Selling online in New Zealand

There is no New Zealand E-Commerce Act. Obligations for an online store come from the Goods and Services Tax Act, the Fair Trading Act 1986, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, and the Privacy Act 2020. Most overseas guidance applied to New Zealand gets at least one of these wrong, usually by importing a European or Australian rule that does not exist here.

GST: the rate, the threshold, and the rolling test

GST is 15 percent, and has been since 1 October 2010 when it rose from 12.5 percent. Registration is compulsory if your turnover from a taxable activity was at least $60,000 in the last twelve months, or you expect it to be at least $60,000 in the next twelve. The detail people miss is that this is a rolling twelve-month test rather than a financial-year one, so the obligation can arise mid-year. A second trigger is easy to overlook: if you add GST to your prices, you must register, regardless of turnover.

How prices must be displayed, and why this is about to get expensive

This surprises people: no New Zealand statute says displayed prices must include GST. The obligation is indirect. The Fair Trading Act 1986 prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct under section 9, false or misleading representations under section 13, and unsubstantiated representations under section 12A. Displaying a GST-exclusive price to a consumer without making that unmistakably clear is caught by those provisions rather than by any price-display rule. Government guidance states the convention plainly: GST is included in the advertised price unless stated otherwise. Consumer NZ notes that where GST is not clearly excluded from a quoted price, a customer can reasonably argue they should pay the figure quoted.

Business customers are treated differently, but only partly

Displaying prices exclusive of GST is a normal and accepted convention when selling to other businesses, provided it is clearly labelled. The legal basis for the difference is section 5D of the Fair Trading Act, which permits contracting out of sections 9, 12A, 13, and 14(1), but only where both parties are in trade, the agreement is in writing, and it is fair and reasonable for the parties to be bound by it. Two things follow. You cannot contract out when dealing with a consumer, and any attempt to do so is unenforceable. And even where a valid contracting-out clause exists, the Commerce Commission can still take enforcement action.

New Zealand has no cooling-off period for online purchases

This is the single biggest divergence from European and United Kingdom expectations, and it works in retailers' favour. The Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 applies the same guarantees to online sales as to in-store sales: goods must be of acceptable quality, fit for purpose, and match their description. But New Zealand has no distance-selling regime and no statutory right to change your mind. A customer who simply decides they no longer want something has no legal right to return it. Note the trap, though: once you advertise a returns policy, that policy becomes a representation you can be held to under the Fair Trading Act.

Selling into New Zealand from overseas

Two regimes apply to offshore sellers, and both use the same $60,000 registration threshold. Since 1 October 2016, offshore suppliers of remote services such as software, streaming, and digital downloads must register and charge New Zealand GST to New Zealand consumers. Since 1 December 2019, offshore sellers of low-value imported goods must charge GST at the point of sale on consignments valued at NZ$1,000 or less, excluding GST and calculated on customs value. Goods above NZ$1,000 continue to have GST and duty collected at the border by New Zealand Customs instead.

Marketplace rules for accommodation, ride-sharing, and food delivery

From 1 April 2024, online marketplaces must collect GST at 15 percent on what Inland Revenue calls listed services: ride-sharing and ride-hailing, food and beverage delivery, and short-stay and visitor accommodation, along with closely connected services booked through the platform. This applies regardless of whether the underlying provider is GST registered. Where the provider is not registered, the marketplace remits 6.5 percent to Inland Revenue and passes 8.5 percent back to the provider as a flat-rate credit. Providers receiving that credit cannot also claim actual expenses as GST inputs. This is a narrow rule covering three sectors, not a general marketplace obligation.

Two things people expect that do not exist here

• There is no New Zealand digital services tax. A Digital Services Tax Bill proposing a 3 percent levy was introduced in 2023 and formally discharged on 20 May 2025, with the government citing renewed progress on an OECD solution. Cross-border digital taxation in New Zealand runs entirely through the GST remote services regime.
• Card surcharging is still lawful. A bill to ban surcharges on in-store payments passed its first reading on 17 September 2025 and was targeted to take effect by May 2026, but it stalled and that date passed without the ban commencing. Surcharges remain subject to the existing requirement that they not exceed the reasonable cost of accepting the payment method. Do not build a checkout on the assumption the ban has happened.

A practical checklist for a New Zealand online store

1. 01Display consumer prices inclusive of GST. If you sell business to business and quote exclusive, label it unmistakably at every point a price appears, not only at checkout.
2. 02Show shipping, surcharges, and any fees before the final step. Revealing costs late is both the top cause of cart abandonment and the conduct the Fair Trading Amendment Bill is aimed at.
3. 03Make clear you are selling in trade, and publish terms that are findable rather than buried.
4. 04State your returns policy accurately, remembering that it becomes an enforceable representation once published, and that nothing obliges you to offer change-of-mind returns.
5. 05Do not publish reviews or ratings you have not genuinely received. Fabricated review markup breaches Google's guidelines and misleading conduct provisions at the same time.
6. 06If you sell into New Zealand from offshore, build the NZ$1,000 threshold logic into the cart.
7. 07Publish a privacy statement that describes what your store actually collects and which third parties receive it.
8. 08Keep GST registration under review against the rolling twelve-month test rather than checking once a year.