Payday filing and paying IRD: New Zealand's lodgement clocks

The calendar at a glance

As verified against Inland Revenue's payday-filing pages, the Employer's Guide IR335 (June 2026 edition), the Tax Administration Act 1994 and Income Tax Act 2007 on legislation.govt.nz, and ACC's levy pages on 10 July 2026:

A due date that lands on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday rolls to the next working day without penalty, per IR335.

Clock one: payday filing — the Employment Information return

Since payday filing became mandatory in the 2019 regime, Inland Revenue's rule is one sentence: "You must file employment information every time you pay your employees." The return is keyed to the payday — not the calendar month — and carries the pay period each employee worked, with start and end dates that can differ per employee. The deadline depends on the channel:

• Electronic: within 2 working days of each payday (Tax Administration Act 1994, s 23E(2)).
• Paper: within 10 working days of each payday — or twice-monthly aggregation: paydays between the 1st and 15th filed within 10 working days of the 15th, paydays between the 16th and month-end within 10 working days after the end of the month, with each payday for each employee still a separate entry (s 23F(2)–(4)).

Who gets to choose is a threshold question. Employers with total annual PAYE and ESCT (employer superannuation contribution tax) of $50,000 or more — measured against the preceding tax year (1 April – 31 March) — must file electronically (TAA s 23F(5)–(6)). Below $50,000 combined, paper is allowed; new employers may file on paper for their first 6 months, after which the $50,000 test applies. An over-threshold employer can apply in writing for an exemption — IRD weighs the nature and reliability of digital services available to the business, computer literacy, and whether the cost of electronic filing is unreasonable for its circumstances (s 23G).

The channels are four:

• Direct from payroll software, via IRD's gateway services — the API rail (below).
• File upload in myIR — CSV files per IRD's published Payday Filing File Upload Specification (an "express file transfer" variant also exists in myIR).
• On-screen entry in myIR — typed directly into the portal.
• Paper — the Employment information IR348 (with the IR349 supplementary for overflow rows), posted monthly to registered paper filers. Only available below the $50,000 threshold.

The return itself is a per-employee, per-payday record: name and IRD number, tax code, pay frequency, employment start and finish dates, pay-period dates, gross earnings or schedular payments, PAYE or schedular tax, earnings not liable for the ACC earners' levy, KiwiSaver employee deductions, KiwiSaver employer contributions net of ESCT, ESCT, student loan deductions (with SLCIR and SLBOR commissioner- and borrower-initiated extras as separate fields), and child support with a reason code. Nil EI returns exist — the file-upload specification carries a nil indicator on the return header. And one scheduling oddity: if a payday includes only contractors on schedular payments, the paper due-date options apply even to electronic filers.

New and departing employees ride the same rail

Payday filing is also the employee-lifecycle feed. For a new employee, IRD needs their name, KiwiSaver status, IRD number, tax code and contact details (date of birth if held) — before their first payday, or with the EI return that includes their first pay — via myIR, payroll software, or the paper New employee and KiwiSaver details IR346K. For a departing employee, the finish date reported is the earlier of the day they finished and the date of their final pay, due by the next EI due date.

IRD's gateway makes the lifecycle explicit. Alongside the Return service (File, Retrieve Status, Retrieve Return), the gateway exposes an Employee Details service with Create, Update and Terminate operations — Create for new hires, Update "for an existing employee ... for example a KS10", and Terminate, which "lets an employer submit information about a departing employee". A payday-filing integration is an employee-lifecycle integration, not just a returns pipe.

Clock two: paying Inland Revenue — the 20th, or twice a month

Everything deducted or contributed through payroll settles to IRD in one payment per period to the EMP account, covering: PAYE (which, as deducted from pay, already includes the ACC earners' levy component), child support deductions, KiwiSaver employee deductions, KiwiSaver employer contributions, student loan deductions and ESCT. When it's due depends on size:

• Monthly (most employers): gross annual PAYE and ESCT under $500,000 → all deductions due by the 20th of the following month. Paying more often is allowed; new employers pay monthly until they cross the threshold.
• Twice-monthly (large employers): gross annual PAYE and ESCT of $500,000 or more in the previous tax year (1 April – 31 March) → deductions on wages paid 1st–15th due by the 20th of the same month; wages paid 16th–end of month due by the 5th of the following month — except 16–31 December, due 15 January (Income Tax Act 2007, ss RD 4(2) and RA 15(2)–(4)).

How the money moves: electronically. Internet banking through your bank's built-in "Pay Tax" / "Pay IRD" function, direct debit set up in myIR, or credit/debit card; other routes include in person at Westpac, by phone, from overseas, or automatic payments. IRD stopped accepting cheques on 1 March 2020, and its own website card gateway (Windcave) has since been discontinued too. If the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, paying on the next working day is on time.

ACC: the invoice that arrives without a filing

ACC is the piece of NZ lodgement that isn't a lodgement. Apart from the earners' levy riding inside PAYE, nothing ACC-related is remitted through payroll. Instead: "When you file a tax return Inland Revenue passes your details on to us so we can invoice you for levies." Under Workplace Cover — ACC's standard cover for all employers — the levy invoice arrives annually, in arrears; employers can expect it in July.

One invoice carries two lines: a final levy — the "wash up" for the previous levy year, based on the liable payroll IRD supplied — and a provisional levy for the current year, estimated from the previous 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 note that from 1 April 2026, interest applies to all new instalment plans (the late-payment interest rate changed at the same time).

The levy year runs 1 April – 31 March, and the rates step annually (all GST-exclusive, per $100 of liable earnings):

• Work levy: average $0.69 for 2026/27 (up from $0.66 in 2025/26) — the actual rate depends on your classification unit and, for larger employers, experience rating. The 2027/28 step is already confirmed: $0.72.
• Working Safer levy: flat $0.08, collected on behalf of WorkSafe New Zealand.
• Earners' levy: $1.52 for 2026/27 ($1.45 in 2025/26; $1.59 confirmed for 2027/28) — but this one is collected through PAYE, not invoiced.

FBT: the fourth cycle, briefly

Fringe benefit tax runs its own filing calendar: quarterly is the default — no election needed — with returns due 20 July, 20 October, 20 January and 31 May. Annual returns (for benefits to non-shareholder employees) and income-year returns (close companies with shareholder-employees) are elective, each gated on prior-year gross PAYE (excluding the ACC earners' levy) plus ESCT of $1,000,000 or less — or, for income-year filing, benefits limited to one or two motor vehicles for shareholder-employees — with existing employers electing by 30 June of the year the election applies to.

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