Tradie Charge-Out Rate Calculator NZ
This calculator works out the hourly rate a New Zealand trades business needs to charge, built from what a year actually costs rather than from a rate somebody else quoted. It starts with the wage, adds the ACC Work Account levy for your own classification unit, the Working Safer levy and the KiwiSaver employer contribution, then works out how many hours are genuinely left to invoice after annual leave, public holidays, sick days and the quoting, travel and admin that no client pays for. Your annual overheads are recovered across those hours and the margin you want is taken on the price rather than added to the cost. The result is the rate you need before GST, alongside the break-even rate below which the job loses money. The ACC work levy is the figure most rate calculators leave out entirely, and it is not small: for the 2026/27 year an electrician pays $0.68 per $100 of liable earnings while a roofer pays $2.25, so the same wage carries a very different cost depending on the trade. Every levy rate here excludes GST, which is the basis ACC publishes them on. This is a pricing guide, not financial or tax advice.
ACC levy rates on this page exclude GST, which is how ACC publishes them and what a GST registered business actually bears. Levy year 2026/27. Sick leave is costed at 5 days actually taken rather than the 10 day entitlement, and public holidays at 12, being the 11 national days plus one regional anniversary.
The rate is before GST, which you add if you are registered. The share you can bill is the input that moves the answer most: quoting, travel, buying materials, chasing payment and fixing a callback are all worked and none of them is invoiced. Estimate only, not financial advice.
| Gross wage | $75,000 |
| ACC Work Account levy, House construction at $1.53 per $100 | $1,147.50 |
| ACC Working Safer levy at $0.08 per $100 | $60.00 |
| KiwiSaver employer contribution | $2,625.00 |
| Cost to employ for a year | $78,832.50 |
| On-cost above the wage | $3,832.50 (5.11%) |
ESCT of 30.0% on that contribution is $787.50. It is not added above, because ESCT comes out of the contribution rather than on top of it: the employer pays the same either way and the employee receives less. The band is set by pay plus the employer contributions, here $77,625.
| Paid hours a year | 2,080 |
| Less annual leave, 4 weeks | 160 |
| Less public holidays, 12 days | 96 |
| Less sick leave, 5 days | 40 |
| Hours actually worked | 1,784 |
| Of those, never invoiced | 624 |
| Billable hours | 1,160 |
A rate worked out on 2,080 hours instead of these is short before anything else is considered, and that single mistake is the most common reason a busy trades business makes no money.
| Trade | Classification unit | Levy per $100 | Levy on this wage | Charge-out rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician | 42320, Electrical services | $0.68 | $510 | $104.70 |
| Plumber | 42310, Plumbing services | $1.35 | $1,013 | $105.21 |
| Builder | 41110, House construction | $1.53 | $1,148 | $105.34 |
| Painter | 42440, Painting and decorating services | $1.67 | $1,253 | $105.45 |
| Roofer | 42230, Roofing services | $2.25 | $1,688 | $105.89 |
Same wage, same hours, same overheads and the same margin in every row. The only thing that changes is the ACC classification unit, and it is worth $1,178 a year in levy between the cheapest and the dearest of these five.
How it works
There are two halves and most rate calculators only do the first one badly. The cost half takes the wage and adds what employing somebody actually attracts: the ACC Work Account levy for the classification unit the business is registered under, the Working Safer levy that every employer pays, and the KiwiSaver employer contribution. Those come to roughly 5 per cent on top of the wage, and the work levy alone ranges more than threefold across the five trades here. Your annual overheads, the vehicle, tools, insurance, phone, accounting and premises, are then added to the pile that has to be recovered.
The hours half is where the money is usually lost. Somebody paid for 40 hours a week is paid for 2,080 hours a year, but four weeks of annual leave, twelve public holidays and a handful of sick days come out of that before any work is done. What is left is the hours actually worked. Only a share of those reach an invoice, because quoting, travelling between jobs, collecting materials, chasing payment and going back to fix a callback are all worked hours that no client pays for. Dividing the whole cost by the billable hours gives the break-even rate, and the margin is then taken on the price rather than added to the cost, because a 15 per cent markup on cost is not a 15 per cent margin and quoting one while budgeting for the other is a mistake that survives for years.
Worked example
A builder on $75,000 a year, the figures this page opens with. The ACC work levy for house construction, classification unit 41110, is $1.53 per $100 of liable earnings, so $1,147.50. The Working Safer levy adds $60.00 and the 3.5 per cent KiwiSaver employer contribution adds $2,625.00, which makes the cost to employ $78,832.50, or 5.11 per cent above the wage.
Of the 2,080 paid hours in the year, 296 are annual leave, public holidays and sick days, leaving 1,784 worked. At 65 per cent billable that is 1,160 hours to invoice and 624 that nobody pays for. Recovering the $78,832.50 of employment cost plus $25,000 of overheads across those hours gives a break-even rate of $89.54. Taking a 15 per cent net margin on the price gives $105.34 an hour before GST.
Related calculators
- Employee Cost Calculator: what a hire costs before you price the work.
- Billable Hours Calculator: the hours input that moves this answer most.
- Overhead Recovery Rate Calculator: how much overhead each hour has to carry.
- GST Calculator: add GST to the rate if you are registered.
- How to Price a Job: the background to this calculation.