Fortnightly Pay Calculator
A fortnight is annualised by 26, taxed on the bands plus the 1.75% ACC earners' levy, then divided by 52 and truncated before being doubled back. The student loan threshold for a fortnight is $928.00, and your KiwiSaver contribution comes off the gross at 3.5% by default.
Your pay for one fortnight
- Gross pay for the fortnight
- $2,600.00
- PAYE (income tax and ACC)
- − $526.28
- KiwiSaver
- − $91.00
- Into your account
- $1,982.72
That is $67,600 a year across 26 pays, and you keep 76.3% of each one. On top of it your employer puts $91.00 into your KiwiSaver account this fortnight and pays $27.30 of ESCT on that contribution.
Change the tax code and the KiwiSaver rate to match your own payslip. PAYE here is income tax plus the 1.75% ACC earners' levy, annualised and truncated exactly as a pay run does it, so the cents match your payslip rather than an annual figure divided by 26.
Fortnightly gross and what reaches your account
Tax code M, 3.5% KiwiSaver, no student loan. The annual column multiplies by 26, which is the number that matters: there are 26 fortnights in a year, not 24.
| Gross a fortnight | A year | PAYE | KiwiSaver | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,400.00 | $36,400 | − $227.50 | − $49.00 | $1,123.50 |
| $1,800.00 | $46,800 | − $304.50 | − $63.00 | $1,432.50 |
| $2,200.00 | $57,200 | − $399.28 | − $77.00 | $1,723.72 |
| $2,600.00 | $67,600 | − $526.28 | − $91.00 | $1,982.72 |
| $3,000.00 | $78,000 | − $653.28 | − $105.00 | $2,241.72 |
| $3,600.00 | $93,600 | − $861.66 | − $126.00 | $2,612.34 |
| $4,400.00 | $114,400 | − $1,139.66 | − $154.00 | $3,106.34 |
On an SL code each row loses 12% of the gross above $928.00. On a $2,600.00 fortnight that is $200.64.
Twenty-six fortnights, not twenty-four
The most expensive mistake on this cycle has nothing to do with tax. A fortnight is not half a month. There are 26 fortnights in a year and 12 months, so two months in the year contain three fortnightly pays rather than two.
A $2,600.00 fortnight is $67,600 a year. Treating it as twice monthly and multiplying by 24 gives $62,400, understating your income by $5,200. Lenders, landlords and Working for Families calculations all work from the annual figure, so use 26.
Budgeting works the other way. Planning around two pays a month and treating the two three-pay months as spare capacity is the usual approach, because monthly bills do not follow a fortnightly cycle.
Why 26 fortnightly deductions do not equal the annual figure
On $2,600.00 a fortnight, the annualised income is $67,600 and the tax genuinely due on it is $13,683.50. The method divides that by 52 and truncates to cents before doubling it back to a fortnight, which gives $526.28.
Twenty-six of those pays withhold $13,683.28, which is $0.22 less than the year requires. Truncation never rounds up, so PAYE always lands a fraction under. The end-of-year square-up settles it, and the amount is deliberately trivial.
That is why any calculator dividing an annual figure by 26 disagrees with your payslip by a few cents. The one on this page uses the pay-period method, which is validated against Inland Revenue's own payday filing casebook.
The fortnightly student loan threshold
$928.00 a fortnight. Twenty-six of them reconstruct the $24,128 annual threshold exactly, which is not true of every cycle: the monthly threshold falls $0.08 short across twelve pays.
| Gross a fortnight | Above the threshold | Deduction |
|---|---|---|
| $900.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| $1,600.00 | $672.00 | $80.64 |
| $2,600.00 | $1,672.00 | $200.64 |
| $3,600.00 | $2,672.00 | $320.64 |
The threshold belongs to your main job. Income from a second job on a secondary code has 12% deducted from every dollar, with no threshold at all.
The year you get paid 27 times
Roughly every eleven years, 27 fortnightly paydays fall inside one tax year. On $2,400.00 a fortnight those 27 pays withhold $12,495.06 against $12,794.50 genuinely due on $64,800 of income, leaving $299.44 to settle after 31 March. The 27 thresholds also shelter $928.00 more income from the student loan deduction, worth $111.36. The extra pay is genuinely extra money; the tax on it simply arrives later. pay frequency calculator.
Where the ACC levy stops on a fortnightly cycle
The 1.75% earners' levy applies to earnings up to $156,641 for the year, a maximum of $2,741.22. Spread across 26 pays that cap is reached at $6,024.65 a fortnight. Above it the levy component of your PAYE stops growing, so each extra dollar carries income tax alone until the top band begins. The combined PAYE rate table sets out that sequence, and the ACC earners' levy page covers the cap itself.
Common questions
How is fortnightly pay taxed in New Zealand?
Payroll multiplies the fortnight by 26, applies the tax bands and the ACC earners' levy to that annual figure, divides by 52, truncates to cents, then doubles the result back to a fortnight. KiwiSaver and student loan deductions are separate calculations on the same gross. The how PAYE is calculated has every step.
What is the fortnightly student loan repayment threshold in NZ?
$928.00 a fortnight, exactly twice the weekly figure and exactly the $24,128 annual threshold split across 26 pays. On an SL code your employer deducts 12% of the gross above it.
Why do I sometimes get 27 pays in a year?
A tax year is a day longer than 52 weeks, so roughly every eleven years a fortnightly payday falls 27 times inside one. You receive an extra fortnight of pay. Because each fortnight was taxed as one twenty-sixth of a year, the withholding falls short of the tax due on the larger income, and Inland Revenue asks for the difference.
Is fortnightly pay better than monthly in New Zealand?
For tax, a few cents a year. Fortnightly is the most common New Zealand cycle and matches fortnightly rent and benefit payments. Monthly suits bills and mortgages. The structural difference is the occasional 27th pay, which monthly cannot produce. The pay frequency calculator compares all four.
How do I turn a fortnightly figure into an annual salary?
Multiply by 26, not 24. A $2,600.00 fortnight is $67,600 a year. Multiplying by 24, as though you were paid twice a month, understates it by about 8%, which is a common error on loan and rental applications.
Where these figures come from
- IRD. Payroll calculations and business rules specification
- IRD. Tax rates for individuals
- IRD. ACC earners' levy rates
- IRD. Student loan repayments
2026–27 tax year (1 April 2026 – 31 March 2027). Last verified 30 July 2026.
Related
- weekly pay calculatorThe same method on a weekly cycle
- pay frequency calculatorAll four cycles on one salary
- hourly rate and salary calculatorIf your fortnight is built from hours
- how to read a New Zealand payslipEvery line of the fortnight explained
- student loan repayments12% above $928.00 a fortnight
- take-home pay calculatorThe annual view of the same figures