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Individual employment agreement (IEA) and Variation to terms of employment (VTE)
IEA Change screen
The IEA Change screen in EdPay now has drop-down lists available for:
- School Support Staff
- Kaiārahi i te Reo, and
- Primary Teachers.
What we need you to do
If any employees at your school have signed one of these, please go to the IEA Change screen (My School > Administration > IEA Change tab), click on the relevant agreement, enter the date the employee signed the agreement and click SUBMIT.
For annualised employees, please submit an Annualisation agreement change (EP24nt) form.
Processing dates
The IEA changes you send us will be processed in the following pay periods.
More information
The Ministry has more information on their website:
IEA change screen - Special Residential Schools Individual Employment Agreement (SRS IEA)
The SRS IEA was removed from the IEA Change screen in EdPay on 10 March. If an employee at your school signs this agreement after that date, please send us an Individual Employment Agreement (IEA) change (EP22) form.
Out-of-cycle cut-off and payments changes due to Good Friday
Out of cycle – requests: The cut-off for submitting out of cycle payment requests will move to Wednesday 1 April at 12pm.
Out of cycle – payments: We will move processing forward a day to Thursday 2 April.
ACC levy – percentage increase
From 1 April 2026, the ACC earners’ levy will increase from $1.67 to $1.75 per $100 (1.75%) for the year 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027. We will let you know in advance when the invoice will be available to download from EdPay, usually in July or August each year, depending on when ACC receives earnings information from Inland Revenue.
Minimum wage increase
Minimum wage rates are set by the government and reviewed every year. From 1 April 2026:
- the adult minimum wage increases from $23.50 to $23.95 per hour.
- the starting-out and training minimum wage increases from $18.80 to $19.16 per hour (after school carers only).
You don’t need to do anything. We will update our system with the new rates, as required. For more information, see the Employment New Zealand website.
Changes to KiwiSaver contribution percentages and minimum age for employer contribution
In Budget 2025, the Government announced changes to KiwiSaver.
Effective date
The changes are effective from 01 April 2026 (PP01).
Minimum rate increases to 3.5%
The minimum rate for both employee and employer increases from 3% to 3.5%.
We will move all employees currently on the 3% rate to 3.5% from 01 April 2026 and new employees who select the minimum rate will be set up at 3.5%.
Minimum age for employer contribution
Employees aged 16 years are now eligible for KiwiSaver employer contribution. The minimum age has been reduced from 18 years to 16 years.
Pay period
The employer contribution will begin in the pay period the employee turns 16. If they are already 16 or 17 and have KiwiSaver, then the employer contribution will automatically begin on 1 April 2026.
Temporary rate reduction
Employees can apply to Inland Revenue (IR) for a temporary rate reduction (TRR) if they want to remain on the old rate of 3%. IR will review and may approve these requests for a limited period of time (3-12 months). IR will contact us directly if they approve. They’ll inform the employee of the decision to approve or not.
See the Inland Revenue website for more information.
Booking leave for Easter Tuesday for non-teaching staff (52-week workers only) with more than 10 years’ service
Please remember to book annual leave or unpaid leave for 7 April 2026 (Easter Tuesday) for non-teaching staff (52-week workers only) with:
- more than 10 years’ service, and
- who normally work Tuesdays.
Clauses in the employment agreements for support staff, school caretakers, cleaners and canteen staff, and kaiārahi i te reo and therapists state that employees with 10 years’ current continuous service are not entitled to Easter Tuesday as an additional paid holiday.
See Part 6 of each employment agreement on the Ministry’s website.
For non-teaching staff with less than 10 years of service, Easter Tuesday is a paid public holiday.
As Easter is in the term break this year, you do not need to do anything for term time only and annualised employees.
Exception: Southland schools
Southland Anniversary Day falls on the same day as Easter Tuesday (7 April 2026). If your school’s regional anniversary is Southland, then it is an automatically paid public holiday and you don’t need to book Easter Tuesday leave for any employees.
How to find out if an employee has more than 10 years’ service
In EdPay, go to Reports > School leave report. Select the most recently generated pay period. Scroll down to the section headed NON-TEACHERS - ANNUAL LEAVE – 52 WEEKERS – AUTO PAID and check the Annual Leave column. If a 52-week worker’s annual leave amount is 25, they have more than 10 years’ service and are not entitled to Easter Tuesday.
Term break reminders
Check your school’s Pay Ending report before term break
The Pay Ending report shows employees whose jobs are due to end in the next 90 days and employees who have left but whose jobs haven’t been terminated yet. Please check this report regularly (eg, the end of every term) to see if you need to extend, restart or terminate any jobs in EdPay. Go to EdPay > Reports > Pay Ending report.
Overpayments
Checking the My Employees page in EdPay regularly and making sure jobs are terminated in the system at the right time will help reduce overpayments to your employees. 51% of payroll overpayments last year related to job terminations and unpaid leave. The earlier you can notify us about these will really help reduce the likelihood of overpayments.
For more information, see the Pay Ending report page on EdPay.govt.nz.
Holiday pay reduction
At the beginning of each term break, we calculate holiday pay reductions for teachers who have taken unpaid leave during the term just ended, eg, leave without pay (LWOP) or sick leave without pay (SLWOP). If a holiday pay reduction is needed, it will happen in the pay that falls over the term break. It will appear on the SUE report as code HPR. If employees want to know how their reductions are calculated, they can check their employment agreement’s remuneration / holiday pay section.
For more information, see the Holiday Pay Reduction page on our website.
EdPay-Education Sector Logon (ESL) - removing the temporary link
Now that 97% of EdPay users and 99% of EdPay-Beta users have linked their access to EdPay to ESL, we will remove the temporary link on the landing page on 7 April 2026.
This link lets users bypass the linking process and log into EdPay the old way. It was a safety measure to make sure users could always log into EdPay, even if they hadn’t yet set up an ESL account, or they were having issues with the linking process. But it is important that all users access EdPay with ESL’s multifactor authentication, which is critical to keeping the schools’ payroll secure.
The remainder who haven’t yet linked are mostly what we call ‘inactive users’, ie, people who rarely log in to EdPay. For example, they might be the school’s emergency-only backup, or they changed roles and no longer need to use EdPay but have not yet asked us to cancel their access.
Next steps
Before we remove the temporary link, please can you check the status of all authorised users at your school. You can download the list of your school’s current authorised users from EdPay. Go to EdPay > Reports > Authorised User Report.
Thank you again for working alongside us through our Start of Year process and your busy first term.
Ngā mihi
Education Payroll