Application wait times and statistics for forestry in the ETS

Table 1: Volumes of applications and associated hectares as at 11 January 2026

Table 2: Wait times for core applications submitted since 1 November 2024

What helps us process your application faster

If your application includes all the documents we need, it will be processed closer to the median wait time. If your application is missing required information, it will take us much longer to process it. In some cases, applications with missing information will be rejected and a partial refund provided.

This information covers the volume of applications to register post-1989 forest land. It is current as at 11 January 2026.

The tables show the number of applications by hectares submitted, processed, and approved as eligible. These are updated monthly and annually. The applications cover both:

• the registration of forest land by new applicants
• adding land to existing ETS registrations.

The hectares processed includes both eligible and ineligible forest land as determined by Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service.

Note: As there is a processing backlog, submitted applications are not generally processed in the month they are received.

Table 1: Applications submitted and number of hectares submitted by month

Table 2: Applications submitted and processed (number of hectares) by year

Note: As there is a processing backlog, submitted applications are not always processed in the year they are received.

Table 1

Find out about requesting a review of a decision about forestry and the ETS

Table 1

In this table:

• 'submitted' means a transfer application has been submitted to us
• 'identified' means we have found a transfer of participation within the 20 working days and are working with the parties involved to complete it.

Read more about transfers of participation and what you need to do

Table 1: Number of hectares and participants in the ETS by month

This spreadsheet shows post-1989 forest land registered in ETS as at 2 October 2025. The data is updated every 6 months. All areas are rounded to the nearest hectare.

Detailed statistics on post-1989 forest land registered in the ETS [XLSX, 894 KB]

The areas reported may change after: 

• non-compliance issues are resolved
• reviews of decisions under section 144 of the Climate Change Response Act.

Note: Areas in this spreadsheet may not align with the statistics on registered post-1989 forest land: Hectares and participants by month numbers due to a slight delay between when a forest is registered and when its attributes are recorded in the spatial information set used for this analysis.

This data is excluded: 

• Applications that are currently being processed.
• Areas with unresolved data issues (for example, unspecified year of establishment). These total approximately 570 hectares.

This data reports on:

Year of establishment

When the land first became forest land, as reported by participants on registration. This is either the year the first rotation was planted or the year regeneration began.

Mandatory emissions return period (MERP) of entry

The MERP in which the forest entered the ETS. This is based on the registration date of the carbon accounting area (CAA) of the forest. If the current CAA isn’t the original CAA the land was registered under, the MERP of entry is inferred from the carbon accounting record of the original CAA. 

Carbon measurement method

Whether the participant is using default or participant-specific carbon tables to measure the carbon in the forest.

Find out more about calculating the amount of carbon in forest land

Accounting method

• Averaging: Post-1989 forest land registered as standard forestry using averaging accounting.
• Stock change: Post-1989 forest land registered as standard forestry using stock change accounting.
• Permanent: Post-1989 forest land registered as permanent forestry using stock change accounting.

Forest type

Columns E to I show the number of hectares of registered forest land in each forest type. 

Read more about identifying forest type for calculating carbon in the ETS

The Land Use Capability (LUC) system classifies land into 8 categories based on its ability to support various productive uses over time.

On 4 December 2024, the Government announced policy changes intended to limit how much farmland is converted to exotic forest and registered in the ETS. These changes are to preserve high and medium versatility farmland for agricultural use.

On 23 September 2025, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme – Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill became an Act. The Act came into effect on 31 October 2025. Applications to register in the ETS submitted from 31 October 2025 are now processed under the new rules.

Read more about Land Use Capability class restrictions on post-1989 forest land

Read more about the policy changes

Table 1: Number of hectares registered for each LUC class as at 5 January 2026

The data above excludes applications that are still in progress.

This data is reproduced with the permission of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited.

When MPI processes an emissions return, we tell the EPA whether the participant is entitled to receive NZUs (or “units”) or liable to pay (surrender) units. This information is called a “unit direction”. 

The units in the tables below are completed and approved unit directions from forestry emission returns (including assessments and amendments) where the emission return period falls within MERP3 (2018 – 2022) or MERP4 (2023 – 2025).

Read more about earning and surrendering units

Note:

• These figures are not the total NZUs allocated or surrendered by participants since 2018. This is because units from emissions returns processed since 2018 that relate to a previous MERP are excluded from this data.
• The surrenders include unit directions from deregistration. The surrenders arising from the deregistration of a whole carbon accounting area do not have an emissions return period. However, any deregistration surrenders that occurred in MERP3/4 are included in this data.
• Some participants may have chosen to pay the units they owed using the fixed price option (an option to pay a set amount of money for each unit owed, instead of paying units). MPI does not hold information on when participants chose to do this. This option was not used from 2021 onwards.
• Figures may change after resolving non-compliance issues, or reviews under section 144 of the Climate Change Response Act.

Table 1: Unit directions for post-1989 forestry activities with a return period end date between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2022 as at 2 October 2025

Table 2: Unit directions for post-1989 forestry activities with a return period end date between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025 as at 2 October 2025