Shift Penal Rates Calculator NZ 2026
This calculator works out what a single penal rate shift costs, whether that is a night, a weekend or a public holiday. You enter the base hourly rate, the hours worked and the loading that applies, and it returns the pay for the shift, the premium above ordinary time, the total cost to the employer and the effective hourly rate. The reason it exists as a separate tool is the alternative holiday. In New Zealand, working a public holiday must be paid at no less than time and a half, and that part is widely understood. What gets missed is that if the public holiday fell on a day you would otherwise have worked, you also earn an alternative holiday: a whole paid day off, taken later, at your ordinary rate. It is not pro rated against the hours you worked, so a two hour shift on a public holiday still earns a full day off. That makes short public holiday shifts far more expensive per hour than the multiplier alone suggests, and it is why rostering one person for a long shift usually costs less than two people for short ones. Everything else here is a matter of agreement rather than law: outside a collective agreement, New Zealand does not require any loading for night or weekend work, so those multipliers come from your employment agreement and are yours to set. It is built for employers costing a roster, and for employees checking that a public holiday was paid properly.
A public holiday on an otherwise working day also earns an alternative holiday: a whole paid day off taken later, not pro rated against the hours worked. That day is valued here at the hours of this shift.
How it works
Pay for the shift is the hours worked times the ordinary rate times the multiplier. Choosing a shift type sets the multiplier for you, and you can then override it, because outside a public holiday the loading is whatever your employment agreement says rather than a legal minimum. If the shift is a public holiday and it fell on an otherwise working day, an alternative holiday is added, valued at the shift's hours paid at the ordinary rate. The premium above ordinary is the total cost less what the same hours would have cost at ordinary time, so it isolates what the penal treatment is actually costing. The effective cost per hour divides the whole cost, including the alternative holiday, by the hours actually worked, which is the figure that shows why short public holiday shifts are expensive.
Worked example
Someone on $26.00 an hour works an eight hour shift on a public holiday that is an otherwise working day for them. The hours worked are paid at time and a half, so $26.00 times 1.5 is $39.00 an hour, and eight hours comes to $312.00. Because it was an otherwise working day they also earn an alternative holiday, a paid day off taken later at the ordinary rate, worth $208.00. The total cost to the employer is $520.00 for the day. Against the $208.00 those eight hours would have cost at ordinary time, the premium is $312.00, and the effective cost is $65.00 for every hour actually worked, two and a half times the base rate rather than the one and a half the multiplier suggests.
Related calculators
- Roster Cost: a whole week of shifts at once.
- Public Holiday Pay: the employee's entitlement in detail.
- Overtime Pay: hours above the ordinary threshold.
- Timesheet: add up a week of hours and breaks.