New Zealand
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
NZD 23.95 /hr
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
Annual leave
20 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
No statutory minimum
Termination and notice info
Updated
Oct 2026
The default and most common employment arrangement, with no end date, under the Employment Relations Act 2000. Must be in writing with mandatory content including dispute resolution/personal grievance explanation. Can only end via resignation, mutual agreement, or justified dismissal.
Fixed-term agreements permitted under s66 ERA 2000 only with a genuine business reason stated in writing (e.g. covering leave, a specific project, seasonal work). Cannot be used merely to avoid permanent-employment protections; repeated rollovers without genuine reason risk reclassification as indefinite.
No statutory maximum working week — agreed hours must be specified in the agreement and be 'reasonable'. 40 hrs/week (8hrs/day) is long-standing common practice. No statutory overtime premium by default; overtime pay depends on the agreement/CBA. Minimum paid 10-minute rest breaks and unpaid 30-minute meal breaks mandated at set intervals.
Two separate mechanisms: (1) 90-day trial period (s67A) — only for genuinely new employees, must be agreed in writing before start, up to 90 calendar days; available to employers of any size since the earlier <20-employee restriction was removed (in force since December 2023). Dismissal within a valid trial period cannot support an unjustified-dismissal personal grievance. (2) Ordinary probationary period (s67) — any agreed length, any employer, new or existing employees, but does NOT remove the right to raise a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal.
New Zealand has no statutory requirement for a 13th or 14th month salary, Christmas bonus, or any mandatory extra-month payment. Any such bonus is entirely discretionary or contract-governed — a notable structural gap vs. many other jurisdictions.
No broad nationality-based job-title restriction relevant to EOR hiring. Certain professional titles are legally protected and require registration/licensing regardless of nationality (e.g. Chartered Professional Engineer, Barrister and Solicitor, Registered Nurse, Registered Electrician, Licensed Real Estate Agent).
Employers must contribute a minimum of 3.5% of an enrolled employee's gross salary to KiwiSaver, effective 1 April 2026 (raised from 3%; next increase to 4% from 1 April 2028). Subject to Employer Superannuation Contribution Tax (ESCT) withheld at 10.5%-39% before deposit. Separately, employers pay an industry-risk-rated ACC Work Levy (2026/27 average ~NZD 0.69/$100 of payroll, excluded from this flat headline figure).
Employees enrolled in KiwiSaver contribute a default minimum of 3.5% of gross pay (may elect 4%/6%/8%/10%, or opt out). Separately, ALL employees pay the ACC Earner's Levy at 1.75% of earnings (2026/27), capped at NZD 156,641 liable earnings. Combined default: 5.25% (only the 1.75% portion is truly non-optable).
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
New Zealand does not operate a traditional combined social-security payroll tax. Retirement savings and injury cover are handled through two separate schemes:
NZ Superannuation and public healthcare are funded from general income tax revenue, not a dedicated payroll contribution.
Workers' compensation is delivered exclusively through ACC — a universal, no-fault accident insurance scheme covering both workplace and non-workplace injuries. No private workers' comp market exists and there is no employer opt-out.
New Zealand has NO statutory severance or redundancy pay entitlement by default. The ERA 2000 does not mandate any minimum redundancy compensation formula.
New Zealand has NO statutory 13th-month or 14th-month salary requirement.
P.S. our team speaks multiple languages and we'd love to chat in your preferred language if requested.
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
