It's replacing the New Building Standard ratings currently used by engineers - with a new system only capturing buildings genuinely posing a risk to life, in medium and high seismic risk zones.
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says the changes will remove almost three-thousand buildings from the system.
He says a further almost 15-hundred will face more cost effective requirements, 840 will require no remedial work.
He says only about 80 will need a full retrofit.
