You must file an employment information form every time you pay your employees. This is based on the date you pay employees (pay day) and may be weekly, fortnightly, monthly or more often if you have multiple paydays. You do not need to file if you do not pay employees during your regular pay cycle.
When you file your employment information form, you must include the pay day and pay period your employee worked. The pay period start and end date may be different for each employee, and can be recorded in myIR when you file Employment Information using the on-screen method or in your payroll software. If you click on their IRD number, you can put in the pay period of the time worked.
For example, all employees are paid on the 14-04. This includes employees who completed work over a fortnightly pay cycle 1-04 to 14-04 and employees who completed work over a weekly pay cycle 8-04 to 14-04.
All employees would be included on the employment information for that payday as they all had the same pay day. Note; If an employee doesn’t appear in myIR when filing Employment Information, you’ll need to add them as a new employee.
The importance of continuing to file Employment Information
We know that filing Employment Information each payday may be challenging for employers at times, however filing Employment Information on time even when you can’t pay the deductions, ensures employee information is up-to-date and accurate. This helps ensure your employees are having the right deductions made and entitlements paid.
If you have not filed on time, you may incur additional penalties and or interest. The outstanding returns can be filed as normal through the process you normally use.
When to file
If you file electronically
You need to file Employment Information within 2 working days of each payday.
If you file by paper
You can either file within 10 working days of each payday or:
| Payday date | Filing date |
|---|---|
|
Between the 1st and 15th of the month |
Within 10 working days of the 15th of the month |
|
Between the 16th and end of the month |
Within 10 working days of the end of the month |
New employers can either file electronically or by paper in the first six months.
When you are not paying wages for a month or more
You need to let us know if you:
- are not paying wages for a month or more
- employ staff irregularly during the year
- are going to stop employing staff for a month or more.
From time to time, we may check with you that you have filed the right number of Employment Information for a month.
Non-standard filing
Filing employment information works differently for:
- IR56 taxpayers
- lump sum payments
- out of cycle payments
- holiday pay paid in advance
- employee share scheme benefits
- schedular payments
- non-resident employers.