GST invoice requirements in New Zealand

A GST invoice in New Zealand must show your GST number, the customer's details, an itemised list of what you supplied, and the GST shown separately with its rate — currently 15%, with 15% as the usual rate for most services.

What goes on the document

On top of the universal fields — invoice number, dates, both parties, line items and total — New Zealand expects:

• Your GST number (formatted like 123-456-789)
• The GST rate applied to each line
• The GST amount, shown separately from the net
• The total payable including GST

The New Zealand rule that catches people out

GST is unusually simple here: one rate, very few exemptions, and it applies to almost everything including most services. Registration is compulsory above an annual turnover threshold.

Rates

15%. Most service work sits at 15%. 15% has applied since 2010.

Rates change. Checked to mid-2026 and a starting point, not tax advice. The current source is Inland Revenue — and if you are near a registration threshold, twenty minutes with an accountant beats a search engine.

When you have to register for GST in New Zealand

NZ$60,000 of turnover in the last twelve months or expected in the next twelve. It is one of the simplest tests anywhere, and one of the lowest thresholds in the OECD.

Most systems test this on a rolling twelve months rather than your financial year — which is where the expensive mistakes happen.

Which GST rate applies to what

No reduced band, and very few exemptions — financial services, residential rent and donated goods sold by non-profits. This is deliberate: New Zealand's GST is the textbook example of a broad-base, single-rate consumption tax.

Taxable supply information replaced the tax invoice

Since April 2023 the formal concept of a "tax invoice" has been replaced by taxable supply information. In practice a compliant invoice still carries the same content, but the rules are now about what information the buyer holds rather than what document the seller issued. An invoice still works; it is simply no longer the only thing that does.

The 25% rule on second-hand goods

Buying second-hand goods from an unregistered seller lets you claim a notional input credit even though no GST was charged. It is a genuine oddity of the New Zealand system and a real benefit for trades buying used equipment privately.

Tax on a discounted invoice

One that gets miscalculated constantly: when you show a discount on the invoice, GST is charged on the discounted amount, not the list price. Bill NZ$4,100, discount 5%, and the taxable value is NZ$3,895 — not NZ$4,100. At 15% that is NZ$584.25 of GST, not NZ$615. Getting this backwards means you collect more tax than you owe and hand it over, out of your own margin — on every invoice you issue until someone notices.

Invoicing a customer outside New Zealand

Exported goods and services are zero-rated where consumed outside New Zealand. Sales of remote services to New Zealand consumers by overseas suppliers have required registration since 2016.

Charging tax to a client in another country sets out the general shape; the first time it comes up it is worth an hour with an accountant.

Record keeping in New Zealand

Seven years. Retention rules mean the document, not a row in a ledger.

Set your country once in EstimateBill and the tax is labelled correctly on every invoice after that — GST and GSTIN in India, VAT in the UK, Sales Tax and EIN in the US, across 58 countries.