the guidance document by 11:59pm on 1 December 2026 to ACVM.Consultation@mpi.govt.nz

While we prefer email, you can send your submission by post to:

ACVM Directorate
New Zealand Food Safety 
Ministry for Primary Industries
PO Box 2526
Wellington 6140
New Zealand.

Submissions are public information

Note that all, part, or a summary of your submission may be published on this website. Most often this happens when we issue a document that reviews the submissions received.

People can also ask for copies of submissions under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). The OIA says we must make the content of submissions available unless we have good reason for withholding it. Those reasons are detailed in sections 6 to 9 of the OIA.

If you think there are grounds to withhold specific information from publication, make this clear in your submission or contact us. Reasons may include that it discloses commercially sensitive or personal information. However, any decision MPI makes to withhold details can be reviewed by the Ombudsman, who may direct us to release it.

Official Information Act 1982 – NZ Legislation

Our privacy commitment

The Privacy Act 2020 applies to all submissions. Any personal information you provide will be used only for the purpose of informing this consultation. All submissions will be read by MPI staff. MPI may also use artificial intelligence (AI) to summarise content and identify key themes. All AI outputs will be subject to human review.

To find out about the personal information we collect, our approach to privacy and security, and your rights, refer to this web page: Privacy and security