Uber tax return NZ: what you owe, and how to file it

What an Uber driver in New Zealand actually owes, what you can claim, and how to file your IR3. Written by a chartered accountant.

Written by Tax Accountant Limited, chartered accountants and IRD registered tax agent. Figures checked 10 November 2026.

If you drive for Uber in New Zealand, you are self-employed. Nobody deducts tax before the money reaches your bank account, which means two things: you will owe something at the end of the year, and you can claim the costs of earning it.

Most drivers overpay, because they do not claim everything they are entitled to. This page sets out what an Uber tax return involves in New Zealand, what you can claim, and what the figures actually look like.

What gets taxed

Not your fares. Your profit.

Start with	Everything the apps paid you for the year
Take off	Your vehicle costs
Take off	Phone and data, work share only
Take off	Platform fees and commissions
Take off	Other genuine costs of driving
What is left	Your taxable profit

That profit is added to any wages or salary you earned and taxed at your marginal rate, which depends on where your combined income lands. There are five rate bands and the profit is taxed as the top slice, so two drivers with identical fares can owe very different amounts depending on what else they earn.

There is also an ACC earner's levy on your driving profit, which arrives as a separate invoice rather than coming out of your tax return.

The biggest claim is your car

For almost every driver, vehicle costs are the largest deduction by a wide margin, and there are two ways to work them out.

The kilometre rate

Inland Revenue publishes a rate per kilometre that bundles together fuel, servicing, insurance, registration and depreciation. You claim the work share of your driving at that rate and keep no fuel receipts at all. The rate is tiered, it changes every year, and it depends on whether you drive petrol, diesel, hybrid or electric, so the figure that applied last year is rarely the figure that applies to yours.

Actual costs

You add up what the car genuinely cost you over the year and claim the work share. This can beat the kilometre rate on an expensive or heavily driven vehicle, but it needs every receipt, and a logbook either way.

You pick one method and stay with it. We work out both and use whichever leaves you better off.

What else you can claim

Rather more than most drivers realise. Your phone, platform fees, car cleaning, tolls and parking, the bits and pieces you buy for the car, the admin you do at home, and the cost of having the return prepared all have a place in the return.

Each of them has its own rule about how much of it counts, and the work share is rarely the figure a driver would guess. This is the part where preparing it properly usually pays for itself several times over.

GST: most drivers do not need to register

You only have to register for GST once your driving turnover passes $60,000 in any twelve-month period. Below that you do not file GST returns.

But GST still affects you. Since April 2024 the platform collects 15% GST on every fare whether you are registered or not, and if you are not registered it passes 8.5% of that back to you as a flat-rate credit. Most drivers do not realise they have received it, and it has to be dealt with in your return.

How the 8.5% flat-rate credit works ›

Who ends up doing it

Three routes, and most drivers try them in this order.

Doing it yourself

Free, and the place most money is left behind. The arithmetic is not the hard part; knowing which method to use, which year's rates apply to your vehicle, how the GST credit interacts with your expenses, and what counts as work driving is. Every one of those has a wrong answer that looks perfectly reasonable, and nothing tells you that you got it wrong. You simply receive less than you should have.

A traditional accountant

They will do it properly. Expect several hundred dollars, a request for a year of paperwork you have not kept, and a few weeks of back and forth while you find it.

A tax agent set up for drivers

That is us. Receipts go into the app through the year, we prepare the return, show you the figures in plain English, and file once you say yes. One fixed price, and being on our agent list extends your filing deadline well beyond the usual one.

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