2026 Workplace Exposure Limits Changes Industry Guide
Your ventilation was sized for the old numbers.
On 1 December 2026, Australia’s exposure limits change. Your site doesn’t.
Workplace exposure standards (WES) are being replaced by workplace exposure limits (WEL) – 31 new substances, dozens of limits cut by up to ten times, and 33 carcinogens stripped of any “safe” number at all.
Here’s the part that catches people out: you don’t have to change a thing to go from compliant to non-compliant. The workshop that passed its air monitoring in 2025 can fail in 2027 without a single process change.
If your site welds, cuts, batches, mills, bakes or runs diesel plant indoors, at least one of these changes has your name on it.
What’s inside
The five changes that will hit hardest – manganese, chromium VI, diesel particulate, Portland cement and flour dust
