Salary Calculator NZ

How this PAYE calculator works

New Zealand employers deduct income tax under the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) system before your wages ever reach your bank account. This tool rebuilds that same deduction, in the order Inland Revenue applies it, so you can see exactly where each dollar goes.

Type in your pay and choose the period it covers. If you're paid hourly, add the hours you work in a typical week so the calculator can work out your annual figure first, since tax is always calculated on the yearly total before being divided back down.

• PAYE income tax, calculated across all five tax brackets for the 2026/27 year
• ACC earner's levy, capped once your income passes the annual threshold
• KiwiSaver employee contribution, at any of the standard rates from 3.5% to 10%
• Student loan repayments, once your income clears the annual repayment threshold
• A final take-home pay figure, shown in the same period you entered

2026/27 New Zealand income tax brackets

New Zealand uses a stepped tax system: you don't pay the top rate on all of your income, only on the portion that falls inside each band. The brackets below apply to the 2026/27 tax year, which runs from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, and are unchanged from the previous year.

Because the system is stepped, someone earning $80,000 a year isn't taxed at 33% on the whole amount. The first $15,600 is taxed at 10.5%, the next slice up to $53,500 at 17.5%, and so on, with only the last $1,900 taxed at 33%. This calculator applies the full bracket structure automatically, so you never need to work it out by hand.

ACC levy, KiwiSaver and student loan deductions

Income tax isn't the only thing that comes out of a New Zealand payslip. Three other deductions can apply, and this calculator handles all of them.

ACC earner's levy. Every employee pays this levy, which funds New Zealand's no-fault accident compensation scheme. For the 2026/27 tax year it's 1.75% of your liable earnings, capped at an income of $156,641, so the most anyone pays in a year is $2,741.22.

KiwiSaver. If you're enrolled, your employer deducts a percentage of your gross pay before tax and puts it toward your retirement savings. From 1 April 2026 the minimum employee contribution rose to 3.5%, with 4%, 6%, 8% and 10% also available as options. Your employer is required to match at least the minimum rate with their own contribution, which doesn't affect your take-home pay.

Student loan repayments. If you have a New Zealand student loan and your income is above the loan repayment threshold, currently $24,128 a year, 12 cents of every dollar above that threshold goes toward repaying it. Below the threshold, nothing is deducted.

Three worked examples

These examples use the 3.5% KiwiSaver minimum and assume no student loan, so you can see how the deductions stack up at different income levels. Your own numbers will differ slightly if you choose a different KiwiSaver rate or have a student loan, which is exactly what the calculator above is for.

On the $75,000 salary, take-home pay works out to roughly $1,083 a week or $4,695 a month. If you'd rather see your own numbers broken down by pay period straight away, the take-home pay calculator is set up specifically for that, and if you're paid by the hour rather than a yearly salary, the wage calculator converts an hourly rate into weekly, fortnightly, monthly and annual figures.

Quick pay conversions

A few common questions have simple, fixed answers, based on a standard 40-hour working week (2,080 hours a year):

• $60,000 a year is about $28.85 an hour, before tax
• $65,000 a year is exactly $31.25 an hour, before tax
• $100,000 a year works out to roughly $48.08 an hour, before tax
• $60,000 a year after tax is roughly $46,630, using the 3.5% KiwiSaver minimum and no student loan
• $75,000 a year after tax is roughly $56,342, on the same assumptions

Where the deducted money actually goes

PAYE income tax is New Zealand's largest source of government revenue, and it funds everything from health and education to public transport and welfare payments. Unlike some countries, New Zealand has no separate general social security tax bundled into PAYE: income tax and the ACC levy are the only two compulsory deductions on an ordinary payslip, alongside KiwiSaver and student loan repayments, which aren't taxes at all but personal savings and debt repayment.

The ACC levy specifically funds New Zealand's no-fault accidental injury scheme, which covers medical treatment and lost income if you're injured, whether that happens at work, at home or anywhere else, without needing to establish who was at fault. It's a genuinely different system from most countries, where injury costs are often recovered through the courts or private insurance instead.

When your pay changes during the year

Because PAYE is deducted per pay period rather than as a single annual bill, a mid-year pay rise doesn't retroactively change tax on the income you already received. Your employer simply starts applying the higher deduction from the pay period the raise takes effect, calculated as if that new, higher rate applied for a full year.

The same logic applies to redundancy payments, which are usually taxed as an extra pay under IRD's specific rules rather than added straight into an ordinary pay period, and to starting a new job partway through the tax year, where your new employer calculates PAYE the same way regardless of how much you already earned at a previous employer earlier in the year. If your circumstances change partway through the year, whether that's a raise, a new job, or picking up a second income, this calculator is a quick way to check what your new pay period figure should look like once the higher rate applies.

Self-employed and contractor income

This calculator, like PAYE itself, is built for employees: people who receive a regular salary or wage from an employer who deducts tax before paying them. If you're self-employed, a contractor, or you invoice for your work, you're generally responsible for your own income tax through provisional tax payments during the year and a tax return at the end of it, rather than having PAYE deducted automatically. The tax brackets are the same ones shown on this page, but the deduction mechanics, timing and ACC arrangements are different enough that this tool isn't a reliable estimate for that situation. If that's you, check ird.govt.nz's guidance for self-employed people, or speak to an accountant, rather than relying on this page.

How accurate is this estimate?

This is an independent estimate tool built directly from the tax settings published on ird.govt.nz. It isn't affiliated with Inland Revenue or the New Zealand Government, and it doesn't replace a payslip or a formal tax assessment.

The calculator covers the most common case: tax code M, meaning this is your only or main job. It doesn't calculate secondary tax codes (used for a second job), and it doesn't include the Independent Earner Tax Credit, because eligibility for that credit depends on details this tool doesn't ask for, like whether you already receive Working for Families or NZ Super. If either of those applies to you, use this as a starting estimate and check the exact figure with Inland Revenue's own tools. For a closer look at just the income tax portion of your pay, see the tax calculator.