Free New Zealand retirement calculator

A New Zealand retirement calculator has to model the thing that makes New Zealand unusual: there is no capital gains tax, so nothing is taxed on the way out — but almost every fund a New Zealander owns is taxed every year on a deemed 5% of its value, inside KiwiSaver as much as outside it. Ignore that and a thirty-year projection is wrong by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Coastline models the PIE regime, the prescribed investor rate, ESCT on employer contributions and NZ Super, year by year, with the arithmetic shown.

What each balance actually pays you

NZ Super is universal, flat-rate and not means-tested, so it arrives regardless of what you have saved — which makes a modest balance look like it is doing something impossible. Spending NZ$37,500 a year off a NZ$200,000 balance is 18.8% of it on paper. The last column shows what the portfolio is really doing:

The draw rate sits near 4.3% the whole way up, because a sustainable rate is set by returns, inflation and longevity rather than by size. What moves is NZ Super's share of the spending: 77.0% at NZ$200,000, down to 36.5% at NZ$1,200,000. And because nothing is taxed on the way out in New Zealand, the amount drawn is the amount spent — there is no gross-up column here, and that is not a simplification.

That last column is the price of the regime described below, expressed as extra capital you have to accumulate: NZ$65,000 more to fund NZ$55,000 a year, rising to NZ$210,000 more at NZ$90,000.

NZ Super: the simplest state pension in the OECD

It is paid at 65 and only at 65 — no early claim at a reduction, no deferral uplift, no contribution record, no means test. A millionaire and someone with nothing get the same gross amount. It is taxable: at the standard code, the engine takes NZ$4,799 of the NZ$33,663 single-living-alone rate, leaving NZ$28,864 a year in hand.

No capital gains tax — but a standing annual charge instead

This is the part no generic calculator models. A multi-rate PIE, which is what every KiwiSaver fund and every mainstream managed fund is, pays tax annually on its investment income at each investor's prescribed investor rate, capped at 28%. A fund holding international shares is taxed on a deemed 5% of its opening value under the fair dividend rate whether it distributed anything or not. At the top rate that is a standing 1.4% of your balance, every year, forever — inside KiwiSaver too.

Run the same saver both ways for 30 years — a NZ$100,000 salary, NZ$150,000 of investments and NZ$80,000 of KiwiSaver at 35, contributing 3% with a 3.5% employer contribution:

The gap is NZ$501,879, or 25.4% of the untaxed outcome, and the first year's PIE tax alone is NZ$3,542. Both ends of that range are real: the PIE case is the conservative end (the engine applies the fair dividend rate to the whole balance, whereas a real fund's Australasian holdings sit outside those rules), and the direct case is what a New Zealander holding local shares, or foreign shares under the NZ$50,000 de minimis, genuinely pays — nothing. Coastline exposes the choice as a switch instead of picking one and hiding it.

KiwiSaver is taxed going in, not coming out

• No deduction for your own contribution. KiwiSaver is taxed-taxed-exempt: PAYE is charged on your gross pay including the part that goes into the fund. In exchange, withdrawals from 65 are entirely tax-free and there is never a forced minimum withdrawal.
• Your employer's contribution is taxed before it lands. ESCT takes 10.5–39% of every employer dollar. On a NZ$100,000 salary a "3.5% employer contribution" is NZ$3,500 gross, NZ$1,155 of ESCT at 33.0%, and only NZ$2,345 actually reaches the account — an effective 2.34% of pay, not 3.5%.
• Locked until 65. No penalty option, no sliding scale. Retiring at 55 on NZ$55,000 a year means funding 10 years entirely from outside KiwiSaver, which the engine prices at NZ$495,000 of ordinary investments; at 50 it is NZ$705,000 for 15 years. This is the single biggest constraint on early retirement in New Zealand, and a calculator that treats KiwiSaver as spendable at any age will tell you a plan works when it does not.

Income tax: the first dollar is taxed

There is no tax-free threshold and no personal allowance, so tax starts at 10.5% on dollar one. There is also no state, provincial or regional income tax anywhere in New Zealand — not "not modelled", it does not exist. The ACC earners' levy sits on top of income tax on employment income at every age, including past 65, and is capped:

What this does and doesn't model

• The tax year. New Zealand runs 1 April to 31 March; the projection runs calendar years, and treats year Y as the tax year beginning 1 April of year Y. The three-month offset is not modelled — it is smaller than the rounding in the published rate tables.
• Threshold indexation is an assumption, not law. New Zealand does not index its tax brackets. The default here inflates them, on the basis that catch-up adjustments happen periodically; one switch freezes them in cash terms for maximum fiscal drag. Neither is "correct", so the choice is surfaced rather than buried.
• The fair dividend rate is applied to the whole balance in PIE mode, which is the conservative end of a real range; the comparative-value method and the de minimis are not tracked. The prescribed investor rate uses the current year's income, where the statute allows the better of the last two.
• One KiwiSaver input and one investment input. For a couple these are combined balances, with the PIE income split across two returns — right for two similar balances, optimistic where one partner holds everything.
• Not modelled: KiwiSaver first-home, hardship and serious-illness withdrawals (the account is treated as strictly locked), and carry-forward of excess imputation or donation credits.

Why this one is different

Most free calculators aimed at New Zealand do one of two things: apply a single flat "tax rate" to everything, or quietly run a model built for somewhere else with the currency symbol swapped. Coastline runs a separate New Zealand engine:

• Real New Zealand tax rules, year by year. It applies income tax with no tax-free threshold, the ACC earners’ levy and its cap, PIE tax at the prescribed investor rate you actually qualify for, the fair-dividend-rate charge inside KiwiSaver as well as outside it, and ESCT on every employer contribution — recomputed every single projection year rather than once.
• The right accounts, with the right access rules. A KiwiSaver balance is modelled as a KiwiSaver balance — including the ages at which you can and cannot reach it, which is where a borrowed model goes most badly wrong.
• Saving and spending, end to end. Accumulation and drawdown in one projection, so the plan connects rather than stopping at a target number.
• The arithmetic is shown. Every figure opens into the calculation behind it — you can check the model instead of trusting it.
• Free, no signup. No account, no email, no bank linking. Your inputs run the projection and are then discarded.

If you want the same projection stress-tested against real market history rather than a smooth average, use the Monte Carlo simulator; for the FIRE version of the question there is a FIRE calculator, and the safe withdrawal rate tool attacks the drawdown side. Coastline also has engines for the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. The methodology documents every rule.

Educational projections, not financial or tax advice. Figures use 2026/27 rates and 2026 NZ Super rates, in today's dollars. Tax rules for New Zealand funds are genuinely intricate — confirm your own prescribed investor rate with your provider or Inland Revenue.

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