KiwiSaver Switch Break-Even Calculator NZ 2026/27

How this calculator works

This calculator compares two futures for your KiwiSaver money: staying where you are, or switching to a different fund or provider. Both scenarios start from the same current balance and receive the same annual contributions from you, your employer and the government, so the only real difference between them is the fee you pay and, for the switching scenario, any one-off cost or delay involved in making the move. Your expected return is set by your risk profile, using the Financial Markets Authority's standard long-run projection assumptions of 2.5% for Defensive/Conservative funds, 3.5% for Balanced, 4.5% for Growth and 5.5% for Aggressive, each already net of typical fees and tax at the 28% prescribed investor rate (PIR). The calculator then adjusts that reference return by the exact percentage-point gap between your current fund's fee and the fee of the fund you are considering, since a lower fee adds directly to your net return when the two funds hold broadly similar underlying investments. If you enter a one-off switch cost or a number of days your money may sit out of the market during the transfer, that amount is deducted once, at the start of the switching scenario, as a small opportunity cost, before both balances are compounded forward over the number of years you choose. The result is your break-even point, meaning how long the fee saving takes to repay the cost of switching, plus the projected balance under each option.

Worked example

Take someone with a $25,000 KiwiSaver balance, adding $5,000 a year in total from their own pay, their employer and the government, invested in a Balanced fund. Their current provider charges a 1.00% annual fee, and they are considering a fund charging 0.40%, a saving of 0.60 percentage points. Using the FMA's 3.5% Balanced return assumption, that fee gap lifts their net return to about 4.1% if they switch. Assuming the transfer itself is free but their money sits out of the market for 5 business days, the only cost is a small amount of foregone growth of around $14 on their balance. Because the ongoing fee saving on a $25,000 balance is about $150 in the first year alone, the break-even point arrives in about 2 months, after which every extra month invested is a genuine saving rather than a cost being repaid. Left to compound for 20 years, the calculator projects a balance of about $191,000 if they stay put, versus about $206,000 if they switch, a difference of roughly $15,000, entirely from paying a lower fee on the same underlying investment performance. If a specific switch carried a real cost, for example an adviser fee, entering that figure simply pushes the break-even point out further, without changing the size of the eventual saving once it has been recovered.

Why time out of the market matters, and why it is usually small

When you switch KiwiSaver provider, your old scheme sells down your investments and transfers the proceeds to your new provider, who reinvests the money once it arrives. For however many days that takes, your balance may sit as cash rather than being invested, so it misses out on the fund's normal daily movement, up or down. In New Zealand this window is usually short, often around ten working days, and KiwiSaver providers are not permitted to charge an exit fee for leaving, so most switches cost nothing beyond this brief gap. Because the gap is measured in days rather than years, the dollar cost is typically small next to the ongoing fee saving from a genuinely cheaper fund, which is why break-even points are often measured in weeks or months rather than years. The exception is if your specific arrangement does carry a real switching cost, in which case entering that figure shows exactly how much longer the fee saving needs to work before it is worthwhile.

What this calculator assumes

• The fund you are switching to invests in a broadly similar way to your current fund, so the same underlying gross investment performance is assumed for both. This calculator isolates the fee difference and does not predict which specific fund will outperform.
• Investment returns follow the FMA's standard projection assumptions for your chosen risk category, already net of typical fees and tax at the 28% PIR. These are long-run planning figures, not a guarantee of future performance.
• Contributions are added once a year and compound at the same rate as the rest of the balance, an approximation of a regular pay-cycle contribution.
• Any one-off switch cost and days out of the market are applied once, at the start, as a reduction to the switching scenario's starting balance.
• KiwiSaver contribution settings: employee and employer default rate 3.5% from 1 April 2026 (rising to 4% from 1 April 2028); government contribution of 25 cents per $1 of member contributions, capped at $260.72 a year, requiring $1,042.86 of member contributions, and removed above $180,000 income from 1 July 2025.

Who this calculator is for

This is for any KiwiSaver member weighing up a switch, whether to a lower-fee fund with the same provider, to a different provider altogether, or to a different risk profile at the same time. It is especially useful if you already know there is a meaningful fee gap between your current fund and an alternative, and want to check whether any switching cost or time out of the market is worth clearing before the ongoing saving takes over. It is also a useful sanity check if a fund you are considering is actually more expensive, since the calculator will show plainly that there is no fee-based case to switch.

Related calculators

• KiwiSaver Fee Drag Calculator: see the full dollar cost of a fee difference over your whole investing lifetime.
• KiwiSaver Fee Calculator: see your fund's actual monthly and yearly fee cost in dollars today.
• KiwiSaver Fund Type Comparison: compare Defensive, Balanced, Growth and Aggressive funds side by side.
• KiwiSaver Retirement Projection: project your full balance forward to age 65.
• KiwiSaver Calculator: the general-purpose calculator covering contributions and balance growth.

Official NZ sources

This calculator is built from primary New Zealand sources. Always confirm current figures against the official source for your situation:

• Financial Markets Authority for KiwiSaver Fund Updates and standard projection assumptions
• Sorted (Te Ara Ahunga Ora, Retirement Commission) for KiwiSaver Fund Finder
• Inland Revenue (IRD) for KiwiSaver contribution rates and government contribution
• KiwiSaver official government site for kiwisaver.govt.nz