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PAYE Calculator NZ

What Tax Code Am I?

Five questions, one answer. The finder names the code you should be on for a given job and shows what it withholds. Including the parts most people get wrong, like using total income rather than the second job's income.

Your tax code depends on four things: whether this is your highest-earning job, your total income from every source, whether you have a student loan, and whether you receive Working for Families, a benefit, NZ Super or a Veteran's Pension. Answer those and the code follows.

Find your tax code

1.How are you paid for this work?

Answer for one job at a time. If you have two jobs, run the finder twice.

Answer the questions above and your code appears here. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

How the finder decides

There is no judgement in this. The rules are mechanical, and they are the same rules Inland Revenue applies. Written out, in the order the finder asks them:

  1. Schedular payment or salary?If you invoice for one of the activities on Inland Revenue's schedular list, the code is WT and none of the other questions apply - you choose your own rate rather than being placed in a band.
  2. Main income or not? Main income runs through the progressive tax bands. Everything else is charged a single flat rate, because the second employer cannot see what the first one pays you.
  3. Total income across the whole year. This is the question people answer wrongly. A secondary code is chosen on the sum of everything you earn, not on what the second job pays. A $9,000 weekend job on top of a $62,000 salary is coded on the $71,000 total. Which is SH, two bands above the SB that $9,000 on its own would suggest.
  4. Student loan. If you have one and it is not fully repaid, add the SL suffix. On your main job that means 12% of everything above $24,128 a year. On a secondary job it means 12% of every dollar.
  5. The independent earner tax credit test. Total income of $24,000 to $70,000, and none of Inland Revenue's exclusions, turns M into ME. Worth up to $520 a year, about $10.00 a week off your PAYE.

The one question that goes wrong most often

Question three asks for your total income, and it means it. A second job paying $9,000 does not get code SB because $9,000 is a small number. If your other income is $62,000, the $71,000 total lands in the $53,501 – $78,100 band, so it gets SH at 31.75%. Code it SB instead and roughly $1,755 of tax simply is not collected during the year, and Inland Revenue asks for it after 31 March.

Why a tax code is a forecast, not a fact

Every code on the list is an estimate of the rate that will turn out to be right for your year. Your employer withholds against that estimate every payday. After 31 March, Inland Revenue compares the total withheld against the tax genuinely due on your actual income and squares the difference. A refund if too much came out, a bill if too little did.

That is why the code that was right in April can be wrong by October. A pay rise, a second job starting or ending, a student loan finishing, or the arrival of a Working for Families payment all change the answer. Running this finder again after any of those takes about a minute and is the cheapest tax admin there is. If the answer has changed, changing your tax code.

One thing a code cannot do is change the total tax you owe. Moving from SH to S does not make your income cheaper to tax. It just moves the money between your paydays and your year-end assessment. The only codes that genuinely change your liability are ME and ME SL, because they deliver a credit you would otherwise have to wait for, and the ACC earners' levy component of 1.75%, which is capped once your earnings pass $156,641.

Common questions

How do I know what tax code I should be on?

Four things settle it: whether this is your highest-earning job, your totalincome from every source for the year, whether you have a student loan still being repaid, and whether you receive Working for Families, a main benefit, NZ Super or a Veteran's Pension. The finder above walks through them in order.

Can I have two tax codes at once?

Yes, and you usually should. One main-income code on your highest-earning job, a secondary code on each of the others. Two main-income codes at once under-withholds badly, because each employer taxes you as though the other did not exist, and you get a bill at year end.

Does the finder need my IRD number?

No. It runs entirely in your browser and asks only what it needs to pick a code. Nothing is sent anywhere, stored or logged.

Which job counts as my main income?

The one paying you the most over the year, not the one you started first. If two jobs are close, put the main-income code on the more stable one, because that is where the progressive bands and the $24,128 student loan threshold are applied.

What if my income changes during the year?

A tax code is a forecast, so a mid-year change in income can make it wrong. Give your employer a new IR330 with the corrected code. It applies from the next pay run and is not backdated. How to change your tax code.

Where these figures come from

2026–27 tax year (1 April 2026 – 31 March 2027). Last verified 30 July 2026.

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