How to Update Your Shopify Store for New Zealand’s Gift Card Rule Changes

New Zealand’s rules on gift cards are changing, this includes ecommerce. The rule change comes into effect March 2026, but let’s get ahead of the game by editing our default Shopify gift card expiration date to 3 years now.

The key change is that gift cards must now last for at least 3 years before expiring. Definitely one to take note of, since 1 year is often the standard currently in NZ. Expiration date or no expiration date, this must be clearly stated on the gift card.

So, how do we make sure we’re doing the right thing on Shopify?

We need to edit the default expiration length to 3 years. Watch the video below to see how to do this.

If you don’t have gift cards set up on your Shopify site yet, I show you quickly how to set them up here too.

Important to note: It is required that the expiration date, or lack thereof, is clearly shown on the gift card. Shopify automatically shows the expiration date for us. However, if you choose no expiry, Shopify doesn’t show a message stating this. Whilst we can submit this as a request for Shopify to include in future, currently it doesn’t. So to meet NZ requirements, I recommend you do set a 3 year expiration date on all your gift cards going forward (rather than no expiry).

In case you missed it, you can read the official business.govt.nz notice on gift card changes here.

Any questions, flick me a message.