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Confirming your authority

Before you can update or change a business’s details on the NZBN Register you need to confirm you have the authority to do so. It could be your own business, or someone else’s.

If you secured an NZBN for a sole trader, partnership or trust, you’ll have authority over that business automatically, and you’ll be able to make changes right away.

If not, you’ll need to confirm that you are authorised to manage information on behalf of the business.

NZBN Authority helps to ensure that the right people are able to update information about your business.

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Video transcript

The NZBN is helping kiwi businesses connect and interact, making it easier to share information, access services and streamline processes.

Businesses and government agencies are increasingly using the NZBN, so it's important your details are accurate and up to date.

The right people will need to have authority to update and manage your NZBN. For most businesses more than one person can hold this authority. If you set up an NZBN as a sole trader, partnership, or trust, you'll have authority over that business automatically, and can make changes anytime through MyNZBN.

If someone else from your business, your accountant, or lawyer, set up your NZBN, you'll need to confirm your authority before making any changes. To do this find the business on the NZBN.

Register then select 'get access' to update these details. The process and information required to gain authority depends on the type of business. You'll find all the details on MyNZBN. Once you have authority, you can make changes to your NZBN and create and edit NZBN Organisation Parts via MyNZBN at any time.

How to confirm your authority

To confirm your authority to update information for a business, here’s what to do:

Search for the business on the NZBN Register
Once you’ve found it, select ‘Get access to update these details’

What happens next depends on the type of business it is.

For authority over a company where another director already has authority

For authority over a company where no director currently has authority

For authority over a sole trader, partnership or trust

You’ll be prompted to confirm authority via the NZBN Register. There are a few things you’ll need:

The IRD number of the sole trader, partnership or trust.
We need this to make sure you’re asking for authority over the right NZBN.
Proof that you have authority to act for the business.
For this you’ll need:
- Sole trader – details from the sole trader’s New Zealand driver licence or passport, or a copy of a similar ‘identity’ document. (Any documents you upload must be 20MB or less).
- Partnership – the exact name of the partnership, as it appears on the partnership agreement.
- Trust – the exact name of the trust, as it appears on the trust deed.

For authority over a central or local government entity

Search for a business to confirm authority

What you can do once you’ve confirmed your authority

Once you’ve confirmed your authority to act for a business, you can update the information we hold about it on the NZBN Register.

You can make changes to your NZBN details via MyNZBN at any time.

See the list of businesses you can manage

Granting and revoking authority over your NZBN

If you own a business, or are a director of a company, you can grant authority to someone else to update company details. For example, you might want to grant authority to your accountant. You can also revoke an authority, at any time.

Granting authority for companies

If you’re the director of a company and you have authority, you can grant authority to someone else. Once that person initiates the process to get access (as described above), you can grant them authority to manage the details of your business on the NZBN Register, via the ‘Manage authorities’ page of MyNZBN.

Grant authority now

Granting authority for sole traders, partnerships and trusts

If you have authority over a sole trader, partnership or trust, you can grant someone else authority via your NZBN dashboard. You’ll simply need the email address of the person you’re granting authority to.

The steps are:

Log in to your NZBN dashboard
From 'My Businesses' select the business you want to grant authority over
Click on the 'Maintain Authority' tab
Select 'Grant Authority' from the menu
Enter the person's email address, and choose 'Apply'

Revoking an authority

You can revoke an existing authority too. For example, if you change your solicitor or accountant, you may want to revoke an authority they may hold. You can revoke authorities via MyNZBN

Your own authority

If you’re a director of a company, or a sole trader, partner of a partnership, or trustee of a trust, you can't revoke your own authority.

Manage authorities now