Wages Against Self-Employment Income, Region by Region
Tax records split New Zealand income into two medians that are rarely put side by side. In the 2024 tax year the median wage and salary income was $57,260. The median self-employment income was $29,890: about 52 per cent of the wage figure. This page holds both medians for every region, and, more importantly, the correct way to read a gap that is misread in both directions.
The halving is not what it looks like. The self-employment median is not the salary of a typical full-time business owner. The category mixes established businesses with side income, first-year ventures, part-year work, loss years, and owners who also take a shareholder salary that lands in the wage column. A median taken over that mix mostly measures how many of the self-employed are not doing it full-time. What the gap honestly establishes is dispersion: self-employment income spreads far wider than wages, with more people near zero and a long high tail the median cannot see.
Every region, both medians
Ranked by the self-employment median as a share of the wage median, strongest first. The ordering tracks industry mix: regions built on farming, trades and professional practices hold their self-employment medians closest to wages.
| Region | Wages, median | Self-employment, median | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gisborne | $47,220 | $30,000 | 64% |
| Hawke's Bay | $50,860 | $30,130 | 59% |
| Marlborough | $46,320 | $26,870 | 58% |
| Southland | $55,050 | $31,700 | 58% |
| Bay of Plenty | $50,730 | $29,180 | 58% |
| Waikato | $56,880 | $31,790 | 56% |
| Taranaki | $55,200 | $30,070 | 54% |
| Otago | $53,660 | $29,150 | 54% |
| Tasman | $45,900 | $24,790 | 54% |
| Auckland | $59,950 | $30,920 | 52% |
| Northland | $50,640 | $26,000 | 51% |
| Nelson | $52,770 | $26,500 | 50% |
| Wellington | $65,210 | $32,500 | 50% |
| Canterbury | $57,780 | $27,420 | 47% |
| Manawatu-Wanganui | $55,090 | $25,000 | 45% |
| West Coast | $53,520 | $23,020 | 43% |
Reading it if you are, or are about to be, self-employed
Budget for the dispersion, not the median. The figures above contain everyone's down years, and a personal budget built on a smooth monthly version of an annual number is the classic first-year mistake: the irregular income guide and the smoothing calculator exist for exactly this.
Compare offers properly. A contracting rate has to beat a salary by more than it appears, because it carries its own ACC, KiwiSaver, leave, gear and gaps, all of which a wage includes silently. The contractor vs employee calculator and the hourly rate calculator run that arithmetic with current levies. And if you run a company and pay yourself a shareholder salary, your own income sits partly in each column of this page, which is one more reason the category medians should not be read as anyone's pay.
Related pages
- Average salary in New Zealand: the wage side in full.
- Contractor vs Employee Calculator: the comparison this page motivates.
- Hourly Rate Calculator: pricing self-employed work to survive the dispersion.
- How much should I pay myself?: the shareholder-salary split.
- Going self-employed: the whole pathway.