IRD data shows 980 NZ millionaires earned $1 million or more a year. What the small group means for the tax base, the inequality debate and investors.
New Zealand’s club of seven-figure earners is remarkably small. Inland Revenue data shows 980 people reported taxable income of $1 million or more in a year, a group of NZ millionaires by income that would fit comfortably inside a mid-sized secondary school hall. The number is a reminder of how compressed the top of the country’s income ladder is, and it raises fair questions about who pays tax, how wealth is measured and where investors put their money.
What the IRD figures show
The count comes from Inland Revenue’s taxable income distribution statistics, which sort individuals into bands by how much taxable income they declare. Since the 2019 tax year the department has published bands that reach up to $1 million, which is what allows the top group to be identified at all. Earlier series capped out at $250,000 and later $300,000, so long-run comparisons at the very top are limited.
For context, the department’s most recent release, updated on 10 September 2026, covers the 2025 tax year. It includes 4,750,300 individuals, 1.1% more than the year before, who between them declared $278.2 billion of taxable income, up 3.6%. Set against a population of that size, a group of fewer than a thousand people is a very small fraction, roughly two in every 10,000 people in the series.
The release also added a new breakdown of portfolio investment entity (PIE) income by income band and age, giving a slightly fuller picture of how investment returns are spread across earners.
Why so few NZ millionaires show up in the data
It is important to separate income from wealth. Taxable income captures salaries, business profits, interest, dividends and other items that are taxed in a given year. It does not capture gains on assets that have risen in value but have not been sold, and New Zealand does not have a broad capital gains tax. Many people with substantial property portfolios, farms or shareholdings may therefore never appear in the top income band even if their net worth runs well into the millions.
How income is structured matters too. Business owners can retain profits inside companies, which are taxed at the 28% company rate, and income earned through trusts or PIEs is taxed separately from personal income. The top personal rate of 39% applies to income above $180,000, and the trustee rate was aligned with it from the 2024-25 income year. These settings shape how much income ends up being reported in an individual’s own name.
What it means for the tax base
A small number of very high earners does not mean a small contribution. Because the personal tax scale is progressive, each dollar earned above $180,000 is taxed at the top rate, so people in the highest bands typically pay a far larger share of personal income tax than their headcount would suggest. The flip side is concentration risk: when a narrow group accounts for a meaningful slice of revenue, the Crown’s take can be sensitive to their decisions about where they live, how they structure their affairs and when they realise income.
For Treasury forecasters, that makes the top end of the distribution worth watching. A strong year for business profits, a large one-off payout or a shift in how high earners are paid can move tax receipts more than changes among the much larger group of middle-income workers.
It also means the headcount can swing from year to year. A business sale, a large bonus or a bumper dividend can push someone into the top band once and then out again, so the group of NZ millionaires by income is not a fixed list of the same people. Reading a single year’s count as a permanent class of top earners would overstate how stable the group really is.
Fuel for the inequality debate
The figure is likely to be read differently depending on where people sit in the long-running argument over inequality. Some will see it as evidence that extreme income concentration is less pronounced in New Zealand than in larger economies. Others will argue that income statistics understate the gap because so much of the country’s wealth sits in housing and other assets whose gains are largely untaxed.
That second view drew attention in 2023, when Inland Revenue’s research into high-wealth families estimated their effective tax rate on a broad measure of economic income was considerably lower than that of middle-income earners, largely because unrealised gains were included in the wider measure. Supporters of the current system counter that taxing realised income is simpler, avoids taxing paper gains and keeps New Zealand attractive to capital and skilled people. Those positions continue to inform debate over capital gains, wealth and land taxes, and the 980 figure will be cited by both sides.
What investors should take from the numbers
For everyday investors, the main lesson is that the structure of returns has a large bearing on after-tax outcomes. Income earned through PIE funds, including most KiwiSaver schemes, is taxed at a prescribed investor rate capped at 28%, below the top personal rate. Capital growth on many long-term holdings is not taxed as income, though rules such as the bright-line test for residential property and the taxation of some offshore shares under the foreign investment fund regime still apply.
Investors should also watch the policy conversation. Any future change to how capital, trusts or investment income are taxed would affect not only NZ millionaires but also a much wider group of property owners and fund members. Keeping an eye on official data releases and party tax platforms can help investors anticipate changes rather than react to them. As always, individual circumstances vary and professional tax advice is worth seeking before restructuring investments.
The bottom line
Only 980 people declaring $1 million or more says as much about how New Zealand measures income as it does about how many rich people live here. The figure highlights a narrow top tier that carries real weight in the tax system, a gap between income and wealth that sits at the heart of the inequality debate, and tax settings that continue to shape how investors build and hold their assets.
