Estimate — not official amounts.
The figures on this site are taken from named primary sources — Inland Revenue, Employment New Zealand and Stats NZ — but have not been through the site's own review and sign-off. Do not rely on them for a financial decision or a dispute with your employer or Inland Revenue — check the cited source or the responsible authority.
TakeHome

Student loan

If you have a New Zealand student loan and earn salary or wages, repayments come straight out of your pay: a set percentage of every dollar you earn above the annual repayment threshold. It is deducted from your take-home and does not reduce the income PAYE is charged on. The values shown are those in force for the current tax year.

How repayments come out of your pay

If you have a New Zealand student loan and earn salary or wages, your repayments are deducted straight from your pay, alongside PAYE, by your employer. The standard deduction rate for New Zealand-based borrowers is 12% of every dollar you earn over the repayment threshold. Earnings below the threshold are not counted toward your repayment, so at lower incomes the deduction can be small or nil.

The threshold is set annually and split down to each pay period. For the current tax year it is $24,128 a year — about $464 a week. When you have a loan, your tax code carries an SL flag (for example M SL), which is what tells payroll to take the repayment.

Repaying more, or catching up

Two wrinkles are worth knowing. If one pay period is unusually high — a bonus, back pay — you can end up with a reduced deduction exemption or a repayment deduction on extra pay so the maths reflects the whole year rather than that one spike. And if you’ve had periods where too little was deducted, Inland Revenue can apply an unpaid repayment tax or a special deduction rate to catch the shortfall up. These are edge cases; for a steady salary the 12%-over-the-threshold rule is what applies, and that is what this calculator models.

What it does — and doesn’t — affect

The repayment comes off your take-home, on top of PAYE, so two people on the same gross salary can take home different amounts depending on whether one is repaying a loan. Like KiwiSaver, a student-loan repayment does not reduce the income PAYE is charged on — your income tax is still worked out on your full gross, and the loan repayment is taken separately. In the calculator, flip the student-loan toggle to see the deduction appear and your take-home adjust.

The figures behind this page are the rates in force for the current tax year; the content is in preparation and pending review.