Censorship in New Zealand has been present since around 1850 and is currently managed by the Classification Office under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.

Over the years, New Zealand has gone through many iterations of censorship legislation. What began in the 1850s as vague and weak legislation was repeatedly updated with each iteration of censorship legislation addressing perceived shortcomings of the previous legislation. Notable changes in New Zealand censorship legislation include the continued attempts to give an objective criterion for determining whether something should be censored and the establishment of a centralized body that handles most censorship matters. These iterations adapted New Zealand legislation to changing times, and moved censorship in New Zealand in a more liberal direction.

The Classification Office is the government agency that is currently responsible for classification of all films, videos, publications, and some video games in New Zealand. It was created by the aforementioned Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 and is an independent Crown entity. The head of the Office is called the Chief Censor, maintaining a title that has described the government officer in charge of censorship in New Zealand since 1916.

The Obscene Publications Act 1857 was one of the earliest censorious acts in New Zealand. Aimed at "works written with the single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth and of nature calculated to shock the common feeling of decency in any well regulated mind", it laid out a process by which obscene works could be destroyed, but did not explicitly define what could be considered an obscene work under law. This was followed by Vagrant Act of 1866 and the Police Offences Act of 1884, which both lightly contributed to censorship legislation. Both of these acts focused on banning the display of obscene media in public, but did not give much precision to the definition of "obscene".

The later Offensive Publications Act of 1892 was passed to formalize some of the legal procedure surrounding such cases, but the act contained major loopholes that made it difficult to actually prosecute someone under it. This act was in part targeted at reducing the spread of advertisements for fraudulent medical practices, which had become common by the 1880s.

Early censorship was enforced by allowing postmasters to open and dispose of mail that they thought contained material in need of censorship. This power was given to them by the Post Office Acts Amendment Act of 1893.

The Indecent Publications Act 1910 was one of New Zealand's earlier pieces of legislation regarding censorship, and remained in effect until it was repealed in 1963 by the Indecent Publications Act 1963. Its aim was in part to shore up some of the weaknesses of the aforementioned 1892 act. Notably, the act allowed for more aggressive law enforcement when it came to searching for and seizing indecent material and introduced a set of guidelines for determining whether something was indecent or not. That said, it did not explicitly define the term "indecent" and the Hicklin Rule was often applied by courts evaluating censorship cases.

A centralized censoring body did not exist at the time of this act's passing, and a good amount of censorship during the lifespan of this act was done by the Minister of Customs. Due to a close relationship between the Customs Act 1913 and the Indecent Publications Act 1910, the Comptroller of Customs was able to seize material that they considered to be indecent "within the meaning of the Indecent Publications Act", effectively censoring it. Notably, Forever Amber was censored by this method.