Accounts in New Zealand
Every kind of account and pension the planner offers in New Zealand: what each one is, when money can come out, how it is taxed, and the pages we read the rules from.
New Zealand has no retirement account that is taxed on the way out. KiwiSaver and most managed funds are portfolio investment entities (PIEs): the fund pays tax on what it earns at your prescribed investor rate (PIR), at most 28%, and nothing is taxed when the money comes out. Shares and funds you hold yourself are taxed differently: no tax on profit, but foreign shares are taxed each year on an assumed return.
Each has its own row in the money step, and your fund's statement says whether it is a PIE. NZ Super, a pension from a workplace scheme or the Government Superannuation Fund and an annuity from a life insurer pay an income and go in the pension step instead.
Rules as of the 2026 tax year, read from the authorities on 2026-07-29. Each account lists the pages we read it from.
Accounts you can enter
Shares and funds you hold directly
New Zealand does not tax profit on shares. Interest and dividends are taxed as income, and foreign shares are taxed on an assumed return of 5 percent a year.
Shares, funds, term deposits and savings you hold yourself, outside a PIE. Interest is taxed as income. Dividends are taxed as income, and those from New Zealand companies carry a credit for the tax the company already paid. Profit on shares is not taxed for a long-term investor.
Foreign shares and funds are taxed each year on an assumed return of 5% of their value at the start of the year, or on what they actually earned if that was less. The law applies this only once your foreign shares cost more than 50,000 in total; the plan applies it whatever they cost.
How it is taxed, rate by rate, is on the tax page.
- In the withdrawal orders
- With the ordinary accounts
- Pays out
- Whenever you like
- At the first death
- Your partner takes it over as it stands
KiwiSaver
Out of reach until you are 65. The fund pays tax on what it earns at your prescribed investor rate (PIR): 10.5, 17.5 or 28 percent, set by your income in the two previous years. Nothing is taxed when you take it out.
KiwiSaver is New Zealand's voluntary workplace savings scheme. Nothing comes out before the age you qualify for NZ Super, 65 today, and the plan moves with that age. The early releases for a first home, hardship, serious illness or moving abroad are not a way to fund retirement, so the plan leaves them out.
The fund pays tax on what it earns at your PIR, set by your income in either of the two previous years: 10.5% if your taxable income was at most 15,600 and, counting PIE income, at most 53,500; 17.5% if it was at most 53,500 and 78,100; otherwise 28%. The plan works it out each year from your own figures. Foreign shares inside the fund are taxed on 5% of their value, with no lower figure in a bad year.
From 65 you can take out all of it or any part, whenever you like, and nothing is taxed. There is no minimum to take.
- In the withdrawal orders
- With the tax-free accounts
- Before the earliest age
- Nothing comes out before your state pension age
- Pays out
- Whenever you like
- Taxed while you hold it
- Yes, paid from inside the account
- At the first death
- Your partner takes it over as it stands
KiwiSaver and most New Zealand managed funds are taxed inside the fund at a rate capped at 28 percent, and that income never reaches your tax return. We model this when you enter the money as a KiwiSaver or managed fund account. Two shortcuts remain. The fund earns the same mix of shares and bonds as the rest of your savings, so a cash fund is treated like your portfolio. And money you leave in the ordinary account is priced as though you held the shares directly, which costs more than holding them through a fund.
Your real tax is lower/up to $9,180 a year/anyone holding New Zealand managed funds or KiwiSaver who enters them as an ordinary account, or holds a cash fund
The rate your KiwiSaver or managed fund charges is set by your taxable income in either of the two previous years, and it jumps from 17.5 to 28 percent past 53,500, or 78,100 counting the fund's income. We work it out each year from your two previous years. In your plan's first year we have no earlier year and charge 28 percent, the rate for someone who has not told the fund theirs. For a couple we test your combined income rather than each partner's own, which can put you on a higher rate than you would pay.
Your real tax is lower/anyone with KiwiSaver or managed funds in their plan's first year, and couples whose combined income passes 53,500 or 78,100
KiwiSaver, New Zealand's workplace savings scheme, has rules on the way in that we do not model: a minimum employer contribution of 3.5 percent of pay from April 2026, rising to 4 percent in 2028, and a government top-up of 25 cents for every dollar you put in, worth at most 260.72 a year and nothing at all above 180,000 of income. These build the pot rather than tax the drawdown.
Could go either way/anyone still contributing to KiwiSaver before they retire
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): How your KiwiSaver income is taxed (read 2026-10-07)
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): Getting my KiwiSaver savings when I retire (read 2026-10-07)
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): IR861 Prescribed investor rate (March 2026) (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Managed fund (PIE)
Most New Zealand managed and index funds. The fund pays tax on what it earns at your prescribed investor rate (PIR), at most 28 percent, and that income stays off your tax return. Nothing is taxed when you take it out.
A managed or index fund outside KiwiSaver that is a PIE, which most New Zealand funds are. It is taxed exactly like KiwiSaver, at your PIR, but there is no age limit: you can take money out at any time, and nothing is taxed when you do.
A cash or term PIE from a bank goes here too, as does a workplace superannuation scheme you have not started drawing.
- In the withdrawal orders
- With the tax-free accounts
- Pays out
- Whenever you like
- Taxed while you hold it
- Yes, paid from inside the account
- At the first death
- Your partner takes it over as it stands
KiwiSaver and most New Zealand managed funds are taxed inside the fund at a rate capped at 28 percent, and that income never reaches your tax return. We model this when you enter the money as a KiwiSaver or managed fund account. Two shortcuts remain. The fund earns the same mix of shares and bonds as the rest of your savings, so a cash fund is treated like your portfolio. And money you leave in the ordinary account is priced as though you held the shares directly, which costs more than holding them through a fund.
Your real tax is lower/up to $9,180 a year/anyone holding New Zealand managed funds or KiwiSaver who enters them as an ordinary account, or holds a cash fund
The rate your KiwiSaver or managed fund charges is set by your taxable income in either of the two previous years, and it jumps from 17.5 to 28 percent past 53,500, or 78,100 counting the fund's income. We work it out each year from your two previous years. In your plan's first year we have no earlier year and charge 28 percent, the rate for someone who has not told the fund theirs. For a couple we test your combined income rather than each partner's own, which can put you on a higher rate than you would pay.
Your real tax is lower/anyone with KiwiSaver or managed funds in their plan's first year, and couples whose combined income passes 53,500 or 78,100
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): Find your prescribed investor rate (PIR) (read 2026-10-07)
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): IR861 Prescribed investor rate (March 2026) (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Kinds of pension
A pension paid to you as an income goes in the pension step, not here. Choose its kind there and the plan taxes it by that kind's rules; leave it on standard and it is taxed like a state or workplace pension.
Pension from a super scheme, the GSF or a New Zealand life insurer
Tax-free, because the fund or the insurer already paid the tax.
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): Certain pensions and annuities (read 2026-10-07)
- Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake): Income tax for registered superannuation funds (read 2026-10-07)
The law behind it
Where other things you hold go
- A pension paid to you from abroad
- Enter it in the pension step as a standard pension: regular payments from a pension abroad are taxed in full as income, which is what a standard pension gets.
- NZ Super
- Enter it in the pension step as your state pension. It is taxed as income.
- Australian superannuation
- Enter it as a managed fund (PIE). New Zealand does not tax withdrawals or transfers from it, but the plan charges the PIE rate on its growth, which New Zealand does not, so it shows more tax than you would pay.
- A pension pot held abroad, such as a UK pension
- Enter what you expect to receive, after tax, as a one-off lump sum in the year you take it. Lump sums from schemes abroad are taxed by their own rules, which the plan does not model.
- Savings held in a family trust
- The plan treats them as your own. A trust pays tax on the income it keeps at its own rate, not yours, which the plan does not model.
New rules not in the model yet
- A higher threshold for foreign shares
- A rise in the cost below which foreign shares are not taxed on an assumed return, from 50,000 to 100,000, was proposed in 2026. It is not law. The plan does not apply today's threshold either.