Tax Refund Calculator NZ 2026

Who this calculator is for

This calculator is for salary and wage earners checking whether IRD may owe them a refund, including people who worked only part of the year, had more than one job, or may be entitled to the Independent Earner Tax Credit.

Is a tax return the same as a tax refund?

Not quite, and New Zealand works differently from Australia and the United Kingdom, which is where most of the confusion comes from. A tax return is a form you file. A tax refund is money you get back. In New Zealand most salary and wage earners never file a return at all: Inland Revenue already holds your employment income information from payday filing and issues an automatic income tax assessment between late May and the end of July, which either pays you a refund or tells you there is tax to pay. You only file an IR3 return if you had income Inland Revenue does not already know about, such as self-employment, rental income, overseas income, or income where no tax was deducted at source. So if you searched for a tax return calculator and you are on wages or salary, this is the page you want: it works out the same end-of-year square-up Inland Revenue will run for you automatically. If you do need to file an IR3, the amount is worked out the same way and the filing is a separate step. Our guides on filing an IR3 return and on tax refunds and bills cover what happens after the number.

What this calculator assumes

• The tax rates and thresholds for the tax year you select, from 2023/24 through to 2026/27.
• The income and tax-paid figures you enter for the year.
• You are a New Zealand tax resident.
• It estimates your end-of-year square-up; Inland Revenue's assessment is the final word. Results are indicative.

Where to find your income and PAYE figures

The single biggest reason people give up on a refund check is not knowing what numbers to put in. There are three reliable sources, and any one of them is enough.

• Your IR3. If you file an IR3 income tax return, box 11 and the surrounding boxes show your total income from salary, wages and schedular payments and the total tax deducted. Copy those two figures straight across.
• The year to date column on your final payslip. Almost every payslip carries a year to date, or YTD, column beside the current pay. Take the payslip for the last pay period that ended on or before 31 March. The YTD gross and YTD PAYE lines are your annual totals for that employer. If you had two employers, add the two payslips together.
• myIR. Log in at ird.govt.nz, open Income tax, then choose Income summary for the tax year you want. It lists every employer and payer who reported income for you, the gross paid and the tax deducted, and it is the same data Inland Revenue uses to build your assessment.

If none of those are available, use the estimate mode above. Enter your gross salary and the tax code you were on and the calculator will work out the PAYE that should have been deducted. Treat that as an approximation, because real PAYE depends on how your pay was spread across pay periods, but it is accurate enough to tell you whether a refund is worth chasing.

How the calculation works

The maths is a simple comparison with three steps. First, the calculator works out the correct income tax on your total taxable income using the progressive brackets for the tax year you selected. Second, it subtracts any Independent Earner Tax Credit you qualify for, giving your net tax liability for the year. Third, it compares that liability with the tax already deducted from your pay. If more was deducted than you owed, the difference is your estimated refund. If less was deducted, that difference is tax to pay.

Where your PAYE total includes the ACC earner levy, which is the usual case for payslip and myIR figures, the calculator strips the levy out first so that like is compared with like. The levy is a charge for accident cover, not income tax, so it never forms part of an income tax refund. Donations and student loan repayments are shown separately for the same reason: they are settled through different processes.

Worked example

Take the default figures. You earned $65,000 in the 2026/27 tax year and $13,020 was deducted from your pay. The correct income tax on $65,000 is $1,638.00 on the first $15,600 at 10.5 percent, $6,632.50 on the next $37,900 at 17.5 percent, and $3,450.00 on the last $11,500 at 30 percent, which comes to $11,720.50. You qualify for the full IETC of $520.00, so your net tax liability is $11,200.50. Your $13,020.00 of deductions includes the ACC earner levy of $1,137.50, being 1.75 percent of $65,000, so only $11,882.50 of it was income tax. The refund is $11,882.50 less $11,200.50, or $682.00. If the ACC levy had been shown separately on your payslip and your $13,020.00 was income tax alone, the refund would instead be $1,819.50.

Six reasons you are likely owed a refund

1. You did not work the full tax year

This is the most common cause by a wide margin. PAYE tables assume the pay in front of them continues for the whole year. Earn $5,000 in a month and your employer deducts as though you will earn $60,000 for the year, at the rates that apply to a $60,000 income. If you then stop working, study, travel, take parental leave or move overseas, your actual annual income is far lower and so is your real tax rate. The tax deducted in those working months was calculated at the higher rate, and the square-up gives the excess back. Tick the part year box above and enter the months you worked to see the size of the effect.

2. You had a second job on a secondary tax code

Secondary codes apply one flat rate to every dollar of the second job. SB is 10.5 percent, S is 17.5 percent, SH is 30 percent and ST is 33 percent. The code is chosen on your expected combined income, so if your income fell, or you chose a conservative code, or you left the second job partway through the year, the flat rate can be well above the rate that income actually attracts once both jobs are added together. The secondary tax check above compares the two directly. The same mechanism works in reverse, so a code that was too low leaves you with tax to pay.

3. You were on the wrong tax code

Being on a secondary code for what was really your main job, or staying on an emergency or no-declaration code after starting a job, both cause heavy over-deduction. If you never handed in an IR330, tax may have come out at the no-notification rate, which is far above the rate almost anyone actually owes. Use the estimate mode above with the code you were actually on to see the gap.

4. You did not get the Independent Earner Tax Credit

The IETC is worth up to $520.00 a year. It is credited through your pay only if you are on the ME tax code. If you were on plain M and were entitled to it, the credit shows up as a refund at the end of the year instead. Plenty of people never switch to ME and simply collect the credit annually.

5. Your income dropped part way through the year

Moving from a higher paid job to a lower paid one, dropping to part time hours, or a period between jobs all leave your earlier pays taxed at a rate that assumed the higher income would continue. The effect is the same as part year work, just less extreme.

6. You had a large one-off payment

Bonuses, back pay, redundancy payments and holiday pay paid out in a lump are taxed using extra pay rules based on your annualised income at the time. If your income for the full year turned out lower than that calculation assumed, some of that tax comes back.

The ACC earner levy is not income tax

Every wage and salary earner pays an ACC earner levy of 1.75 percent of liable earnings, capped at $156,641 of earnings, which is a maximum levy of $2,741.22 a year. It funds cover for injuries that happen outside work. Employers collect it alongside PAYE and most payslips show a single combined deduction, which is why so many people over-estimate their refund. Because it is a levy rather than a tax, it is never refunded through the income tax square-up. There is one exception worth knowing: if you had several jobs and each employer deducted the levy, you can end up paying levy on earnings above the annual cap. That excess is refundable, but you claim it from ACC directly rather than through your income tax assessment.

Donations tax credit and the IR526

If you donated to an approved donee organisation you can claim a tax credit of 33.33 percent of the amount donated. Individual donations must be $5 or more, you need receipts, and the total donations you claim cannot exceed your taxable income for the year. School donations qualify, but tuition and activity fees do not. This is a separate claim made on an IR526 tax credit claim form or through the donation tax credit section of myIR, and it is not part of the PAYE square-up. That means a donations credit is paid on top of any income tax refund, and you can still claim it in a year when you have tax to pay. You have four years to claim.

Student loan over-deduction

Student loan repayments are deducted at 12 percent of income above the repayment threshold of $24,128 a year, which works out at $464 a week. Deductions from salary and wages are worked out pay by pay, which is where the problems start. If you have more than one job, the second job usually has no threshold applied at all, so 12 percent comes off every dollar of it. If you worked only part of the year, or your hours varied a lot, the pay period calculation can also take more than the annual figure requires. Standard deductions are generally treated as final, but if you were significantly over-deducted because of a second job or a part year of work you can ask Inland Revenue to review it and refund the excess. The student loan check above compares what should have come out annually against what you say was deducted.

Which tax years can I check?

Inland Revenue generally lets you request an amendment or query an assessment for the last four tax years, so this calculator covers 2026/27, 2025/26, 2024/25 and 2023/24. The rules differ by year, and the calculator tells you which set it applied.

• 2026/27 and 2025/26 use the current brackets: 10.5 percent to $15,600, 17.5 percent to $53,500, 30 percent to $78,100, 33 percent to $180,000 and 39 percent above that.
• 2024/25 is a composite year. The thresholds changed on 31 July 2024, so Inland Revenue published blended rates for that year, including 12.82 percent between $14,000 and $15,600 and 21.64 percent between $48,000 and $53,500. The IETC thresholds also moved during that year. Results for 2024/25 are labelled approximate for those reasons.
• 2023/24 uses the old thresholds: 10.5 percent to $14,000, 17.5 percent to $48,000, 30 percent to $70,000, 33 percent to $180,000 and 39 percent above. The IETC in that year was $520.00 in full from $24,000 to $44,000, abating to zero at $48,000.

The ACC earner levy rate and cap and the student loan repayment threshold shown here are the current 2026/27 figures. Earlier years used lower figures, so when you select an earlier year those two side calculations are indicative only. Check myIR for the exact amounts for that year.

Why might I get a tax refund from IRD?

You may receive a tax refund if your employer deducted more PAYE than your actual tax liability for the year. Common reasons include working part of the year only, having a tax code that was higher than necessary, earning investment income that reduced your effective rate, being entitled to the Independent Earner Tax Credit (IETC) but not having it factored into your PAYE code, or a change in income midway through the year. IRD issues most refunds automatically through the individual tax assessment process that runs from May to July each year.

What is the IETC?

The Independent Earner Tax Credit (IETC) is a tax credit available to individuals earning between $24,000 and $70,000 per year who are not receiving a main benefit such as Jobseeker, Sole Parent Support, or Supported Living Payment. The full credit is $520 per year for incomes between $24,000 and $66,000, tapering to zero by $70,000. If you have the ME tax code, your employer should be factoring this in throughout the year. If not, IRD will include it in your end-of-year assessment.

What if I have tax to pay?

If you had multiple income sources and each employer taxed you at the basic rate on their portion only, your combined income may fall into a higher tax bracket and you could owe tax. Similarly, if you received untaxed income such as rental income, freelance earnings, or interest, you may owe terminal tax. IRD will issue an assessment showing the amount owed, which must be paid by 7 February following the end of the tax year (or 7 April if you have a tax agent).

What this calculator does not cover

It handles salary, wage and other PAYE income. It does not model schedular payments and withholding tax, business or rental income, overseas income, Working for Families tax credits and their end-of-year square-up, portfolio investment entity income taxed at your PIR, resident withholding tax on interest and dividends with imputation credits, or losses carried forward. If any of those apply, your assessment will differ from the figure here. It also cannot know how your pay was actually spread across pay periods, which is what determines the exact PAYE your employer deducted.

The official position

Inland Revenue completes an automatic income tax assessment for most salary and wage earners between late May and the end of July each year, using the employment information your employers file. That assessment, visible in myIR, is the authoritative statement of your tax position, and any refund is paid to the bank account held on your myIR profile. Everything on this page is an indicative estimate designed to tell you whether a refund is likely and what is driving it. If your assessment differs from this estimate, the assessment is right and this estimate is missing something. If you think the assessment itself is wrong, you can request an amendment through myIR, generally within four years. This page is general information, not tax advice.