Is there a legal maximum weight you can lift at work in Australia?
No. Australian work health and safety law does not set a maximum weight that a worker can be asked to lift, in a warehouse or anywhere else. What it requires is that your employer identify hazardous manual tasks, assess the risk and control it so far as is reasonably practicable. Weight is one part of that assessment, alongside how often you lift, from what height, how far you carry and in what posture. The figures you hear on the floor, 16, 20 or 25 kilograms, are workplace controls or old guidance, not legal limits. This guide explains the difference and what it means when you are handed a carton that feels too heavy.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Applies to the Manual Handling Training for Warehouse and Logistics Workers course.
What the law actually requires
Under the model Work Health and Safety Regulations, which apply in every jurisdiction except Victoria, a person conducting a business or undertaking must manage the risk of a musculoskeletal disorder associated with a hazardous manual task. A manual task is hazardous because of the risk factors it involves, not because of a number on a scale: repetitive or sustained force, high or sudden force, repetitive movement, sustained or awkward posture, and exposure to vibration.
Victoria's Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017 use the term 'hazardous manual handling' and list similar factors. Nowhere in either framework is there a kilogram figure that separates a lawful lift from an unlawful one.
That is deliberate. A 12 kilogram carton lifted once from a bench is a different task from the same carton lifted 400 times a shift from a floor-level pallet with a twist onto a conveyor. A weight limit would allow the second task while banning a single heavier lift with a lift table right beside it. The law targets the risk, and the risk lives in the whole task.
Where the numbers you hear come from
Most of the figures quoted in warehouses trace back to a national standard for manual handling published in 1990, which has since been withdrawn. It suggested that loads above a certain weight be assessed more closely and put a ceiling on unaided lifting. Those numbers were guidance even then, and they are not part of current WHS law or the Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice.
The second source is the workplace itself. Many distribution centres and freight depots set their own trigger figures: above a stated weight, the carton is labelled, a two-person lift is required or a mechanical aid must be used. Retailers and suppliers sometimes write carton weight limits into supply agreements so that product arrives in handleable units. These are legitimate controls, and you should follow them.
What they are not is a licence to lift anything under the number. A site that says 'two people above 20 kilograms' has not said that an 18 kilogram carton picked repeatedly from floor level is safe. If a task under the site figure is hurting people, it is still a hazardous manual task and the employer still has to deal with it.
How to judge a load without a number
Because there is no legal limit, you need a way of deciding whether a particular lift is reasonable for you, right now. The risk factors in the Code of Practice give you that. Before you commit to a lift, run through them.
Test the load before you lift it. Rock it or lift one corner to gauge weight and balance. If the test tells you it is heavier than it looks, or if any risk factor is high, that is the point to stop and get an aid or a second person, not halfway through the lift.
- How often will you do this, and for how long? Repetition turns a light load into a heavy task.
- Where does the lift start and finish? Floor level and above shoulder height are the worst positions.
- How far do you carry it, and over what floor?
- Does the load have handholds, or is it bulky, unstable or shifting?
- Do you have to twist, reach across a pallet or stoop under racking?
- Is it hot, cold, wet or rushed?
- Is the weight known, or is the carton unlabelled?
Team lifts and mechanical aids
The hierarchy of controls in the Code puts elimination first, then substitution and engineering controls, then administrative controls, and personal protective equipment last. A team lift is an administrative control. It reduces the load on each person, but it introduces coordination risk, needs both people to be able to see and communicate, and does not help with height, twisting or repetition.
A mechanical aid is usually the better answer. Pallet jacks, scissor lift tables that keep the pick face at waist height, conveyors, vacuum lifters for repeated carton handling and dock levellers that remove the step all sit higher in the hierarchy than technique or a second person. If the aid is on site and the task calls for it, using it is not optional.
When neither is available and the load fails your assessment, the right action is to stop and report the task, not to lift it anyway. Module 5, Safe Movement Principles, covers how to plan a lift and when not to; Module 6, Lifting, Carrying, Pushing and Pulling Loads, applies that to cartons, unknown weights and team lifts.
What the course covers, and where your employer's duty starts
Module 2, Australian WHS Principles for Warehousing and Transport, explains the duties on the business and on you, including why the law has no weight limit. Module 3, Identifying Hazardous Manual Tasks, teaches the risk factors above. Module 4, Risk Assessment and the Hierarchy of Controls, takes you through the process an employer is expected to follow.
Our training is theory. Assessing the actual tasks on your site, setting site trigger weights, providing aids and training you to use them are your employer's duties under the WHS framework of your state or territory. A Certificate of Completion from this course shows you understand the principles; it does not shift any of those duties, and your site's procedures and the regulator's guidance take precedence where they differ from anything you read here.
Common questions
Sources
- Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks — The national code the state and territory regulators adopt or mirror.
- Safe Work Australia — Lifting, pushing and pulling (manual tasks)
- National Heavy Vehicle Regulator — Chain of Responsibility — Loading and load restraint duties (not applicable in WA and the NT).
General information about Australian work health and safety duties, not legal advice. Your employer’s procedures and the regulator in your state take precedence.
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