Status planning through legislation made New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) an official language in 2006. But this strong symbolic action did not create resources or mechanisms to further the aims of the act. In this article we discuss the extent to which legal recognition and ensuing language-planning activities by state and community have affected the instrumental rights of Deaf NZSL users and consider the prospects for the vitality of NZSL. As evidence, we draw on both the findings of a 2013 Human Rights Commission inquiry into inequalities for NZSL users and data from a study of the vitality of NZSL. We conclude that progress on the language recognition outcomes desired by the Deaf community falls well short of aspirations and that the vitality of NZSL is threatened by declining community size and the current conditions for intergenerational transmission.