Parental leave in New Zealand

Who is eligible: the two tests

Two separate things share one name. Parental leave is time off, arranged with your employer under the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. Parental leave payments are money from IRD, with their own test. You can qualify for one and not the other, which is why somebody who resigns before a birth can still be paid.

For the leave, Employment New Zealand sets two tests. Both are measured against the expected due date, or the date you become the primary carer of a child under 6:

• The six month test. You have worked for the same employer for at least the 6 months immediately before that date, for an average of at least 10 hours a week. That gets you up to 26 weeks of parental leave.
• The twelve month test. The same thing, over 12 months. That gets you up to 52 weeks.

"An average of at least 10 hours a week" is stricter than an average. You also need at least 1 hour in every week, or at least 40 hours in every month, across the period. Irregular and casual work can still qualify. Add your actual hours up rather than guessing from what your agreement says, because the hours you worked are what counts.

A primary carer is the person taking permanent primary responsibility for the child: the birth parent, or an adoptive, whāngai, home for life or grandparent carer of a child under 6. The leave test looks at one employer. The payment test, below, lets you add your jobs together.

The kinds of leave, and how 52 weeks is made up

The 52 weeks is not one block. It is built from pieces, and which pieces you can use depends on which test you meet.

• Primary carer leave starts on the due date, or the day the baby is born, whichever comes first. You can start it up to 6 weeks earlier if you want to.
• Partner's leave sits outside the 52 weeks. Extended leave does not: a couple's combined parental leave cannot go past 52 weeks, and your written notice has to confirm that it will not.
• Special leave is separate again: up to 10 days unpaid for pregnancy related appointments such as scans, antenatal classes and midwife visits, before your parental leave starts. Leave entitlements in New Zealand covers it.

The payments come from IRD

Your employer does not pay you during parental leave unless your employment agreement says it will. The payments come from IRD, you apply for them yourself in myIR, and they have their own test.

• The work test: an average of at least 10 hours a week in any 26 of the 52 weeks before the due date, or before the date you become primary carer. As an employee you can add the hours from all your jobs together (IRD: work requirements for paid parental leave).
• How long: up to 26 weeks. Payments stop if you go back to work, or stop being the primary carer.
• How much: your own weekly earnings, up to a maximum, and there is a separate minimum rate for self employed people. IRD resets both every 1 July. Do not budget from a figure you read last year, or from a friend who had a baby in a different year. Look the current rate up on IRD's paid parental leave pages, or in myIR, before you plan anything around it.
• It is taxed. Payments are treated as salary and wages, so PAYE comes out, along with student loan and child support if they apply. Any rate you look up is before tax.
• Preterm babies: if your baby arrives early, IRD may pay preterm baby payments first, with the 26 weeks starting after those finish. IRD sets out who qualifies and for how long.
• Transferring: you can transfer some or all of the payments to your spouse or partner if they are also eligible. A family gets a maximum of 26 weeks between them, not 26 weeks each.

The notice you must give

It has to be in writing, and the deadline is earlier than most people expect.

• For a birth: at least 3 months before the expected due date.
• For a child under 6 coming into your care: at least 14 days before you want the leave to start.

Your letter or email must say what type of leave you want, the date you want it to start, and how long you will be taking. If you are sharing the leave with your partner, it also has to give each person's dates, your partner's name and employer, that you are both eligible, and that the combined leave will not go past 52 weeks.

Proof. If you are giving birth, attach a certificate from your doctor or midwife with your name and the due date. A partner attaches that certificate and a letter from the person giving birth. If a child under 6 is coming into your care, the proof can be a court order, a letter from the Ministry confirming you are the primary carer, an adoption or parenting application with a statutory declaration, or a statutory declaration on its own.

Your employer then has 21 days to reply in writing. It can ask you for more information within 7 days, and you have 14 days to answer that. The reply must tell you whether it thinks you are not entitled and why, your rights and obligations, whether your job will be kept open, and the end date of your leave and the date you return, or the date your period of preference starts. Chase it if it does not arrive.

Missed the 3 months? Ask anyway, because employers agree to late notice often. But your protections are strongest inside the statutory notice, so do not treat that date as soft.

Keeping in touch hours

You can do a limited amount of paid work for your employer during your parental leave payment period without being treated as having gone back to work. IRD calls these keeping in touch hours.

• Up to 64 hours in total across the payment period. Do 64 or fewer and you are not considered back at work. Go past it and you are, and the payments stop.
• Not in the first 28 days after the birth. That window is protected.
• Both sides have to agree. Your employer cannot require them of you, and you cannot insist on them.
• If you have more than one job, or you have transferred some payments to your partner, the 64 hours covers all of it between you. Keeping count is on you, not on your employer and not on IRD.
• They do not apply if you are self employed.

What they are actually good for: a handover, a team day, training you would otherwise miss, a planning session, a registration or certification that has to stay current, or the one conference a year that matters to where you go next. Used well they are the difference between coming back as yourself and coming back as a stranger.

Agree what you will be paid for the work before you do any of it, and put each block in writing at the time, with the date and the number of hours. A running total you keep yourself is the only one you can rely on.

Holiday pay after parental leave

This is the one that catches people, and it catches them months later, when the money has already been counted on.

Normally, under the Holidays Act 2003, annual holidays are paid at the greater of your ordinary weekly pay and your average weekly earnings, so a quiet year cannot drag your holiday pay below your normal weekly wage.

Section 42 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987 removes the "greater of" for a period around parental leave. Annual holidays taken during your parental leave, or in the 12 months after you return to work, are paid at your average weekly earnings for the 12 months before the end of the last pay period before the holiday.

Those 12 months contain your unpaid leave. Averaging across them pulls the rate down, so a week of annual holiday taken soon after you come back can be worth a fraction of a week of your actual pay. Nothing has gone wrong in payroll. It is the law working as written.

• Ask payroll for the calculation in writing before you book anything. Ask what one week of annual holiday will actually pay you, on the date you have in mind.
• Know the date 12 months after your return, because after it the ordinary rule applies again.
• Your service keeps running through parental leave, so your annual holidays anniversary still arrives and you still become entitled to 4 weeks.
• If your dates sit near the edges, ask Employment New Zealand on 0800 20 90 20 which of your holidays the rule touches.

The Holidays Act 2003 is replaced by the Employment Leave Act 2026 on 6 August 2028. Until then the rules above apply, and Leave entitlements in New Zealand has what is changing.

Your right to return to your job

Your employer must keep your job open while you are on parental leave, and you cannot be dismissed for taking it. There are two exceptions, and you should hear about both of them early rather than on the way back.

A key position. If your leave is more than 4 weeks and yours is a key position, your employer does not have to keep it open. A key position is one where a temporary replacement is not reasonably practicable, because of the size of the business, the training the job needs, or the specialist skills it takes. That is a test about the job, not about you, and your employer has to make the case. It must tell you in the 21 day reply, not months later.

Where that happens you get a 26 week period of preference, starting when your parental leave ends. If a substantially similar job comes up inside it, the job has to be offered to you before anyone else.

Redundancy. Employment New Zealand is clear that an employer must not make you redundant while you are on parental leave unless it can show the redundancy situation arose after your leave was agreed, and that there is no very similar position to move you into. A fair and proper process still applies, exactly as it would if you were at your desk. Redundancy in New Zealand covers what that process has to look like.

If you want to come back early, or change your dates, put it in writing and agree it with your employer, and check the notice required on the Employment New Zealand parental leave pages before you commit to a start date.

Dates to put in your calendar

Almost every deadline on this page counts back from one date, so start with the expected due date and work outwards. Put these in a calendar you will actually look at.

• Three months before the due date: your written notice to your employer is due. This is the one people miss.
• 21 days after you give notice: your employer's written reply is due. Chase it that day if it has not come.
• Six weeks before the due date: the earliest your primary carer leave can start.
• Your six month and twelve month service anniversaries, if either lands near the due date. Which test you meet is the difference between 26 weeks and 52.
• The due date itself: primary carer leave starts then, or on the birth, whichever comes first.
• The date you apply to IRD, and the 1 July before your leave starts, when IRD's rates change. Look the figure up on that day rather than trusting an older one.
• 28 days after the birth: the earliest a keeping in touch hour can be worked.
• 26 weeks of payments: the week the money stops. Know that week before you reach it.
• Your return date, and the date 12 months after it, when normal holiday pay resumes.
• Your annual holidays anniversary date.
• If your job is not being kept open: the start and the end of your 26 week period of preference.

Write down who you told and when, with the email beside it. A year is long enough that nobody remembers the conversation, and the dates are what the Act runs on.