1 April — the reset. The tax year begins (1 April – 31 March), the minimum wage change takes effect, updated PAYE rates and thresholds and the new ACC earners' levy apply, each employee's ESCT rate is fixed for the year, and the ACC levy year begins.
Through the year — the per-pay clock. An employment information return every payday (2 working days electronic, 10 working days paper), and PAYE paid monthly by the 20th of the following month — twice-monthly for large employers.
Annual, in arrears — the ACC invoice. ACC bills once a year (employers ~July) with a final levy plus a provisional levy, payable within 30 days.
31 March — the year ends. No annual PAYE reconciliation: payday filing already carries the full record.
This page is the year view — what's due because the tax year, the ACC levy year or a filing period just turned. For the deadlines each pay run triggers — the employment information return in the 2 / 10 working-day window, and paying deductions to Inland Revenue — use the per-pay clock in Statutory lodgement & payday filing. The two are the same statutory dates seen from different ends.
1 April: the year turns
New Zealand runs its whole payroll parameter set on the tax year, 1 April to 31 March. Unlike jurisdictions where changes dribble in, most of the annual movement here lands on the single date the year begins.
The minimum wage moves. The adult, starting-out and training minimum wage rates are reviewed annually and take effect on 1 April — from 1 April 2026 the adult rate is $23.95 an hour (up from $23.50), with the starting-out and training rate $19.16. Because these are review-and-reset each year, we prefer to point you at the live table rather than freeze a number: the current rates and the eligibility rules are in Minimum wage & wage rules.
PAYE rates and thresholds take effect. Income-tax bands, the composite PAYE deduction tables (IR340/IR341), the ACC earners' levy rate and its annual maximum, ESCT bands, KiwiSaver rates and the student-loan repayment threshold are all set for the tax year and apply to pay from 1 April. Two are moving on the near horizon: the ACC earners' levy steps up again on 1 April 2027, and the KiwiSaver default contribution rate rises from 3.5% to 4% on 1 April 2028 — both already legislated. The rate ladder and how the levy composites into PAYE are covered in PAYE & KiwiSaver, explained.
The ESCT rate is fixed today, and left alone. Employer superannuation contribution tax is set per employee at the start of the tax year on their prior-year salary plus employer contributions (an estimate for new hires) and — importantly — is not re-rated mid-year when pay changes; it moves only at the next 1 April. That makes 1 April the one point where the ESCT rate for each person is meant to be re-derived.
The ACC levy year begins. ACC runs on the same 1 April – 31 March cycle, and its levy rates change on 1 April each year (the average Work levy and the earners' levy both step on this date, on a path already published two years out). This matters twice: it sets the earners' levy embedded in PAYE from 1 April, and it starts the clock on the payroll that will be washed up in the following year's invoice.
Through the year: payday filing and the monthly 20th
Between the 1 April turns, New Zealand payroll reporting is a per-pay rhythm, not a calendar of periodic returns. Two things repeat.
Every time you pay employees you file an employment information (EI) return — within 2 working days of payday for electronic filers, 10 working days for paper. This is the clock that never stops, and it is the per-pay page's territory: the return's contents, the channels and the twice-monthly paper option are in Statutory lodgement & payday filing.
Filing and paying are separate rails. For most employers the money — PAYE (with the earners' levy inside it), KiwiSaver, ESCT, student loan and child support — is paid monthly, by the 20th of the following month. A due date on a weekend or public holiday rolls to the next working day.
Employers with gross annual PAYE and ESCT of $500,000 or more in the previous tax year pay twice monthly: pay dated the 1st–15th is due by the 20th of the same month; pay dated the 16th–month-end by the 5th of the following month — except 16–31 December, which is due 15 January, not 5 January.
The ACC invoice cycle: annual, in arrears
The one genuinely annual money event that isn't run through payroll is the ACC levy invoice. ACC bills you directly, once a year, after the fact.
Apart from the earners' levy — which rides inside PAYE and is never separately invoiced — employers do not remit ACC through the pay run. Instead ACC invoices annually, in arrears, off the payroll data Inland Revenue passes on: "When you file a tax return Inland Revenue passes your details on to us so we can invoice you for levies." Employers can expect the invoice in July (self-employed people in September). It bundles two components: a final levy — the year-end "wash up" for the previous levy year, based on the payroll actually declared to Inland Revenue — and a provisional levy for the current year, estimated from the prior year's payroll adjusted for expected salary increases. Payment is due within 30 days of the invoice date unless you set up a payment plan, and — new from 1 April 2026 — interest applies to all new instalment plans. The standard employer product is Workplace Cover (the Work levy plus the flat Working Safer levy collected for WorkSafe New Zealand).
The invoice is a downstream event: you never file it. You file payday returns correctly through the year, Inland Revenue passes the liable-payroll totals to ACC, and the invoice finds you. So the quality of the July invoice is set by the accuracy of the employment information filed every payday — get the per-pay filing right and the annual wash-up takes care of itself.
The annual arc — the tax-year strip
The New Zealand payroll year runs April to March. The strip shows where the year concentrates: the 1 April reset, the FBT quarter-ends, and the ACC invoice landing mid-winter — with long quiet stretches held together by the per-pay drumbeat.
The quiet months aren't idle. Every one of the twelve cells also carries the per-pay rhythm above: an employment information return every payday (within 2 working days electronic, 10 working days paper) and deductions paid to Inland Revenue by the 20th of the following month — twice monthly for large employers.
1 April is the master reset. The rate tables, the minimum wage, the ACC earners' levy and levy-year, and each employee's ESCT rate all turn on this one date — so unlike the rolling changes some countries see, New Zealand's parameter movement is concentrated and predictable. The catch is that "predictable" means "annual": a figure correct on 31 March may be wrong on 1 April, and the ACC and KiwiSaver steps for 2027 and 2028 are already on the books.
FBT is on its own quarters. Fringe benefit tax runs a separate quarterly cycle — returns due 20 July, 20 October, 20 January and 31 May — with elective annual and income-year filing (each gated on a prior-year threshold) whose annual return is also due 31 May. It touches payroll only at the edges, but its quarter-ends are why the otherwise-quiet strip lights up in May, July, October and January.
31 March: the year ends — and there is no annual PAYE return
This is the part that surprises anyone arriving from an STP-style regime: in New Zealand there is no annual employer PAYE reconciliation to file. Payday filing — mandatory since the 1 April 2019 regime — replaced the old monthly Employer Monthly Schedule (the IR348) with an employment information return filed every payday. Because each pay is reported as it happens, by 31 March the year's PAYE record is already complete; nothing separate falls due at year-end for PAYE reporting. The IR348 lives on only as the paper employment-information form for the minority who still file on paper — it is no longer an annual, or even a monthly, schedule. So do not go looking for a year-end employer return: it does not exist in the current regime.
What 31 March does do is close both the tax year and the ACC levy year, which sets up the following cycle: the payroll declared across the year becomes the basis for ACC's final levy wash-up in the next annual invoice, and each employee's ESCT rate is re-derived from the just-closed year's totals at the 1 April that follows. The genuinely annual filings around this window belong to other taxes — the FBT annual and January–March quarterly returns due 31 May — not to PAYE.
Quick answers
When does the New Zealand payroll year turn over?
New Zealand's tax year runs from 1 April to 31 March, and 1 April is the reset for almost everything annual. On that date the minimum wage change takes effect (from 1 April 2026 the adult rate is $23.95 an hour, up from $23.50), updated PAYE rates and thresholds and the new ACC earners' levy apply, the ACC levy year begins, and each employee's ESCT rate is fixed for the year on their prior-year pay. The ACC levy rates for employers also change on 1 April each year. The year then closes on 31 March. Because the rates are reviewed on this cycle, treat any figure as a point-in-time reading rather than a constant.
Is there an annual PAYE reconciliation or employer return at year-end in New Zealand?
No. Payday filing replaced the old monthly Employer Monthly Schedule (the IR348) with an employment information return filed every time you pay staff, so by 31 March the year's PAYE record is already complete and there is no separate annual employer reconciliation to lodge. The IR348 survives only as the paper employment-information form for the small number of paper filers, not as a year-end schedule. The main things that do fall around year-end are on other cycles: FBT annual and quarterly returns for the January–March quarter are due 31 May, and ACC's annual levy wash-up is invoiced separately in arrears rather than filed by you.
How does the ACC levy invoice work each year?
ACC is not remitted through payroll — apart from the earners' levy, which is collected inside PAYE. Instead ACC invoices employers once a year, in arrears, using the payroll details Inland Revenue passes on after you file. Employers can expect the invoice in July (self-employed people in September). It bundles a final levy — the wash-up for the previous levy year based on the payroll actually declared — with a provisional levy for the current year. Payment is due within 30 days of the invoice date unless you set up a payment plan, and from 1 April 2026 interest applies to new instalment plans. The ACC levy year runs 1 April to 31 March, and the levy rates change on 1 April.
When is PAYE actually paid to Inland Revenue through the year?
Filing and paying are separate rails. Employment information is filed every payday — within 2 working days for electronic filers, 10 working days for paper — but the money is paid to Inland Revenue monthly, by the 20th of the following month, for most employers. Large employers, with gross annual PAYE and ESCT of $500,000 or more in the previous tax year, pay twice monthly: deductions on pay dated the 1st to the 15th are due by the 20th of the same month, and pay dated the 16th to month-end by the 5th of the following month — except 16–31 December, which is due 15 January. If a due date falls on a weekend or public holiday, the next working day is on time.
The 1 April reset armed, every payday filed, the ACC invoice reconciled
Ledra Pay's New Zealand country pack carries the tax-year calendar as live infrastructure — re-deriving ESCT and rolling rates on 1 April, filing the employment information return inside the 2 / 10 working-day window every pay, arming the 20th and the twice-monthly dates, and reconciling the annual ACC invoice against the payroll it actually filed — so the year runs as a schedule you watch rather than a set of deadlines you chase.
See NZ coverage →Government sources
- Inland Revenue — Payday filing (an employment information return every payday; 2 working days electronic / 10 working days paper).
- Inland Revenue — Paying deductions to Inland Revenue (monthly by the 20th; twice-monthly at $500,000; 16–31 December due 15 January; weekend/holiday roll-over).
- Inland Revenue — IR335 Employer's guide (June 2026 edition, PDF) (ESCT rate set at the start of the tax year and not changed mid-year; the twice-monthly and due-date rules; student-loan thresholds).
- Inland Revenue — FBT filing frequency (quarterly returns due 20 July, 20 October, 20 January and 31 May; annual return 31 May; elective annual/income-year filing).
- Inland Revenue — Tax rates for individuals (the personal income-tax scale in force from 1 April 2025).
- Inland Revenue — ACC earners' levy rates (1.75% for 2026–27 up to $156,641; the 1 April 2027 step to 1.83% already gazetted).
- Inland Revenue — KiwiSaver changes and Employer contributions to KiwiSaver (compulsory employer contribution 3.5% from 1 April 2026; rising to 4% on 1 April 2028).
- Employment New Zealand — Minimum wage rates and types and Minimum wage is increasing on 1 April 2026 (adult $23.95 from 1 April 2026, up from $23.50; annual 1 April review).
- ACC — Understanding your levy invoice and Explaining your invoice (Workplace Cover) (annual invoice in arrears from Inland Revenue data; final + provisional levy; within 30 days unless a payment plan).
- ACC — Understanding levies if you work or own a business and Standard cover for employers (invoices arrive in July, self-employed September; Workplace Cover is the standard employer product).
- ACC — Levy results and Levy Guidebook 2026/27 (PDF) (levy year 1 April – 31 March; average Work levy and earners' levy effective 1 April each year, on a path published two years out).
- ACC — Levy changes for businesses (from 1 April 2026, interest applies to all new instalment plans).
The per-pay clock behind the "every payday" and 20th dates — the return contents, channels and payment methods — is in Statutory lodgement & payday filing.
Related
The per-pay clock: the employment information return, paying Inland Revenue, and the ACC invoice cycle in detail.
The rate ladder that resets on 1 April — income tax, the ACC earners' levy, ESCT and the KiwiSaver contribution steps.
The 1 April minimum-wage change, the adult/starting-out/training rates, and who each one applies to.