Performance requirement (NCC)
A performance requirement is the mandatory outcome a design must meet in the NCC, satisfied either by the Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions or by a Performance Solution.
Ask Chalkline about this →A performance requirement is one of the mandatory, outcome-based provisions of the NCC that a building design must satisfy. It states what must be achieved (the level of safety, health, amenity, or sustainability), not how, and there are two compliant ways to meet it: the prescriptive Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions, or a Performance Solution.
This is the core of how the NCC works. The performance requirements are the part that is legally mandatory; everything else is a pathway to meeting them:
- follow the Deemed-to-Satisfy (DtS) provisions (the prescriptive recipes, specific sizes, materials, and methods) and you are deemed to have met the relevant performance requirements, or
- develop a Performance Solution, an engineered or assessed design that demonstrates the performance requirement is met another way (using one of the assessment methods, such as a fire engineer’s analysis).
So a fire engineer writes a Performance Solution against the relevant performance requirements; the requirements are the target, the solution is the argument that the design hits it.
For a builder the practical points are to understand that “complying with the NCC” ultimately means meeting the performance requirements, and DtS is just the easy, pre-approved route. When a design cannot or should not follow DtS (an unusual building, a heritage constraint, a value-engineering opportunity), a Performance Solution against the specific performance requirement is the legitimate alternative, but it must be documented, assessed by a suitable method, and accepted by the certifier (and it becomes part of the approval). Do not treat a deviation from DtS as automatically non-compliant: it is non-compliant only if there is no Performance Solution demonstrating the performance requirement is still met.
Also known as: NCC performance requirement, performance provision.
Category: Compliance / NCC.
Related
See also
References
- Performance Solution (Chalkline) (verified 2026-06-04)
Last updated: 2026-06-04. Verified: 2026-06-04. Quarterly review for currency.