New Zealand payroll lodgement timeline: payday, filing Employment Information, and paying Inland Revenue

Two rails, one clock

New Zealand runs payday filing (mandatory since the 1 April 2019 regime) as a per-pay obligation bolted onto a monthly payment obligation. The payday is the event that starts both: it fixes the figures the EI return reports, and it is the anchor date every filing deadline counts from. But the two obligations then run on different calendars — the return is due within a couple of working days, the money not until the 20th of the following month — and through different plumbing. Read the timeline below top to bottom as a single pay cycle; the thresholds and the fine print follow.

The filing rail: Employment Information, every payday

Payday filing means exactly that: "You must file employment information every time you pay your employees." The return is keyed to the payday, and it carries the pay period each employee worked — "the pay period start and end dates can be different for each employee." The core deadline is tight: electronic filers file within 2 working days of each payday; paper filers within 10 working days, or under the twice-monthly aggregation described in the timeline above. The paper form is the IR348 Employment information (with the IR349 for overflow rows); electronic filing runs through four channels — on-screen entry in myIR, file upload in myIR, express file transfer in myIR, and direct from payroll software using Inland Revenue's gateway services. Whatever the channel, each payday for each employee is a separate line. The per-payday mechanics, the full field list and the ACC invoice cycle that hangs off this data are covered in Statutory lodgement & payday filing.

Who must file electronically — the $50,000 line

The channel is not always your choice. "Employers with total annual PAYE and ESCT (employer superannuation contribution tax) of $50,000 or more must file electronically." Below that — "If your PAYE and ESCT combined is less than $50,000, you can choose to file electronically or by paper" — paper is on the table, and new employers "can file electronically or by paper in the first 6 months," after which the $50,000 test applies. One wording trap worth defusing: Inland Revenue's Employer's guide (IR335) states the threshold as "gross annual PAYE", while the web pages say "PAYE and ESCT" combined. These are not two figures. The Tax Administration Act 1994 (s 23F) frames the test over "a PAYE income payment and an employer's superannuation cash contribution" for the preceding tax year against a $50,000 threshold — so the combined PAYE-and-ESCT reading is the operative one, and the guide's "gross annual PAYE" is shorthand. An over-threshold employer who genuinely cannot file electronically can apply in writing for an exemption.

New and departing employees: the details that ride alongside

Two employee-lifecycle events attach to the filing rail rather than the money rail. For a new hire, Inland Revenue needs "their name, KiwiSaver status, IRD number, tax code and contact details" (date of birth if held) "before their first pay day or when you file the employment information return that includes their first pay" — through myIR, your software, or the paper IR346K. Because "if an employee does not appear in myIR when you file their employment information, you'll need to add them as a new employee," these details are effectively a precondition of the first payday return, not a separate later task. For a departure, the finish date reported is "the earlier of when they finished, or the date they receive their final pay," and it goes in the EI return / employee details (the gateway even has a dedicated terminate operation). The wider hire-day duties — the written employment agreement, wage and time records — sit in Employment agreements & wage records, and how the registrations that precede all of this fall into place is in Registrations & employer IDs.

The money rail: paying Inland Revenue by the 20th

Paying is a separate obligation on a monthly calendar. "If your gross annual PAYE and ESCT is less than $500,000, pay deductions to us monthly. The due date is the 20th of the following month." One payment to the EMP account settles the lot: PAYE, child support deductions, KiwiSaver employee deductions, KiwiSaver employer contributions, student loan deductions and ESCT. (The ACC earners' levy is not a separate remittance line — it is collected inside the PAYE you deducted.) A due date on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday can be met on the next working day without penalty. Note the definition Inland Revenue uses for the threshold test: "Gross annual PAYE is the total PAYE, including any ESCT, but excluding ACC earners' levy, student loan repayments, KiwiSaver and child support deductions" — so the levy that sits inside PAYE is stripped out again when you measure yourself against the $500,000 line. How PAYE, ESCT and the KiwiSaver rates are actually calculated is in PAYE & KiwiSaver, explained.

Large employers: the twice-monthly cadence

Cross the half-million mark and the money rail speeds up. "If your gross annual PAYE and ESCT is $500,000 or more in the previous tax year (1 April to 31 March), you're required to pay deductions twice monthly": wages paid between the 1st and 15th are due by the 20th of the same month; wages paid between the 16th and end of every month except December by the 5th of the following month; and the 16–31 December slice by 15 January. Associated employers are grouped for the test — "any companies in a group that have 66% or more common ownership; all partners in a partnership; all persons who have control of the same property" are treated as one employer. A wording caveat on the threshold itself: Inland Revenue's web page says "more than $500,000", but its own Employer's guide (IR335) and the statute (Income Tax Act 2007 s RD 4(2), which makes monthly filing available only below $500,000) both put the twice-monthly obligation at $500,000 or more. We follow the guide and the statute — treat exactly $500,000 as inside the twice-monthly cohort.

Weekends, holidays and keeping the rails separate

Two practical rules close the loop. First, the rollover: "If the due date is a Saturday, Sunday, or a public holiday, you can make your payment on the next working day without penalty" — and working-day counting is what the 2-day and 10-day filing windows run on too, so the calendar, not the raw date, governs. Second, and the point worth hammering: filing does not pay, and paying does not file. Inland Revenue is blunt about it — "There's currently no ability for employee deductions payment through our gateway or file upload services." The EI return goes through the gateway/myIR and reports; the money goes through your bank to the EMP account. A payday therefore arms two independent deadlines, and satisfying one tells you nothing about the other. Non-resident employers have an extra precondition on the filing rail — a shadow payroll must be set up before you can file — which is covered in Run New Zealand payroll from overseas.

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