PAYE calculator NZ 2026-27: your take-home pay after tax

What you take home on $65,000 a year

On a salary of $65,000 paid fortnightly with a standard M tax code, each pay of $2,500 loses $451 to PAYE, $44 to the ACC earners’ levy and $88 to KiwiSaver at the new 3.5 % default, leaving $1,918 in your account every two weeks. Over the year, that is $49,867 of take-home pay. The KiwiSaver deduction is not a cost in the same sense as tax: your employer adds another $2,275, of which $1,593 reaches your account after employer superannuation contribution tax, and the government adds $261. Without KiwiSaver, the same salary would leave $2,005 a fortnight. The income tax itself, $11,721 for the year, is 18.0 % of gross pay, because only the part of the salary above $53,500 is taxed at the 30 % rate.

How PAYE is calculated

PAYE, pay as you earn, is New Zealand’s system of taking income tax out of every pay so that most employees never have to file a return. For the 2026-27 tax year, running from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, your employer follows these steps each pay day.

1. Gross pay for the period. Salary or wages, overtime, allowances and taxable benefits paid in the period.
2. Annualise. The pay is multiplied by the number of periods in a year, 52 for weekly, 26 for fortnightly, 12 for monthly, to find the income you would have if every pay were the same.
3. Apply the tax rates. 10.5 % on the first $15,600, 17.5 % up to $53,500, 30 % up to $78,100, 33 % up to $180,000 and 39 % above, then divide back to the period.
4. Apply the tax code. An ME code deducts the independent earner tax credit; a secondary code such as S or SH replaces the scale with a flat rate; an SL suffix adds student loan repayments.
5. Add the ACC earners’ levy. 1.75 % of gross pay, up to $156,641 of earnings a year.
6. Deduct KiwiSaver and student loan. KiwiSaver at your chosen rate of gross pay; student loan at 12 % of pay above the repayment threshold, $464 a week.

The calculator reproduces the annual version of this calculation. Inland Revenue’s printed tables round each pay slightly differently, so your payslip can differ by a few cents; over a year the totals match.

Why your tax code changes everything

The same $30,000 can be taxed in very different ways depending on the code on the IR330 form you gave your employer. As a main job with an M code, the tax is $4,158, an average of 13.9 %. With ME, the independent earner tax credit takes $520 off. As a second job with an SH code, because your other job already pays $60,000, the whole $30,000 is taxed at 30 %, $9,000. Neither figure is wrong: the secondary code simply anticipates that this income sits on top of the other. A wrong code, on the other hand, means you pay too much or too little all year and settle it at the end. The tax codes guide explains each code, and the secondary tax calculator picks the right one from your two incomes.

Rates and thresholds for 2026-27

Take-home pay by salary, fortnightly, M code, KiwiSaver 3.5 %

The step from 17.5 % to 30 % at $53,500 is the one most people feel: a raise that crosses it keeps 70 cents in the dollar before ACC and KiwiSaver, against 82.5 cents below. Above $180,000, the 39 % rate applies and the government KiwiSaver contribution stops.

Salary examples

Each page below starts from one income and explains the threshold that matters there: the IETC range, the tax bracket edges, the ACC ceiling, the loss of the government KiwiSaver contribution.

• $30,000 a year
• $40,000 a year
• $50,000 a year
• $53,500 a year
• $60,000 a year
• $65,000 a year
• $70,000 a year
• $78,100 a year
• $80,000 a year
• $90,000 a year
• $100,000 a year
• $120,000 a year
• $150,000 a year
• $180,000 a year
• $25 an hour
• $30 an hour
• $35 an hour
• $40 an hour
• $50 an hour
• $60 an hour

Six ways to keep more of your pay

1. Check your tax code. A secondary code on your main job, or ND (no declaration), costs you money every pay until the end-of-year square-up. ND is taxed at 45 %.
2. Use ME if you qualify. Earning between $24,000 and $70,000 and not on Working for Families, NZ Super or a benefit? ME adds up to $520 a year to your pay.
3. Contribute at least $1,042.86 a year to KiwiSaver. That is the amount that earns the full government contribution of $260.72; at 3.5 %, a salary of about $29,800 reaches it.
4. Get a tailored tax code for a second job. If your combined income is near a threshold, a tailored code can avoid over-deduction on the secondary job.
5. Claim donations. A tax credit of 33.3 % of donations to approved charities, up to your taxable income, is claimed after the year ends.
6. Watch the end-of-year assessment. Inland Revenue automatically calculates refunds for most salary earners; check that your bank account number is up to date in myIR.

What the calculator does not do

It assumes the same pay every period and a full tax year. It does not include salary sacrifice, union fees, child support, or Working for Families tax credits, which are paid separately. It applies the extra pay rate only through the annual calculation, so a bonus shown as part of salary is taxed at your marginal rate as it will be at the end of the year. It does not compute ACC levies for self-employed people beyond the earners’ levy. The methodology page lists every rule and the tests that check them.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of these official sources, read on2026-09-27.

• Inland Revenue: Tax rates for individuals, including secondary tax codes
• Inland Revenue: KiwiSaver changes from 1 April 2026 and 1 April 2028
• Inland Revenue: Employer superannuation contribution tax (ESCT) rates
• Inland Revenue: Repaying a student loan from salary or wages
• Inland Revenue: Independent earner tax credit (IETC)
• Inland Revenue: Choosing a tax rate for schedular payments
• Inland Revenue: Provisional tax
• MBIE: ACC levy rates for 2025-26 to 2027-28
• Employment New Zealand: Minimum wage rates
• Employment New Zealand: Leave and holidays
• Inland Revenue: calculate PAYE for a lump sum payment (extra pay rates 2026-27)
• Stats NZ: Labour market statistics (income), June 2026 quarter