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While it only has a population of 5.234 million, New Zealand has a highly developed economy that has been growing for decades. Since 2000, New Zealand’s GDP has nearly quintupled to reach $262.91 billion in 2025, thanks to increased agricultural product prices and growth in tourism and other services. The country’s skilled labor force of more than 3.124 million workers is increasingly desirable domestically and internationally, but managing these workers compliantly isn’t easy. A PEO partner can help you stay compliant while providing top HR services in the country.
The best New Zealand Professional Employer Organizations, in our opinion, are:
Let’s delve into the details of how a PEO works and why we’ve selected these providers as our top six New Zealand PEOs for 2025.
When you need help managing your local employees, a New Zealand Professional Employer Organization (PEO) can be a big help. When you engage these service providers, they take on HR and compliance duties as the co-employers of your New Zealand workers. They handle administration and HR functions like payroll, paid time off (PTO), and benefits administration, while you focus on their schedules and work tasks as their worksite employer.
To manage compliance in New Zealand, PEOs calculate, withhold, and remit employees’ personal income taxes to Inland Revenue, and report to this agency on their clients’ behalf. They handle mandatory contributions from both employers and employees to the KiwiSaver retirement fund, while also managing employer contributions to the Accident Compensation Corporation, for workplace injury insurance. PEOs create contracts that are fully compliant with New Zealand’s labor and tax laws, managing their signing and storage, and updating them when legal changes are made in the country. Many PEOs also provide additional employee benefits, like private health insurance and pension plans, to supplement these mandatory benefits.
PEOs that work in New Zealand can be based in this country or be international organizations that own local entities or work with local partners. They typically use digital cloud-based platforms that are full of features and tools to help with HR management. These can include things like onboarding and offboarding, employee engagement, performance management, analytics, reporting, and more. Some PEOs also offer recruitment tools, while a handful provide active recruitment services in New Zealand.
An Employer of Record (EOR) is a similar type of service provider that also manages HR and compliance. However, while a PEO works as a co-employer, EORs actually directly hire employees for their clients. While these services differ, the terms EOR and PEO are often used interchangeably in New Zealand.
Since New Zealand’s economy has grown so impressively in recent decades, and because of the rise of remote and international hiring, PEO services have also increased in the country. To help you choose a quality provider to partner with, here’s our list of the six best New Zealand EORs in 2025:
Based in New York, Remote People is an HR services provider that works in over 150 countries around the world. This provider offers PEO service in New Zealand for a surprisingly low starting price of $199/ employee per month and lets you manage contractors for free, making it one of the most affordable PEOs working in the country. Remote People also works as a Contractor of Record (COR) and EOR in New Zealand, while also providing payroll outsourcing services.
| Highly effective platform | The Remote People platform is a full HRIS (human resources information system) that can stand alone as the only HR software you’ll need to manage your New Zealand employees. It includes performance management, expense management, time-tracking, and recruitment tools, in the form of an applicant tracking system (ATS), to help you manage recruitment in-house. This platform is consistently rated highly for user-friendliness, even achieving a full 5-star rating on G2. |
| Recruitment services | While most PEO providers leave recruitment to external agencies, Remote People is one of the few providers that offer active recruitment services. Its professional recruiters assess clients’ needs and work quickly to find top talent to fill their vacancies. They also use their extensive networks to find the best people to fill leadership roles through their Executive Search and headhunting activities. |
| Employee benefits | If you want to attract the best New Zealand workers to your organization and keep them with you long-term, offering supplementary benefits can help. While healthcare is free and universal in New Zealand, this is a slow system, and not everything is covered. Remote People therefore provides private health insurance as an additional employee benefit, as well as private pensions and equity plans that can dramatically increase the quality of the compensation packages you offer. |
| Compliance | Remote People manages compliance in New Zealand by generating legal contracts with the help of experts in HR and local regulations. They look out for changes to the law and modify their systems accordingly. Its fast and highly accurate payroll system also ensures that employee salaries, taxes, and deductions are always paid correctly and rapidly. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| PEO and EOR fees are far below the industry average | No mobile app |
| Additional benefits like private healthcare and pensions | Limited software integration (only 50+ apps) |
| Recruitment and Executive Search by professional, in-house recruiters | Â |
Read our in-depth review of Remote People on RemotePad for more details.Â
Deel is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2019, right before the explosion of PEO and EOR services worldwide. This increase in business allowed Deel to expand into over 150 countries, including New Zealand, where it provides PEO, EOR, and payroll outsourcing services. Deel’s pricing for these services starts at $599/employee per month, and it charges $49/person per month for contractor management, making it a more expensive provider than Remote People.
| Extensive HRIS platform | Deel’s service platform is one area where it stands out from the competition. Like Remote People’s, Deel’s platform is a standalone HRIS with an extensive range of features and functions that remove the need for clients to use any other HR software. If they do, however, Deel’s platform comes with over 80 pre-built integrations to HR, finance, accounting, communications, and scheduling applications to help you move data easily. The platform includes functions for time and attendance, employee engagement, performance management, and more. It includes an ATS for recruitment, though Deel doesn’t do active recruiting. This platform includes an employee portal and mobile app that help employees view their payslips and make PTO requests. |
| Employee benefits | Like Remote People, Deel lets employers offer their employees private health insurance and pension plans to enhance their compensation. These plans are generally much more affordable than individual SMBs (small and medium businesses) can access on their own. |
| Extensive services | In addition to the PEO and EOR services that help you manage employees, Deel also provides background checks, immigration support, equity planning, entity setup, and managed payroll services to help you succeed in New Zealand. You can also manage your IT services through Deel’s platform by accessing features for device management, endpoint protection, and identity and access management. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 24/7 live chat support | Above-average pricing |
| Employee portal and mobile app | No recruitment |
| Optional benefits, including pensions and health insurance | Takes time to learn to use the platform |
You can find RemotePad’s in-depth review of Deel here.
Rippling is also based in San Francisco and was founded in 2016, earlier than Deel, and with more time to help it expand its platform. This provider first built a workforce management and contractor payment platform before moving into international HR services. Rippling now has PEO and EOR services in New Zealand and 80 other countries, while enabling contractor hiring in 185 countries around the world. Rippling doesn’t provide its prices publicly, but client reviews suggest that they start at $499/employee per month for employee hiring. Prices may be higher in New Zealand.
| Comprehensive HRIS platform | Rippling focused on building a comprehensive workforce management platform long before it started providing PEO and EOR services. This is evidenced by both the relatively small number of countries where it operates and by the nearly endless list of features and tools in its platform. While Rippling doesn’t do recruitment, it includes an ATS and other useful tools for recruitment. It also has employee engagement, performance management, scheduling, communications, learning management, and many other tools. You also have the option of adding access to IT and spend management features so you can handle administration for all of these functions in a single platform. Rippling also integrates with over 600 apps, making it an extremely versatile and connectable piece of software. |
| Supplementary benefits | Rippling handles all mandatory benefits for your New Zealand employees, but also lets you make them more attractive job offers by giving them additional benefits. These include private health insurance and wellness coverage to help supplement the public health system. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Comprehensive platform with hundreds of integrations | Pricing not publicly available |
| Mobile app for employees and admins | No recruitment |
| 24/7 live chat support | Limited global coverage |
Like Remote People, Papaya Global is based in New York and provides PEO services in New Zealand as well as 160 other countries around the world. Like Rippling, Papaya Global began life as a workforce management platform and then took over the payment platform, Azimo, before branching into international HR services. Its employment services in New Zealand start at $599/employee per month, and contractor management services are just $30/person per month.
| Fast payment system | Papaya Global uses the Azimo payment system that it now owns to facilitate payments to your employees, benefits providers, and authorities in New Zealand. This provider boasts a one-day turnaround for payroll processing, though salary payments may take a few more days to reach employees because of slowdowns with their banks. |
| Extensive platform | The Papaya Global platform is a standalone HRIS that can function as the central HR software for your company. Its features, for functions like expense management, time-tracking, and performance management, help you manage HR from a single application. While it doesn’t do recruitment or include an ATS, this platform integrates with popular recruitment tools like Bullhorn and SmartRecruiters to help you source talent. |
| Quality support service | This provider assigns a customer success manager to each client to help them implement its system and navigate its platform. Customer support is also available 24/7 from human support staff, and an AI widget helps to answer questions at all times. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Payment processing is the fastest in the industry | Pricing not presented publicly, but considered to be above average |
| 24/7 live support and dedicated customer success managers | Few software integrations |
| Employee portal and mobile app | Â |
Learn more with RemotePad’s full Papaya Global review.
This provider, which changed its name from Velocity Global to Pebl in 2025, was founded in 2014 and has more experience than many competitors in PEO and EOR service provision. With this name change came a lower price for employee hiring, now starting at $399/employee per month instead of $599. Pebl also incorporated AI into its platform to help increase the speed and accuracy of its services, which are available in New Zealand and 185 other countries.
| AI integration | Earlier this year, Pebl revamped its website and services to include AI tools for increased accuracy and efficiency. These tools include an AI assistant that can answer questions and create compliant documents, salary benchmarking tools, and data analytics features that help you make data-driven decisions. |
| Fast onboarding | In New Zealand, Pebl can onboard new employees for you in just a few business days, helping you get started working with skilled workers very quickly. |
| Additional services | Through Pebl, you can take advantage of global payroll services and connect with recruitment agencies in New Zealand, though Pebl doesn’t recruit directly. It also provides immigration support, payroll service, and EOR hiring in New Zealand. For PEO and EOR employees, Pebl also offers supplementary benefits like pensions and health insurance to help make your vacancies more attractive. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Your choice of human or AI support 24/7 | Few software integrations |
| Publicly available pricing | No ATS or active recruitment services |
| Employee portal and mobile app | Â |
Learn more about Pebl here.Â
Oyster, founded in 2020, is based in North Carolina but now offers HR services in 180+ countries worldwide, including PEO and EOR services in New Zealand. Its price for managing employees starts at $699/employee per month, and for managing contractors, it’s only $29/person per month.
| Extra benefits | In New Zealand, Oyster offers pensions, allowances, and private health coverage. You also have the option of adding global health coverage for employees when they travel. |
| Liability protection | When you work with Kiwi contractors, you can choose to add Oyster’s “Oyster Shell” liability protection. This package includes intellectual property (IP) protection and coverage of up to half a million dollars for worker misclassification penalties. |
| Additional services | In addition to its PEO, EOR, and contractor management services in New Zealand, Oyster also manages payroll, handles contractor-to-employee conversions, helps with visa sponsorships, and provides salary insights. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Publicly available pricing | No recruitment services |
| Wide global coverage | No mobile app |
| Contractor liability protection | Few software integrations |
Read RemotePad’s detailed review to learn more about Oyster.Â
While you can always choose to manage HR and compliance for your employees in New Zealand in-house, there are a lot of benefits to outsourcing these functions to a PEO provider, including:
New Zealand’s legal system is largely influenced by British common law, with some local Maori influences. This system includes many acts of parliament that relate to labor and employment, including the Employment Relations Act 2000, Holidays Act 2003, Parental Leave and Employment Relations Act 1987, and more. While your PEO will manage compliance with all of these statutes, it’s still useful to be familiar with the main points of law so you know what your employees are entitled to.
Every employee in New Zealand must be given a written contract, even though verbal agreements are legally binding, and must be able to access trusted advice before signing one. Fixed-term contracts are legal, but must be based on reasonable grounds, such as replacing an employee away on leave, seasonal work, or work on a project that has a defined end date. Otherwise, there is no mandated maximum length for fixed-term contracts.
New Zealanders work a regular workweek of 40 hours, though this can be reduced to 37.5 hours in some instances. Employees must give their consent to work overtime, though the number of hours they work is not legally limited. There is no officially mandated amount that employees must be paid for overtime, though time-and-a-half is standard. Instead, their overtime rates are negotiated in their employment agreements.
New Zealand updates its minimum wage annually, and the most recent changes came into effect on April 1st, 2025.Â
Adult workers must be paid a minimum of 23.50 NZD (New Zealand dollars) per hour (around 13.25 USD) or 940.00 NZD per 40-hour workweek (around 530 USD).
Workers under the age of 20 who haven’t completed six months of employment, and those over the age of 20 who have not completed three months or 200 hours of employment can be paid less. These “Starting Out” and “Training” workers must be paid at least 18.80 NZD per hour (around 10.60USD) or 752.00 NZD per 40-hour workweek (around 425 USD).
In New Zealand, employees are entitled to a number of mandatory benefits, which include things like annual paid leave, sick leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, bereavement leave, and family violence leave. Workers must also receive one 30-minute meal break and two 10-minute rest breaks during each eight-hour day they work.
Employers and employees must make retirement contributions to the KiwiSaver program, and employees can choose to contribute between 3% and 10% of their earnings. Employers must contribute by paying the employer superannuation contribution tax (ESCT), which includes KiwiSaver contributions and ranges from 10.5% to 39.0%, depending on the employee’s salary.
Employees must also pay income taxes on their earnings, and employers are responsible for withholding and remitting these taxes. These rates range from 10.5% to 39% of their earnings.
Employers must provide their employees with good reasons to dismiss them, which can include economic need, gross misconduct, poor performance, or incapacity. There is no nationally mandated minimum notice period. Instead, notice is negotiated in individual or collective agreements, but normally ranges between two to four weeks. Severance pay is not mandatory, but may also be included in these agreements.
PEOs can help you hire foreign workers and bring them into New Zealand to work for your business. Foreign nationals need to obtain visas with work entitlement, the most common type of which is an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV). If you want to be able to support this kind of visa, you’ll need to perform a labor market test to ensure that a foreign worker is needed for your position. The employee will need a job offer from you and will have to meet minimum experience and qualification requirements.
While you can hire and manage employees in New Zealand on your own, it can be challenging to stay compliant with local laws and provide your employees with excellent HR services. By working with a PEO, you can outsource these tasks to a professional organization while you focus on your core business activities. Our list of the best New Zealand Professional Employer Organizations is a great starting point for finding a reliable provider to work with you in this dynamic market.
Get more advice and assistance in choosing the perfect PEO partner by contacting RemotePad’s PEO experts today.
The prices that different providers charge for PEO services in New Zealand can range from around $200 to $1000 per employee per month. A price of $400 is around average for this service, so anything lower can be considered a good deal.
