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Where does your salary rank in NZ?
Enter what you earn before tax and see what share of New Zealanders you out-earn, straight from Inland Revenue's published income distribution.
Gross, not take-home. Include wages, self-employed income, and anything else you pay tax on.
- NZ median income
- $41,298
- Top 10% starts at
- $123,669
- Top 1% starts at
- $283,563
Inland Revenue's published figures for the 2025 tax year.
Enter what you earn before tax to see where it sits against every New Zealander with a taxable income.
How income is actually spread in New Zealand
Every year Inland Revenue publishes how many people fall into each band of taxable income. For the 2025 tax year that is about 4.75 million individuals, and the shape it makes is not the one most people picture. The median taxable income is $41,298. You reach the top 10% at $123,669, and the top 1% at about $283,563.
The median looks low because the count includes everyone with an income record, not only people in full-time work: part-timers, students with a summer job, people on NZ Super, people on a benefit. That is the right denominator for a claim about New Zealanders in general, and it is also why a full-time salary can land higher up the scale than it feels. If you compared yourself only against other full-time workers, your percentile would be noticeably lower.
Rank is a satisfying number, and it is worth being honest about what it does not tell you. It says nothing about your rent or mortgage, your debts, how many people your income supports, or what is left at the end of the month. Income is one input. Whether it stretches is a different question, and a more useful one.
Income in New Zealand, answered
- What is the median income in New Zealand?
- $41,298. That is Inland Revenue's 2025 figure for every individual with a taxable income, so half of New Zealanders earned less than that and half earned more. It sits well below a typical full-time wage because the same count includes part-time workers, students, people on NZ Super and people receiving a benefit.
- What income puts you in the top 10% in New Zealand?
- $123,669 of taxable income puts you in the top 10%. The top 1% starts at about $283,563. Both are Inland Revenue's own published boundaries for the 2025 tax year.
- Where does the data come from?
- Inland Revenue publishes a table counting how many individuals fall into each band of taxable income. This calculator uses that table directly, and its results are checked against IRD's own published decile boundaries, so the answer matches the source rather than an estimate of it.
- Who is counted in the comparison?
- Everyone Inland Revenue holds a taxable income record for: anyone who filed an IR3, paid PAYE through an employer, or received an automatic income tax assessment. That is about 4.75 million people. It is the honest denominator for a claim about New Zealanders, but it is not the same as comparing yourself against full-time workers only, who earn considerably more on average.
- Should I enter my income before or after tax?
- Before tax. Inland Revenue's distribution is built on taxable income, so entering your take-home pay would rank you against other people's gross income and flatter nobody. If you only know your take-home figure, our take-home pay calculator will work back to the gross number.
- Why does my salary seem to rank so highly?
- Two reasons. The comparison covers all income earners rather than full-time workers, which pulls the middle down. And the published data is for the 2025 tax year, the most recent available, while pay has risen since, so a salary today ranks slightly higher against it than it would against current incomes. Treat the result as a good guide, not a decimal-point fact.
- Does a high percentile mean I am doing well financially?
- Not on its own. Income says nothing about your housing costs, your debts, how many people your pay supports, or what you actually keep at the end of the month. Plenty of people in the top quartile still run out before payday. Rank is interesting; what your money does is the part you control.
What you keep matters more than where you rank.
KeaBudget is the free budget app for Kiwi bank accounts. NZD, NZ categories, no ads. See where your pay actually goes, and make it stretch further than the percentile suggests.
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