Income tax Dates
If you’re arriving in or leaving New Zealand, you might have different prescribed investor rates (PIR) for your portfolio investments depending on your situation.
Find my prescribed investor rate
Leaving New Zealand
If you stop being a New Zealand tax resident, your prescribed investor rate (PIR) should be 28% from the date you leave New Zealand. You need to let your PIE know as soon as possible.
New resident arrivals
If you’re a new resident individual, you will be considered a transitional resident unless you opt out.
As a transitional resident you have a 48-month income tax exemption on your foreign-sourced investment income. This means that foreign-sourced investment income is not included in your tax return during the transitional period. However, you must include this worldwide income when you work out your PIR for your PIE investment.
PIRs for transitional resident investors in foreign investment PIEs
If you invest in a foreign investment zero-rate PIE, you can use a 0% PIR for each year you’re a transitional resident, up to the 1st day following the end of the tax year your transitional period ends in.
If you invest in a foreign investment variable rate PIE that gets some of its income from New Zealand sources, the PIE will pay tax for you as a New Zealand tax resident.
You should attach a letter to your New Zealand tax returns or send us a web message letting us know how your PIR has been calculated.
Choosing to leave out overseas income
When working out your PIR, you can choose to leave out your overseas income for either or both of the 1st 2 income years as a New Zealand tax resident, if both of the following apply.
- You are a transitional resident.
- You expect your taxable income in the relevant resident year will be much lower than your world-wide income from all sources for the income year before the 1st resident year.
You should attach a letter to your New Zealand tax returns or send us a web message letting us know how your PIR has been calculated.
Brianna, a non-resident, arrives in New Zealand from the UK with her partner and becomes a transitional resident. Her 48-month transitional period ends on 30 June 2026.
She invests in a PIE. She received $16,000 of investment income (in the form of dividends) from the UK in each of the last 5 years and continues to receive this income during the transitional period. While resident in the UK, this was her only income. The dividends are treated as exempt income during the transitional period and are not included in her New Zealand resident income tax return.
However, Brianna must consider the dividends when working out her PIR. This means her taxable income will be $16,000 for the purposes of the PIR calculation in her 1st 2 resident years.
At the time of completing her income tax assessments, Brianna should tell us how she has calculated her PIR.
In the 2022 tax year John lived in the USA and was a tax resident there. His taxable income in that year was $125,000. He arrived in New Zealand on 1 July 2022 (the 2023 tax year) and became a transitional resident from that date as he has a permanent place of abode in New Zealand.
His expected 2023 taxable income is $48,000 – this is the 1st New Zealand-resident income year. He expects his income will be only slightly higher in the following year. As his income for the 1st resident year is much lower than the year before becoming a resident, John can leave out the foreign income from his PIR calculation in his 1st 2 resident years.
When completing his income tax assessments during his transitional period, John should tell us how he has calculated his PIR.