Roughly where your income sits.
Approximate percentile
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Indicative breakpoint | Approx percentile |
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Where you actually sit, and why it surprises people
Most New Zealanders carry a rough mental picture of "average income" that is wildly off, usually too high, because the people around them at work or online tend to earn similarly to them. This tool gives a reality check: enter your annual income from all sources and it returns an approximate percentile against individual earners across the country. The number it produces is a guide built from indicative income bands, not an official statistic, but it is enough to anchor your sense of where you stand. If it tells you that you are in the top 30 percent, that is genuinely informative, even if the exact figure would shift a point or two against the latest Stats NZ release.
This is individual income, not household. A couple each earning a moderate wage can feel comfortable while neither sits especially high as an individual, because two solid incomes stack up.
Median, mean, and the long tail
The reason percentiles matter more than averages is the shape of the distribution. Individual income in New Zealand has a long upper tail: a relatively small number of very high earners pull the mean up well above the median. The median earner, the person right in the middle, earns noticeably less than the simple average suggests. So if you compare yourself to "the average", you flatter the high earners and understate where a typical worker sits. A percentile sidesteps this by telling you what fraction of people earn less than you, which is the question most people are actually asking.
An income of $75,000
Suppose you earn $75,000 a year. The tool steps through its indicative breakpoints and lands you in the band starting at $70,000, which maps to roughly the 70th percentile.
At $75,000 the tool reports roughly the 70th percentile, or the top 30 percent of individual earners. The chart below places that marker on the income scale, with the shaded portion showing roughly the share of people earning less than you.
Reading the result without over-reading it
Treat the percentile as a ballpark, not a verdict. The bands behind this tool are deliberately round, and real distributions move year to year with wage growth and inflation. Stats NZ publishes detailed income distribution data periodically, and that is the place to go if you need a defensible figure for a report or negotiation. There is also a quieter point worth making: income percentile is not the same as wealth or financial security. Someone in the 60th percentile with no debt and a paid-off house can be in a far stronger position than someone in the 85th percentile servicing a large mortgage and a car loan. Use this number for context, then look at your own balance sheet for the truth.
An honest tip when using it for salary conversations: combine the percentile with role-specific market data. Knowing you are in the top 30 percent overall says little about whether you are paid fairly for your specific job, which is what a hiring manager actually benchmarks against.
Is this before or after tax?
Use your gross (before-tax) income, as that is how income distribution statistics are normally reported. New Zealand taxes income progressively from 10.5 percent up to 39 percent, so two people on the same gross can take home different amounts depending on student loan and KiwiSaver deductions, but the percentile is measured on gross income.
Should I include investment and rental income?
Yes, this is meant to capture income from all sources, so add wages, self-employment profit, interest, dividends and net rental income together. Many people sit higher than they expect once investment income is included. For a precise distribution that separates wage and salary earners from total-income earners, the Stats NZ tables break it down both ways.