The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code (Agvet Code), scheduled to the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994, stipulates that, for a label for a container for a chemical product to meet the labelling criteria and be approved, the label must contain adequate instructions relating to specified matters (as are appropriate), including any matters prescribed by the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Regulations 1995 (Agvet Code Regulations).
Among other things, a label must comply with the requirements of the Labelling Standard or, if there is no Labelling Standard, the Agricultural or Veterinary Labelling Codes made by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), as in force from time to time.
The Veterinary Labelling Code (VLC) is presented as a series of labelling requirements that cover the label content, presentation and layout of the approved and marketed labels. This ‘Label presentation and layout’ page explains the legal requirements and additional guidance on how approved and marketed labels are to be structured and presented.
For general and specific content requirements of veterinary chemical product labels, refer to the label content of veterinary products.
Terminology
Where the term 'must' is used in the VLC, it is a legal requirement that labels comply with this provision or as determined by the APVMA.
Where the term ‘should’ is used in the VLC, the APVMA expects to see the layout and placement of the label information based on best practice.
Where the term ‘may’ or ‘could’ is used in the VLC, it is strongly advisable, but not compulsory.
Marketed label
The following sections, which can be selected from the drop-down menu below, set out the requirements of the VLC and provide guidance on:
- what information is required on labels and what should be avoided (if it is not stated in the label content section)
- label layout
- printing and legibility requirements.
Each section provides a table of contents and you can click each heading to expand or collapse the content.
Mandatory statements, or examples of specific wording, are presented in grey boxes throughout some of the sections. These statements should follow the typeface formatting of the example shown in the grey boxes. More information about typeface and formatting requirements is available in the Printing and legibility requirements section.