Working while studying in New Zealand: tax, pay and hours

Short answer first: before your first pay you need an IRD number and a tax code declaration, or tax is taken at 45 per cent. Your main job usually takes the M code, or M SL with a loan. The adult minimum wage is 23.95 New Zealand dollars an hour from 1 April 2026. StudyLink lets you earn 284.70 dollars a week before tax before your Student Allowance falls. On a student visa, Immigration New Zealand allows up to 25 hours a week only if your visa conditions say so. Universities publish study hours, not work limits: Massey puts a 15-credit course at 10 to 12.5 hours a week.

The rules for domestic students come first here, then what changes on a student visa, then the study side, ending in a week that fits a job around a full-time load. Figures are in New Zealand dollars, from Inland Revenue, Employment New Zealand, StudyLink, Immigration New Zealand and the universities' own pages in September 2026.

What do you need before your first shift?

Two pieces of paperwork decide how much of your first pay you keep: an IRD number and a tax code declaration. Both are quicker to sort out before an employer asks for them than after the first payslip shows the wrong deduction.

• An IRD number is yours for life. Inland Revenue's page on IRD numbers lists earning income, opening a bank account, joining KiwiSaver and a student loan among the reasons you need one. If you start earning without one, you pay a higher tax rate of 45 per cent.
• Applying from New Zealand includes a visit to the AA. The in-New Zealand process starts with a myIR account and an online application. Within 20 days you take physical ID to an AA Driver Licensing Agent: one primary document, such as a passport, and one secondary document, which can be a New Zealand student photo ID.
• Each payer needs a tax code declaration. The IR330 tells your employer which code to use. Inland Revenue says an employer without one deducts tax at the non-declaration rate of 45 per cent, and a new IR330 is needed whenever your code changes.
• The job needs a written agreement. Employment New Zealand says every employee must have a written employment agreement, and your pay rate must be at least the minimum wage and at least what the agreement says.

If you have just arrived on a visa

Student and work visa holders can use Inland Revenue's new arrival process, which checks your identity with Immigration New Zealand instead of asking for documents. You need your passport details, your Immigration New Zealand application number and your most recent overseas tax number if you have one. The deadline is the final arrival date on your visa; after that you use the ordinary process. If approved, the number arrives by text or email in 2 days.

Which tax code should a student with a job use?

Inland Revenue works on one rule: you have only one main income, your highest source, and everything else is secondary. The Student Allowance counts as a source here. Inland Revenue lists it among the taxable payments that need a tax code, so a student with a job and an allowance has two sources to code.

• Your highest income usually takes M. With a student loan it becomes M SL, and the SL tells the payer to deduct repayments.
• Every other source takes a secondary code. The code follows your estimated total income for the year from all sources: SB up to 15,600 dollars, taxed at 10.5 per cent, and S from 15,601 to 53,500 dollars, at 17.5 per cent, with SL added if you have a loan.
• Two M codes at once is an error. Inland Revenue says it asks the employer or payer to change the code if you use M on two sources at the same time.
• Your allowance rate assumes M. StudyLink's rates are based on an M tax code and may be lower on another, and StudyLink asks to be told when your circumstances change.
• PAYE includes the ACC earners' levy. The levy is 1.75 dollars for each 100 dollars of income, which is why the PAYE deducted on the first 15,600 dollars is 12.25 per cent rather than 10.5.

A new job, a second job or a new loan can each change which code is right. If your job is expected to pay more over the year than your allowance, the job becomes the main income and the allowance moves to a secondary code, so give the employer a new IR330 and tell StudyLink about the change.

A student loan and a summer job

With a loan, your main job repays 12 per cent of what you earn above 464 dollars a week, and a second job repays 12 per cent of everything it pays. At the adult minimum wage, a main job crosses that weekly line in the 20th hour. A summer job can earn more than the weekly line in some weeks while the year's total stays under the annual threshold of 24,128 dollars, the figure Inland Revenue gives for the 2026 tax year. For that case, Inland Revenue offers a repayment deduction exemption to full-time students. You apply in myIR, it runs to 31 March, and it covers the summer break if you continue your programme.

What must an employer pay you?

Employment New Zealand's current rates are effective from 1 April 2026 and are before tax. There are three minimum wages, and the adult rate is the default.

• The adult minimum wage is 23.95 dollars an hour. That is 958 dollars for a 40-hour week. It applies from age 16 unless you fall into one of the two narrower groups below.
• The starting-out rate is 19.16 dollars. It applies to 16 and 17-year-olds in their first 6 months with their current employer, to 16 to 19-year-olds whose agreement requires industry training of at least 40 credits a year, and to some 18 and 19-year-olds who have been on a benefit for 6 months or more.
• The training rate is also 19.16 dollars. It is for employees aged 20 or over whose agreement requires at least 60 credits a year of industry training, usually apprentices.
• Supervising others means the adult rate. If your role includes supervising or training other workers, neither lower rate applies.
• An 8 per cent holiday payment is the exception, not the rule. Pay-as-you-go holiday pay is allowed only when work is so irregular that 4 weeks of annual holidays are impracticable, or on a genuine fixed term under 12 months. A "casual" label alone does not qualify, and the payment must show as its own amount.

If you are 18 to 65 and eligible, a new employer enrols you in KiwiSaver automatically at a default 3.5 per cent of your pay, you can opt out between day 14 and day 56, and nobody on a student visa can join.

How does your pay change the Student Allowance?

The loan and the allowance react to a job differently. StudyLink's page on loan income says your earnings do not change the Student Loan, only when repayments start. The allowance is tested every week.

• The first 284.70 dollars a week is untouched. StudyLink ignores income up to that figure before tax. Above it, the allowance falls cent for cent.
• At the adult minimum wage, the cut starts in the 12th hour. Eleven hours pay 263.45 dollars; twelve hours pay 287.40 dollars, 2.70 over the line.
• Declare by the Sunday of the week you earn it. It counts in the week you did the work, not the week you were paid, and it changes the next week's payment. The amount you enter in MyStudyLink repeats until you change it.
• Split pay periods into Monday to Sunday weeks. StudyLink's own example works out the hours in each calendar week and multiplies them by your hourly rate before tax.
• Holiday pay counts in the week you receive it. That includes a lump sum paid when you leave a job.
• A partner's pay moves you into a band. If your combined income is 569.40 dollars a week before tax or less, StudyLink's guide puts the allowance at 333 to 698 dollars a week after tax; between that and 1,185.75, at 197 to 265; at 1,185.75 or more, nothing.

In StudyLink's example, a student on 435.67 dollars a week before tax earns 350 dollars in a week, keeps the first 284.70 free, and loses 65.30 dollars before tax from that week's allowance. The earnings still leave the student better off, but the job pays less than its hourly rate suggests. Who qualifies for the allowance in the first place, and at what rate, is in the guide to the Student Allowance and Student Loan.

What changes on a student visa?

The work condition itself fits in one line: Immigration New Zealand allows up to 25 hours of work a week, and full-time work in scheduled breaks for courses that meet its conditions, only where your visa conditions say so, as the academic year guide sets out against the calendar. The rules around it differ from a domestic student's in ways that decide which jobs you can take.

The self-employment rule reaches further than it looks. Immigration New Zealand says international students cannot be self-employed and must work for an employer under an employment agreement. That is why Canterbury's paid note-taking scheme, described below, is closed to student visa holders: the university says they cannot be independent contractors under their visa conditions.

How many hours does a full-time load already take?

The universities publish the workload of study itself, and the figures come close to a full-time job before any shift is added.

• Victoria: 150 hours for a 15-point course. Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington counts class time and independent study together, and 200 hours for a 20-point course. A full-time year averages 120 points.
• Massey: 10 to 12.5 hours a week per course. Massey University gives that figure for a 15-credit single-semester course and recommends four courses, 60 credits, a semester. It tells students who rely on StudyLink to check its rules before taking fewer.
• AUT: about 40 hours a week. AUT's page for adult learners says a full-time student typically studies 40 hours a week, and one course at a time is around 10.
• Otago: 10 hours per point. The University of Otago works that out as at least 14 hours a week for each 18-point paper, and says most students take 108 to 126 points a year.
• Auckland: 120 points in the first year. Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland recommends 120 points for a first year, usually eight 15-point courses, with no more than 80 points in either semester.

Put the figures together and the arithmetic is plain. Four Massey courses come to 40 to 50 hours a week; four 18-point Otago papers come to at least 56. A 12-hour job on top means a week of more than 50 hours, so decide in advance which hours give way when a roster changes.

Do universities say how much paid work is too much?

Not for undergraduates: none of the pages read for this guide at Auckland, Victoria, Otago, Massey, Canterbury and AUT sets a number. What they say is qualitative. Victoria's page on working while studying is blunt that StudyLink support alone will not be enough to live on, so most students will need to work in summer, during the year or both. The University of Auckland Business School's careers page for international students asks you to think carefully about whether part-time work fits without affecting your studies, and says this is especially hard for postgraduates.

The only numeric ceiling on those pages applies to doctoral candidates: Otago's PhD regulations advise full-time candidates against more than ten hours of paid work a week on average; the postgraduate study guide covers those rules. For an undergraduate the useful limit is the one you set from the study hours above and StudyLink's weekly income line.

Where do students find work, including on campus?

Victoria, Canterbury and Otago all point students to Student Job Search as well as their own careers services, and some universities add jobs on campus. Campus work sits next to your classes, so a shift costs little travel time.

• Otago runs its own casual job board. The University of Otago's careers pages point students to CASPER, its casual job board, alongside Student Job Search.
• Canterbury pays students to take notes. Canterbury's Assistive Technology service buys lecture notes from undergraduate peer note takers, who work as independent contractors, at 10 dollars for a one-hour lecture and 20 dollars for a lecture of 2 to 3 hours, on a page dated 8 October 2024. It also employs casual note takers, formatters and editors, and invites postgraduate students to apply.
• Victoria's careers consultants give one-to-one appointments. Its working while studying page offers help with CVs and cover letters and lists Trade Me, Seek and Student Job Search; the NZUni Talent board it also names closed on 30 June 2026, according to the university's page for employers.
• Auckland's summer internships are advertised early. The Business School says large organisations advertise summer vacancies from mid-January onwards, for internships that begin the following November, and emails its students part-time vacancies on Thursdays.

Contract income is not a wage, and it changes the paperwork. StudyLink says borrowers who are self-employed or earn other income repay by filling in a form for Inland Revenue, not through deductions from pay.

What does a week with a job and 120 points look like?

A 120-point year usually means 60 points in each semester or trimester: four 15-point courses at Auckland or Victoria, four 15-credit courses at Massey, or a similar load in 18-point papers at Otago. Using AUT's 40 hours of study as the base, the sample week below adds an 11-hour job, the most hours at the adult minimum wage that stay under StudyLink's weekly income line.

A sample semester week

The pattern protects two things. Review happens on the day of the lecture, while it is fresh, and shifts sit on evenings and a weekend day that carry no classes. Declaring income on Sunday matches StudyLink's deadline, so you are not overpaid and asked to pay it back later. For a fuller method of building the timetable, see how to make a study schedule.

When the job has to shrink

Assessment weeks and the exam period need the evenings back. Ask for fewer shifts at the start of the semester rather than a week before exams, while the roster still has room. Over summer the balance flips: a domestic student can work full-time, and a student visa holder can do so only where the visa conditions allow it.

Where Notibo fits

When a shift lands on a lecture or a tutorial, the task is getting the content back fast. Where your lecturer allows recording, Notibo records a lecture on a computer, or takes an audio file you upload, and returns a transcript and structured notes. For a lecture you missed, it can turn the PDF, PPTX or DOCX slides into notes and flashcards. You get Pro free for 14 days, with 240 minutes of audio, and no card is asked for. After those 14 days the free plan gives you 30 minutes of audio a month; flashcards with spaced repetition from a recording come with Pro, at 9.99 euro a month or 88.99 euro a year. Never record a class without permission; the recording rules guide explains who decides.