New Zealand capital gains tax calculator

New Zealand has no general capital gains tax. Three things are taxed as ordinary income instead: a residential property sold inside the bright-line period, a property bought with the intention of selling it, and shares, crypto or other assets acquired for the purpose of disposal. Everything else, such as a home you lived in, a rental held past the bright-line period and shares bought as a long-term investment, is not taxed on the gain.

A taxed gain is added to your other income and charged at your marginal rate, so there is no separate rate to look up. The 2026-27 schedule has five rates: 10.5%, 17.5%, 30%, 33% and 39%, with 39% applying above $180,000. The tax year runs from 1 April to 31 March.

For property sold on or after 1 July 2024, the bright-line test taxes the profit when you sell within two years of the bright-line start date. The period starts when title transfers to you, generally at settlement, and ends when you enter a binding sale and purchase agreement. The profit is taxed as income at your marginal rate and reported with the sale on your income tax return and Inland Revenue's IR833 property sale form.

The test skips your main home, business premises and farmland, and it allows rollover relief for certain transfers of ownership. Property sold before 1 July 2024 ran on longer periods: 10 years for property acquired on or after 27 March 2021 (5 years for a qualifying new build) and 5 years for property acquired between 29 March 2018 and 26 March 2021. The calculator picks the period from your dates.

A property held past the period is not taxed under the test, but a property you bought with the intention of reselling it, or that you develop or trade, is taxed whatever the holding time. Tick "Taxable under another rule" on the property card for those sales.

A main home is excluded from the bright-line test, but the exclusion has two conditions. More than half of the property's area must have been your home, and the property must have been your main home for more than half of the bright-line period. If either is 50% or less, the exclusion does not apply and the whole profit is taxable: there is no partial relief under the current rule. The exclusion is also refused if you have already used it on two sales in the previous two years.

Tick the main home box on the property card when the property was your main home for the whole time you held it. If it was your main home for part of the time, leave the box empty and enter the days it was your main home, and the calculator applies the test for the rule that governs your sale.

A gain on shares, crypto or other assets is taxable when you acquired the asset for the purpose of disposal, or when you are a dealer, and not otherwise. The purpose at the time of purchase decides it, not how long you held the asset. This is the one question that settles whether anything is owed, so the calculator gives each sale an intent switch. A sale with the switch off is not taxed, and a sale with it on is taxed as income.

Foreign shares have their own regime. If the cost of your foreign shares passes $50,000, the foreign investment fund rules can tax the income from them whether or not you sell. The calculator warns you when your imported foreign shares pass that cost and leaves the FIF income itself to Inland Revenue's tools.

A loss on a taxable share or crypto trade offsets taxable gains in the same year, and what is left carries forward. A loss on a bright-line property sale is ring-fenced: it cannot reduce your salary or other income, and the calculator does not apply it against other gains. Enter losses you brought forward in section 3.

Report taxable gains on your individual tax return for the year to 31 March. The return is due on 7 July after the year ends, so the 2026-27 tax year is due by 7 July 2027, and a bright-line sale also needs the IR833. The calculator covers one tax year at a time. A sale dated outside the year you have open is left out of the numbers.