GST and invoicing in New Zealand (2026): a practical guide

New Zealand's goods and services tax (GST), or tāke hokohoko in te reo Māori, is a 15% tax added to most goods and services sold in New Zealand. It is administered by Inland Revenue (IRD). The system is famously broad and simple, but the details still trip small businesses up: when to register, which filing frequency to choose, what records a sale needs since the 2023 changes, and how eInvoicing fits in. This guide covers each of them.

GST in New Zealand at a glance

Zero-rated supplies (0%) are few: mainly exports of goods and services, some financial services supplied to other GST-registered businesses, certain sales of land between registered persons, and the sale of a business as a going concern. You charge 0% and can still claim the GST on related costs.

Exempt supplies carry no GST, and you cannot claim the GST on costs that relate to them. The main ones are financial services and residential rent (renting out a home someone lives in; a holiday home rented to guests is different).

Who must register for GST

You must register for GST if you carry on a taxable activity and:

• your turnover was $60,000 or more in the last 12 months, or
• you expect it to be $60,000 or more in the next 12 months.

You must also register, whatever your turnover, if you add GST to the prices you charge. Below $60,000, registration is voluntary: it often makes sense if your customers are GST-registered businesses and your start-up costs carry GST you want to claim back. Starting a business does not by itself mean you must register.

Offshore suppliers of remote services and of low-value imported goods to New Zealand consumers have the same $60,000 threshold.

Filing GST returns and paying

How often you file:

When it is due: a GST return, and the payment, are due by the 28th of the month after the end of your taxable period, with two exceptions:

• the period ending 31 March is due by 7 May
• the period ending 30 November is due by 15 January

You cannot get an extension of time to file a GST return, so build the dates into your calendar.

Accounting basis. You account for GST on the invoice, payments or hybrid basis. The payments basis, where you account for GST when money is received or paid, is only available while your annual sales stay at $2 million or less; above that you must change.

Penalties. Filing late costs $50 on the payments basis and $250 on the invoice or hybrid basis. Paying late adds a 1% penalty the day after the due date and a further 4% on the seventh day after it.

Taxable supply information: New Zealand's invoice rules

Since 1 April 2023, New Zealand no longer requires a “tax invoice” as such. The law now sets the minimum records that support the figures in your GST return, called taxable supply information (TSI). Debit and credit notes became supply correction information, and buyer-created tax invoices became buyer-created taxable supply information. You can keep issuing a single document headed “tax invoice” if it contains the required details.

The buyer's identifier can be a physical or postal address, a phone number, an email address, a trading name, a New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) or a website address.

When a GST-registered buyer asks for TSI on a supply of more than $200, you must provide it within 28 days of the request, or by another date you both agree.

Buyer-created TSI. Where both parties agree, a GST-registered buyer can create the TSI for purchases from a GST-registered seller, without Inland Revenue's approval.

Corrections: supply correction information

You must provide supply correction information to correct an error in the original TSI, even if the buyer has already paid: for example when an order changes, goods are returned or not delivered, a description, party or date is wrong, or the GST rate or amount is wrong. It must include:

• your name or trade name and GST number
• the date the correction was provided
• details that identify the original TSI, such as the invoice number
• the correction itself, including any change to the GST charged

A discount or rebate does not need a correction if its terms were agreed in writing or set out in the original TSI.

How long to keep records

Keep all business records, including electronic ones, for at least 7 years. They must be in English or te reo Māori unless Inland Revenue approves another language, and storing them offshore, including in the cloud, needs Inland Revenue's approval for you or your provider.

eInvoicing in New Zealand

New Zealand uses Peppol for eInvoicing, the same network and A-NZ specification as Australia: invoices pass as structured data directly between the supplier's and the buyer's software. MBIE (the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) is the New Zealand Peppol Authority, and more than 113,000 New Zealand businesses are registered to receive eInvoices.

Between businesses, eInvoicing is optional. The current rules apply to government agencies and their suppliers:

A large supplier is one whose total revenue, with its subsidiaries, exceeded $33 million in each of the two preceding accounting periods. The requirement is built into new, renewed and retendered contracts rather than applied retrospectively, so 1 January 2027 is not a hard switch-over for every contract. Under the same rules, suppliers on government contracts must pay their subcontractors on terms no less favourable than those they receive from the government.

If you sell to government, or a customer asks you to send Peppol eInvoices, you will need Peppol-enabled software or an access point provider for that part.

A worked example in New Zealand dollars

You run a small landscaping business registered for GST, filing two-monthly on the invoice basis. In May and June you invoice customers $40,000 plus 15% GST.

1. 1GST on sales: $40,000 × 15% = $6,000; your customers pay $46,000.
2. 2GST on purchases: you pay a subcontractor $9,200 including $1,200 GST and buy tools for $2,300 including $300 GST, and you keep the TSI for both. GST claimed = $1,200 + $300 = $1,500.
3. 3GST to pay: $6,000 − $1,500 = $4,500, due by 28 July.

To find the GST in a GST-inclusive price, multiply by 3 and divide by 23 (the same as 15 ÷ 115): $1,150 × 3 ÷ 23 = $150 GST, so the price before GST is $1,000.

Common GST mistakes in New Zealand

1. 1Registering late. The test looks back over the last 12 months and forward over the next 12, so a big contract can make you liable before you reach $60,000.
2. 2Missing the buyer's details on a sale over $1,000 to a GST-registered customer.
3. 3Correcting a sale by editing the original document instead of providing supply correction information.
4. 4Forgetting the odd due dates: 7 May for the March period and 15 January for the November period.
5. 5Staying on the payments basis after sales pass $2 million.
6. 6Charging GST on exempt supplies, such as residential rent, or forgetting to zero-rate exports.
7. 7Keeping records for less than seven years, or storing them offshore without approval.

How Clientlly helps

Clientlly keeps the records behind your GST return in one place:

• Sequential invoice numbering per series, with the 15% and 0% rates on every invoice, showing GST-exclusive, GST and GST-inclusive amounts.
• Credit notes linked to the original invoice, so every correction points back to the sale it corrects.
• Sales and purchase GST books per rate, including exports, and GST reports for you and your accountant, with Excel and PDF exports.
• Receipt scanning that reads the GST automatically, so your claims are backed by the documents.
• Multiple currencies for export clients, invoice PDFs in your client's language, a card payment link and a record of when each invoice was opened.
• Automatic reminders 3, 14 and 30 days after the due date, recurring invoices and a mobile app. See our guide to getting paid faster.

Clientlly is not a Peppol access point; if a customer requires Peppol eInvoices, you will need a Peppol-enabled provider for that part. See the invoicing features and the accounting module.