New Zealand employer registrations and IDs: IRD number, myIR, NZBN and the Companies Office

One regulator does most of it: the IRD chain

Almost everything a new employer needs sits with Inland Revenue, and it comes in a fixed order: entity IRD number → employer registration → the myIR channel you will file through. There is no separate payroll-tax registration, no social-insurance carrier to notify, no accident-insurance application. The tax-law definition of "employer" is simply "a person who pays or is liable to pay a PAYE income payment" (Income Tax Act 2007 s YA 1) — no residence or local-entity requirement anywhere in it.

Step 1 — the IRD number. A company incorporated outside New Zealand (or incorporated here but 25% or more owned or controlled by offshore persons) applies as an offshore person — online or on the paper IR744, with most supporting entity documents certified. Inland Revenue's stated lead time: "It can take 20 working days to arrive if you choose to have it posted." Build that into the runway — it is the longest lead time in the whole chain.

Step 2 — employer registration. Done in myIR ("Register for new tax accounts") or on the paper Employer registration – IR334. Inland Revenue lists the prerequisites: "the IRD number to be registered, your contact and bank account details, your business industry classification (BIC) code, the date you start employing staff." On timing, the two agencies phrase the trigger slightly differently — Inland Revenue: register "as soon as you start employing staff"; Employment New Zealand: "as soon as you know you are going to employ someone." Treat the earlier one as the rule.

Step 3 — the filing channel. Employer registration is the gate to payday filing: for non-resident employers Inland Revenue says it explicitly — "You will need to register before you can file your Employment information – IR348" — and adds that a shadow payroll may need to be set up first. What payday filing then involves, every payday, is its own guide: Statutory lodgement & payday filing.

For a foreign employer, every step above is a remote process — online IRD number application, myIR account, electronic registration and filing. The friction points are practical, not legal: getting offshore entity documents certified, the bank account details field at employer registration (Inland Revenue's page asks for them without stating whether the account must be a New Zealand one), and — only if the Companies Act threshold below is crossed — naming a person in New Zealand authorised to accept service. Whether a non-resident employer is obliged to register at all (the "sufficient presence" test, the post-2023 fringe-benefit and superannuation triggers) or simply may register voluntarily is the subject of our companion guide, Run New Zealand payroll from overseas.

ACC: the registration you don't do

There is no ACC employer registration step. Employers pay the Work levy and Working Safer levy on an annual invoice, in arrears: "To pay the Work levy and Working Safer levy you'll get an invoice from us. We'll get your income and payroll details from Inland Revenue after you file your tax return and Employer Monthly Schedules" (ACC's wording — the "Employer Monthly Schedule" is legacy terminology for what is now the payday-filed employment information). The invoice bundles a final levy (the wash-up for the previous levy year, from the payroll actually declared to Inland Revenue) with a provisional levy for the current year, and is payable within 30 days unless a payment plan is agreed. The employee-side earners' levy never appears on an invoice at all — it is collected inside PAYE. In other words: file payday returns correctly and ACC takes care of itself — the mechanics and the levy cycle are covered in Statutory lodgement & payday filing.

KiwiSaver: switched on by the first hire

KiwiSaver has no employer sign-up either — the duties attach the moment you employ. From the first eligible hire you must check status and eligibility, auto-enrol eligible new employees, hand over the KS3 employee information pack, send Inland Revenue the new employee's KiwiSaver details (in myIR or on the IR346K) "before their first pay day or when you file the employment information return that includes their first pay", deduct from the first pay (default deduction rate 3.5% per the June 2026 IR335 employer's guide) and pay the compulsory employer contribution (minimum 3.5% of gross salary or wages, same source — both are post-Budget-2025 figures, so distrust older guidance that says 3%). The full contribution mechanics, ESCT and the rate ladder live in PAYE & KiwiSaver, explained.

The Companies Office axis: branch registration, if you're "carrying on business"

The Companies Office layer is legally independent of the IRD layer — different statute, different regulator, different test. Nothing in Inland Revenue's employer-registration requirements asks for a New Zealand entity or an Overseas Register number, and nothing in the Companies Act waits for you to run payroll. That said, the two tests chew on overlapping facts: an employer whose New Zealand activity is substantial enough to create tax obligations will very often also be carrying on business for Companies Act purposes, and vice versa — treat them as two gates to assess together, not one.

The rule itself: an overseas company that commences to carry on business in New Zealand must apply for registration within 10 working days (Companies Act 1993 s 334). What it registers is itself — a branch registration on the Overseas Register — not a subsidiary; the Act nowhere requires forming a New Zealand company, and there is no NZ-resident-director requirement for a branch.

"Carrying on business" is fact-based, with a statutory exclusion list. Section 332 says an overseas company does not carry on business in New Zealand merely because here it: is a party to legal proceedings; holds internal meetings; maintains a bank account; sells property through an independent contractor; solicits orders that only become binding contracts when accepted offshore; creates evidence of a debt or a charge; collects debts or enforces securities; conducts an isolated transaction completed within 31 days (not one of a repeating series); invests funds or holds property; or enters into a contract of insurance as an insurer with a New Zealand policyholder (item (x)). Notably, employing staff appears in neither the inclusion nor the exclusion list — there is no bright-line employment trigger in the section; the general, case-law meaning governs.

The mechanics, per the Companies Office: reserve the name first — $10 plus GST online, with a RealMe login, and the reserved name "must be exactly the same as the name you have registered in the country where your company is incorporated" — then register online for $130 plus GST. The application states the directors' names and addresses, the New Zealand place of business, attaches certified evidence of incorporation and the constitution (translated if not in English), and — the only mandatory local footprint — must "state the full name and address of 1 or more persons resident or incorporated in New Zealand who are authorised to accept service in New Zealand of documents on behalf of the overseas company" (s 336(2)(f)). If accepted, you get a Certificate of Registration and appear on the Overseas Register.

NZBN: automatic for NZ companies — read-across for branches

The New Zealand Business Number is an identifier, not a registration hurdle. Companies registered in New Zealand are allocated an NZBN automatically and appear on the NZBN Register; sole traders, partnerships and trusts can apply on the NZBN website free of charge (an IRD number is needed).

For an overseas company registered on the Overseas Register, the position has to be assembled rather than quoted, so we state it with the appropriate hedge: overseas companies registered under Part 18 of the Companies Act are listed public-register entities under Schedule 2 of the NZBN Act 2016 and are NZBN-eligible, and the Registrar may allocate an NZBN to such an entity "without the need for it to apply" (s 15) — and the NZBN's own guidance says organisations registered with the Companies Office, including "registered companies", have already been allocated an NZBN. On that combination, a branch registration should ordinarily surface on the NZBN Register without a separate application. But no official page says so in terms — the guidance list doesn't name the Overseas Register expressly, and s 15 is a discretionary power, not an auto-issue duty — so search the NZBN Register after branch registration and verify, rather than assuming.

The employment-law side of day one

None of the registrations above discharges the duties that attach to the hire itself, and one of them bites before the registrations are even relevant: every employee must have a written employment agreement, and the employer must ensure it (Employment Relations Act 2000 s 65 — with mandatory contents, and penalties for non-compliance). Timing matters more than most checklists admit: if you want a 90-day trial provision, the agreement must be agreed and signed before the employee starts work, or the trial is invalid. The mandatory clauses, the retention duties and the wages-and-time record are covered in Employment agreements & wage records. Note too that the ERA's definition of "employer" — "a person employing any employee or employees" — carries no residence or local-entity requirement, so these duties bind an offshore employer exactly as they bind a local one.

Then there is what Inland Revenue needs to know about each new hire. Before the employee's first payday — or at latest with the employment information return that includes their first pay — the employer must send the new-employee information: "their name, KiwiSaver status, IRD number, tax code and contact details", plus date of birth if held. Channels: the add-employee flow in myIR, payroll software, or the paper New employee and KiwiSaver details – IR346K. Miss it and the first payday filing fails its most basic precondition — the employee won't be in the account to file against. The per-payday cadence from there is in Statutory lodgement & payday filing.

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