Bag searches in New Zealand, what shops and security guards can and cannot do

Last updated 18 July 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.

In July 2026 a Lower Hutt supermarket apologised to a shopper whose bag was searched at a self-checkout without his consent, after the chain’s own head office accepted the worker had gone beyond what the rules allow. The case put a question in front of thousands of New Zealand shoppers that most of us have never had to think hard about. When a staff member or a security guard wants to look in your bag, what are they actually entitled to do?

The short answer is less than most people assume, and less than many stores imply. This guide sets out what the law actually says about bag searches, what security guards can and cannot do, the narrow circumstances in which anyone other than a police officer can stop you leaving a shop, and what to do if you are wrongly accused. It also covers the changes to citizen’s arrest law currently before Parliament, because this is an area where the rules are about to move.

Can a supermarket search your bag

No. Not without your consent. No shop worker, manager or security guard in New Zealand has any legal power to search your bag, your pockets or anything else you are carrying. Community Law’s guidance is blunt about it. Shops do not have the right to search you or your bag, and that stays true even where a sign at the door says bags may be checked.

If a worker asks to look in your bag, you can agree or you can decline, and either is entirely your choice. Plenty of people agree because it is the quickest way to clear things up, and there is nothing wrong with that. But it is consent that makes the check lawful, not the sign, not store policy, and not the uniform of the person asking.

If a worker goes ahead without asking, or uses force after you have refused, the legal position flips. A search of your belongings without consent may be a criminal assault, and it can also give you a civil claim for damages. That is not a technicality. When the Lower Hutt case became public, the supermarket’s owner confirmed its own policy matches the law, saying staff may ask to see a bag but any check must happen with the customer’s consent and with the customer presenting the contents themselves.

Even in the one situation where a store can lawfully hold someone until police arrive, which we cover below, the power is a power to detain, not to search. Searching people suspected of theft is police work, under police search powers, with the safeguards that come with them. Our guide to police search powers explains how that side of the law works.

What the sign at the door actually means

Most large stores display a sign along the lines of “bags may be inspected as a condition of entry”. It is worth being precise about what that sign does and does not do, because the gap between the two is where most of the confusion lives.

A shop is private property, and the occupier can set conditions for coming in. It can ask you to leave a large bag at the counter or in a locker. It can refuse to let you in with a bag at all. And if you decline a request the store treats as a condition of entry, it can ask you to leave, and can back that up with a trespass notice if you refuse to go. All of that is lawful.

What the sign cannot do is manufacture consent. Walking past a notice does not authorise anyone to open your bag. The store’s remedy if you refuse a check is to withdraw its permission for you to be there, not to search you anyway. In practice that means the worst that can lawfully happen when you politely decline a bag check is that you are asked to leave the store or, at the extreme end, formally trespassed from it.

What security guards can and cannot do

A uniformed security guard carries a strong suggestion of official power, and the suggestion is misleading. In New Zealand, security guards hold exactly the same legal powers as any other member of the public. No more, no less.

Guards and their employers are regulated under the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act 2010, which requires them to be licensed or to hold a certificate of approval, and sets conduct standards for the industry. But that licensing regime controls who may work as a guard. It does not give guards any powers of search, arrest or detention beyond those every citizen already has.

In a retail setting that means a guard can ask to see your bag, and you can decline. A guard can ask you to leave, because the occupier’s right to control who is on the premises can be exercised through staff. A guard can observe, follow you around the shop, and call the police. What a guard cannot do is compel a search, demand you empty your pockets, or hold you simply because they would like to ask some questions. Physically stopping you is only lawful in the same narrow citizen’s arrest circumstances that apply to everyone, covered next.

When a store can stop you leaving

The power of ordinary people to arrest other ordinary people comes from the Crimes Act 1961, and as the law currently stands it is deliberately narrow. Broadly, a citizen’s arrest in a shoplifting situation is only available where staff find someone committing an offence serious enough to carry a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment or more, or where the offence is happening at night, which the Act defines as between 9pm and 6am.

The three year threshold is what produces the well known $1,000 rule. Theft is punished on a sliding scale based on value, and it is only when the goods are worth more than $1,000 that the maximum penalty reaches the level that supports a daytime citizen’s arrest. Take a $40 item in the middle of the afternoon and, under the current law, staff have no power of arrest at all. The same theft at 10pm is different, because at night the Act allows an arrest for any offence under the Crimes Act found being committed.

Two safeguards sit on top of those thresholds. The person detaining you must have reasonable and probable grounds for believing you have committed the offence, a genuine and reasonable basis, not a hunch. And any force used to carry out a lawful arrest must be reasonable. Holding someone until police arrive can be lawful. Tackling someone over a suspected block of cheese is another matter, and excessive force exposes the person using it to criminal and civil liability.

It bears repeating because it surprises people. Even where every element of a lawful citizen’s arrest is present, the power is to hold you for the police. It is not a power to search you or your bag. If you are detained and then searched by store staff, the search is a separate wrong even if the detention was lawful. Our guide to your rights when arrested covers what happens once police are involved.

Changes to citizens arrest law

Everything in the section above describes the law as it stands in July 2026, and it needs a large asterisk, because Parliament is part way through changing it.

The Crimes Amendment Bill, introduced in December 2025 as part of the Government’s response to retail crime, would remove the value and night time limits entirely. Under the bill, a citizen’s arrest could be made for any Crimes Act offence at any time of day. The bill would also require the person making an arrest to contact police and follow their instructions, clarify that reasonable restraint may be used, and create a new infringement regime for lower level shoplifting. The Justice Committee reported the bill back on 9 June 2026, recommending it be passed with the citizen’s arrest changes intact, and it passed its second reading on 30 June 2026, leaving only its final stages. Submitters including the Law Society warned that encouraging untrained people to detain suspects carries real risks of violence and wrongful detention.

As at 18 July 2026 the bill has not passed and is not law, so the current thresholds above still apply. Two things are worth noting about what it would and would not change. It would expand when staff and guards can detain someone. It would not give anyone outside the police a power to search you or your bag, which stays exactly as described in this guide. The bill would also lift the $1,000 theft tier to $2,000, which changes the arrest arithmetic above. We will update this page when the bill passes and its commencement date is known.

Receipts and proof of purchase

Once you have paid for goods, they are yours, and there is no general legal obligation to prove it again on the way out. A staff member at the exit of an ordinary shop can ask to see your receipt, and you can show it or politely decline, on exactly the same consent basis as a bag check. Declining is not evidence of anything, and it does not create grounds to detain you.

Membership warehouses are the one genuine exception, though it is a contractual one rather than a search power. Where receipt checks at the exit are a condition of a membership agreement you signed, refusing a check is a breach of that contract, and the store’s remedy is to cancel your membership. Even there, staff cannot physically stop or search you. The difference between the two situations is worth understanding. One is a contract you opted into, the other is a sign you walked past.

Keeping receipts matters for a different reason. They are your proof of purchase for refunds, repairs and replacements under the Consumer Guarantees Act, which our refund rights guide covers in detail.

If you are wrongly accused or detained

Being stopped in front of other shoppers and treated as a suspected thief is humiliating, and if it happens to you the priority is to keep control of the situation without escalating it.

• Stay calm and ask the direct question. “Am I being detained, or am I free to go?” If staff have no lawful basis to hold you, the answer matters, and asking it out loud creates a clear record of what happened.
• Do not consent to a search you object to. Say clearly and politely that you do not consent. You lose nothing by saying it, and it keeps the legal position clean if things are sorted out later.
• Ask for the police if you are being held. If staff genuinely believe they have grounds to detain you, police involvement protects you both. Officers, not store staff, have the power to search and the training to resolve it.
• Gather the record afterwards. Note the time, the store, names or descriptions of the staff involved, and any witnesses. Ask the store to preserve its CCTV footage of the incident, which you are entitled to request under the Privacy Act.
• Complain, in writing. Start with the store and its head office. The Lower Hutt case shows chains do respond, and their own policies are often stricter than the behaviour complained about. A complaint that quotes the company’s own policy back to it is hard to ignore.
• Escalate if it was serious. A forced search or an unlawful detention can be reported to police as an assault, and may support a civil claim for false imprisonment. Privacy issues, including refusal to hand over CCTV footage of you, can go to the Privacy Commissioner. Free advice on any of these routes is available from Community Law.

Trespass notices, photos and your privacy

Stores that suspect someone of shoplifting often reach for two tools that sit outside the search and arrest rules, and both have their own limits.

The first is a trespass notice. As the occupier, a store can ban you from its premises for up to two years, and it does not have to prove you did anything to issue one. Returning in breach of a notice is an offence under the Trespass Act 1980. If you have been trespassed and believe it was unfair, our trespass notice guide explains how notices work and what you can do about one.

The second is information gathering, photos of you, incident records, and shared watch lists of suspected offenders. All of this is personal information covered by the Privacy Act 2020, and the Privacy Commissioner’s guidance notes that even a bag search itself can raise privacy issues, depending on what the store does with what it sees and records. A store that holds information about you must collect it for a lawful purpose, keep it accurate and secure, and give you access to it on request. If you have been photographed or added to some form of offender record and you believe it is wrong, you can complain to the store and then to the Privacy Commissioner.

If police become involved and ask for your details, a separate set of rules applies. Our guide on when you must give your name to police covers exactly when you are required to identify yourself.

Common questions

Can a supermarket search my bag in New Zealand

Not without your consent. No store has a legal power to search your bag, and a condition of entry sign does not create one. You can decline a bag check. The store’s lawful options are to ask you to leave your bag at the counter, refuse you entry with it, or ask you to leave the shop.

Can a security guard detain me

Only in the same narrow circumstances as any other citizen. Under the current law that broadly means being found committing a theft involving goods worth more than $1,000, or an offence committed between 9pm and 6am, and the guard must have reasonable grounds. Outside those situations a guard who physically stops you may be acting unlawfully. A bill before Parliament would widen these detention powers.

What is a citizens arrest

It is the limited power of an ordinary person to hold someone they find committing certain offences until police arrive, under the Crimes Act 1961. It requires reasonable grounds, permits only reasonable force, and it is a power to detain, never a power to search. The Crimes Amendment Bill currently before Parliament would extend it to any Crimes Act offence at any time of day.

Do I have to show my receipt

Not at an ordinary shop. Once goods are paid for they are yours, and showing a receipt at the exit is voluntary. Membership warehouses are different because receipt checks can be a condition of the membership contract, but even there the remedy for refusing is cancelled membership, not a search.

Can a shop take my photo or ban me

A store can trespass you for up to two years without proving you did anything wrong. Photos and incident records about you are personal information under the Privacy Act 2020, so the store must handle them properly and give you access to them on request, and you can complain to the Privacy Commissioner if it does not.

Related guides

• Trespass notices in New Zealand, what they mean and how to issue one
• Do I have to let police search my car, house or phone in New Zealand?
• Do I have to give my name to police in New Zealand?
• Your rights if you are arrested in New Zealand
• The shop refused my refund. What are my rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act?

Where to get free help

• Community Law, communitylaw.org.nz, free legal advice, including on unlawful searches and detention.
• Citizens Advice Bureau, cab.org.nz or 0800 367 222, free guidance on your rights and how to complain.
• Office of the Privacy Commissioner, privacy.org.nz, for complaints about photos, CCTV access and personal information held by stores.
• New Zealand Police, 105 for non-emergencies, if you were searched by force or unlawfully detained.