TGA Advertising Rules for Supplements: What You Can and Cannot Claim in 2026

In Australia, your supplement page may only make health claims taken from a fixed government list of approved claims. The TGA does not check whether most supplements work before they go on sale. Four claims about vitamins and minerals are banned outright, including saying what percentage of the daily intake a product gives. Claims about a serious form of a disease need the TGA's approval first. Claims about cancer, HIV, hepatitis C, sexually transmitted diseases or mental illness cannot be applied for at all. Below, you will see which rule covers which sentence, with the sources.

Is your clinic's supplement page an advertisement?

Almost certainly yes. This is where most practices start off on the wrong foot.

The TGA is the body that controls medicines, including supplements. Its ad rules do not care whether you call the page a shop, a dispensary, a resource or patient education. They apply whenever you promote the use or sale of a medicine or supplement. A supplement sold from your front desk counts. So the page describing it is an ad. So is the Instagram post, the email newsletter and the printed card in your waiting room.

That matters because clinics often write these pages in a very different voice from the rest of the site. The service pages get checked. The retail shelf does not. Its copy usually comes straight from the supplier's product page. That page was written for a different reader, with a different appetite for risk.

Everything below is about what those pages may say. You can find the general rules in our guide to the TGA Advertising Code in 2026. This post adds the extra layer that applies to supplements.

Does the TGA check that a supplement works?

For most supplements on an Australian shelf, it does not. The TGA says so in plain words.

Its guidance on approved claims opens with this:

"As listed medicines are not evaluated, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) uses a variety of mechanisms to help ensure that they are of high quality and used safely by consumers."

Read the first part on its own. Listed medicines are not evaluated. Most supplements are listed medicines. The company behind the product says it holds proof for the claims. Nobody at the TGA reads that proof before the product goes on sale.

There are 3 levels. The code on the label tells you which one you are looking at.

This is the most useful fact in the whole topic, and it cuts both ways. First, your practice cannot treat an AUST L number as a tick of approval. Second, your copy has to work harder. The regulator has put the safety rail on the words you use, and it does not check the proof.

Where do supplement claims have to come from?

They have to come from one specific government list, and nowhere else.

The TGA's rule is that listed medicines "must only use indications drawn exclusively from a list of pre-approved 'permitted indications'". In plain words, you can only use claims from the approved list. That list lives in the Therapeutic Goods (Permissible Indications) Determination, and the TGA keeps it up to date.

The key word there is exclusively. You do not get to read the rules your own way. Think of the list as a menu. If the claim you want is not on the menu, careful wording will not save it. A listed medicine simply cannot carry that claim. The only way to use it is through a higher level of assessment.

The approved claims also follow a fixed pattern. Each one names an action and a target, and most form a whole sentence. Some add a qualifier word. The TGA says what that word is for. It makes sure the claim does not refer to a serious form of a disease, disorder or condition.

So the word mild in front of a condition on a supplement label is doing a legal job. It is part of a phrase the law defines. If you delete it in a rewrite, you change what the claim legally is.

Which vitamin claims are banned outright?

Four claims are banned, and the first one is on nearly every supplement page in the country.

The Therapeutic Goods Regulations list banned claims for certain kinds of products. Vitamins and minerals have their own entry. These are the claims it names.

You can find the full list in Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990.

The first row is the one that catches practices. It usually happens by habit, not by being careless. The percentage is printed on the maker's own product page. Whoever builds your clinic's shop copies the description across. The maker's label may follow different rules from your clinic's ad, and nobody along the way stopped to check.

The fourth row catches people with good intentions. Say you truly believe one form of magnesium absorbs better than magnesium from food, and you say so. You have made a banned claim. Being right does not protect you here. The rule bans the claim itself.

What is a restricted representation?

A restricted representation is any mention of a serious form of a disease, condition, ailment or defect. The TGA's definition of serious is more useful than most people expect.

"The definition of a 'serious form' of a condition, ailment, disease or defect are those which require a health professional to diagnose, follow-up or treat."

That gives you a simple test you can use on your own copy without a lawyer. Ask whether a patient would need a practitioner to diagnose or manage the thing you name. If so, you are probably making a restricted claim.

You cannot use one in any kind of ad unless the TGA has approved it first, or it forms part of a required health warning. The TGA says large fines and penalties apply if you use restricted or banned claims without that approval.

Two details are worth remembering. Pregnancy is not a restricted claim, unless it is a pregnancy with a medical, obstetric or surgical problem. There are also just 2 exemptions for specific substances inside the approved claims list. They were granted because they matter for public health, have a safe history of use and rest on strong evidence:

• vitamin D with calcium, referring to osteoporosis
• folic acid, referring to neural tube defects

The TGA is blunt about everything else. Any other claim that refers to a serious form needs to go through a full check and be approved before it can be used.

Which claims can never be approved at all?

These are called prohibited representations, which means banned claims. They go a step beyond restricted ones, and you cannot apply to use them.

A banned claim is one about treating, curing, preventing, diagnosing (including screening) or monitoring any of these. It also covers claims about how likely someone is to get one of them:

• neoplastic diseases, which the TGA explains as all types of cancer
• sexually transmitted diseases
• HIV or AIDS
• hepatitis C
• mental illness

Claims that a product can cause an abortion are banned as well.

The TGA can allow one of these claims in a specific ad when public health or the right use of the product needs it. But you cannot apply for that. The TGA decides on its own.

Mental illness is the one that catches wellness-focused clinics. Read it carefully, and do not panic. The ban covers the same claims as above: treating, curing, preventing, diagnosing or monitoring a mental illness, or the risk of getting one. An approved claim about supporting general wellbeing is a different sentence from a claim to treat or prevent a mental illness. The gap between the two is small, and a headline can easily cross it. If you cross it, penalties apply.

What happens when AHPRA and the TGA both apply?

You follow both sets of rules at once. Passing one regulator's rules tells you nothing about the other's.

Say a registered practitioner sells supplements, or a business that advertises a health service does. Then 2 sets of rules apply to the same page. The TGA covers what you may claim about the product. The National Law, which sets the health ad rules that AHPRA enforces, covers how you advertise the health service around it.

We mapped the same double problem for natural medicine in AHPRA advertising for naturopaths, and it works the same way here. The regulators do not work together. Passing one check does not protect you in the other's process.

What should you fix on your supplement pages this week?

Here are 5 checks, in the order that finds the most problems fastest.

1. Search your whole site for a percent sign next to a nutrient. Every "provides 100% of" is a banned claim. This one check usually clears the most problems in the least time.
2. Find every RDI or daily intake figure and trace where it came from. If it did not come from the National Health and Medical Research Council, or it is out of date, it has to go.
3. Hunt down the better-than-food sentences. If a line says the product beats nutrients from food, or fills the gaps in a poor diet, it is on the banned list.
4. Check every health claim against the approved claims list. Do not rely on your own sense of whether it is true. Check it against the list. If it is not there, it cannot go on a listed medicine.
5. Use the serious-form test on every condition you name. If a patient would need a practitioner to diagnose or manage it, treat the sentence as a restricted claim until you know otherwise.

None of this stops your practice selling supplements or writing about them well. It moves the work to a different place. The regulator fixes the claim, so your persuasion has to live in everything else on the page. That means who you are, how you choose what to stock, what happens at the consultation, and why a patient would trust your judgement over an online store.

That is harder than copying the supplier's blurb. It is also the only version that is both legal and worth reading.

This article explains the rules in general terms. It is general information, not legal advice. If you are unsure which rules apply to your products or your practice, get advice from a health lawyer or your professional association.