Employer not paying you? How to get unpaid wages back in New Zealand

Put the claim in writing first

Most unpaid wage problems fall into a few groups: hours worked but not paid, such as training, set-up or staying late; pay below the minimum wage; missing holiday pay or public holiday rates; and a final pay that never arrives or comes in short. Each comes down to two numbers: what you should have been paid, and what you were paid.

Write those down before you write to your employer. A short, factual request works best:

• What is owed, period by period, with the dates and hours.
• The basis for it: the rate in your employment agreement, the minimum wage, or the holiday pay rule.
• Your evidence: payslips, bank deposits, rosters, messages asking you to work, and your own record of hours.
• A date by which you would like it paid, and a request for your pay records if you do not have them.

A worked example, which is only arithmetic: 12 hours of unpaid training at the adult minimum wage of $23.95, the rate from 1 April 2026, is $287.40 before tax. Small amounts like that add up over months, and they are still owed.

The law backs the claim. Under section 131 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, wages or other money payable under your employment agreement, or pay at a rate lower than the law requires, can be recovered in the Employment Relations Authority. That applies even if you accepted the lower payment at the time, or agreed to something else.

Your own numbers make the letter easy to write. Your Career keeps your rate and every change to your pay with its date, so you can quote what you should have been paid, and your hours can sit beside it in Your Timesheets, where logging is free. If your pay is lawful but low for the work, that is a different problem: our article on whether you are being underpaid covers pay against the market.

Your right to see the records

Your employer must keep two records, and you can see both. The wages and time record shows the hours you worked each day in a pay period and the pay for them. Under section 130 you can ask for access to it, or a copy, for any time in the last six years, and your employer must provide it immediately. The holiday and leave record under section 81 of the Holidays Act 2003 is kept for at least six years, and section 82 says a request must be met as soon as practicable. Our free template to request your employment agreement and pay records cites both sections.

Section 4B adds a general duty to keep records detailed enough to show you received your minimum entitlements. So what happens if your employer has no records, or will not produce them? Section 132 lets you show the Authority that the failure stopped you making an accurate claim. It may then accept your claims about the wages you were paid and the hours you worked as proved, unless your employer proves them wrong. Section 83 of the Holidays Act does the same for holiday pay. That is why a record you keep yourself, written at the time, carries weight. Our article on documenting workplace issues covers keeping the messages and notes that go with it.

Employment New Zealand, the Labour Inspectorate and the Authority

If the request gets nowhere, there are three routes, and you can use more than one.

• Employment New Zealand, on 0800 20 90 20. Its early resolution service is free and runs by phone, and its mediation service is free too.
• The Labour Inspectorate, which enforces minimum standards: the minimum wage, holiday pay, leave, wage deductions and record keeping. Anyone can report a suspected breach through its online form. Its inspectors do not advise on contractual matters, such as an agreed rate of pay above the minimum wage.
• The Employment Relations Authority, which can order your employer to pay wages or holiday pay owed. There is a cost to apply, and it usually recommends mediation first.

A Labour Inspector has extra powers. Where wages or holiday pay owed under the Minimum Wage Act or the Holidays Act have not been paid, and your employer will not pay within a reasonable time, an inspector can serve a demand notice after giving your employer at least 7 days to comment (s 224). A notice cannot claim money that fell due more than six years before it was served.

Time limits and penalties matter too. Section 142 says a claim that is not a personal grievance must be started within six years of the money falling due. On top of the arrears, the Authority can order a penalty of up to $10,000 for an individual employer and $20,000 for a company (s 135). For serious breaches of minimum entitlements, only a Labour Inspector can go to the Employment Court for a declaration of breach and a pecuniary penalty, which can reach $50,000 for an individual and, for a company, the greater of $100,000 or three times its gain (ss 142B, 142E and 142G). If the employer cannot pay, arrears can also be recovered from a director or other person involved in the breach, though you need the Authority's or the court's leave to do that yourself (s 142Y).

When not paying wages is a crime

Since 14 March 2025, deliberately not paying wages has been theft. Section 220AA of the Crimes Act 1961, inserted by the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Act 2025, applies to an employer that is required to pay money owed to an employee under an employment agreement, written or not, or under an Act such as the Holidays Act, the Minimum Wage Act or the Wages Protection Act. The employer commits theft if it intentionally fails, without reasonable excuse, to pay. Under section 223, theft of more than $2,000 carries up to 7 years' imprisonment, and theft of $2,000 or less up to 1 year.

The offence needs intent and no reasonable excuse, so an honest payroll error is not theft. A criminal case also runs separately from the employment routes above, and those remain the routes built for recovering arrears.

If your employer goes into liquidation

When a company goes into liquidation, or a sole trader or partnership is made bankrupt, the rules change. Employment New Zealand says a personal grievance you have raised stops, and no new proceedings can be taken against the employer without the permission of the High Court or the liquidator. Instead, you file a claim with the liquidator, for a company, or the Official Assignee, for a sole trader or partnership.

Employees owed wages can make a preferential claim under Schedule 7 of the Companies Act 1993, which means you may be paid before other people the employer owes money to. It can include:

• wages or salary, including commission, earned in the 4 months before the liquidation or bankruptcy;
• holiday pay owed;
• redundancy compensation owed; and
• child support or student loan payments deducted from your pay but not passed on.

The total is capped. Since 30 September 2024, the maximum priority amount is $31,820 per employee. For anything above that, or owed for other things, what you get depends on how much money is left. Payment normally comes at the end of the process.

Employment New Zealand's advice is to keep a record of hours you have not been paid for, work out what your final pay should be, file your claim with evidence, and contact a Community Law Centre or your union. It also says you might be able to get emergency financial help from Work and Income, a City Mission or a food bank while you wait.

Your own record, from the first shift