Public holiday surcharge NZ: rules for restaurants

Every Kiwi diner knows the little sign by the till: "A 15% surcharge applies today." Every hospo operator knows the reason behind it: opening on a public holiday costs real money. Staff working that day must be paid at least time-and-a-half, and many of them also earn a full day in lieu. The surcharge is New Zealand's way of keeping the doors open anyway, and it is perfectly legal, as long as you follow a few Fair Trading Act rules that trip up a surprising number of venues.

This guide covers what the Holidays Act 2003 actually costs you, what the Commerce Commission expects, how much to charge, and the days where surcharging gets restaurants into trouble. It is written for owners and managers, not for diners.

Why a public holiday costs your restaurant more

The economics start with the Holidays Act 2003. When an employee works on a public holiday, two entitlements kick in (Employment New Zealand):

Time-and-a-half for every hour actually worked that day, at minimum.
An alternative holiday (a paid day in lieu, to take later) if the public holiday falls on a day the employee would otherwise have worked.

For a full-timer whose normal roster includes that Friday, the maths is stark: 1.5 times their wage for the shift, plus a full extra day of paid leave banked. Their labour cost for that one day is roughly double. With the adult minimum wage at NZ$23.95 an hour since 1 April 2026, even an entry-level dish hand costs at least NZ$35.93 an hour on Matariki, before you count the day in lieu.

Not every cost doubles, of course. Rent, insurance and food costs stay the same, and casual staff for whom the day is not an otherwise working day earn time-and-a-half without the alternative day. That is exactly why the standard surcharge sits around 10 to 15% rather than 50%: it is meant to recover the extra labour cost across the whole bill, not to turn the holiday into a margin bonanza.

If you want to sanity-check your own numbers before setting a percentage, our guide to menu pricing walks through labour and food cost ratios in detail.

Is a public holiday surcharge legal in New Zealand?

Yes. There is no law capping what a New Zealand business may charge, on a public holiday or any other day. What the law regulates is honesty. The Commerce Commission set out the rules in its February 2021 guidance on public holiday surcharges, and they boil down to three obligations under the Fair Trading Act 1986:

Disclose the surcharge before the customer commits. In the Commission's words, customers should know a surcharge is payable before they decide to purchase. A sign at the door and on the counter, a line on the menu, and a note on your website and booking confirmations all count. A surprise on the bill does not.
Describe the reason accurately. If your sign says the surcharge covers Holidays Act costs, that must be true. Claiming holiday labour costs on a day that is not actually a public holiday is misleading and risks breaching the Act.
Do not charge more than the extra costs you actually incur, if costs are your stated justification. The Commission is explicit: the surcharge "should not exceed those costs, and the costs should actually be incurred by the business."

Consumer NZ's guidance mirrors this: a business can set any surcharge it likes, but it must disclose it and describe the reason honestly, and a cost-justified surcharge should not exceed the real cost. Diners who feel misled can complain directly to the Commerce Commission, and around every long weekend some of them do.

How much should you charge?

The New Zealand norm is 10 to 15% of the bill, and 15% has become the default in hospitality: RNZ's Matariki coverage notes venues applying a 15% surcharge to cover holiday staffing costs. The Restaurant Association also publishes a member guide on surcharging, built on the same Fair Trading Act principles.

Rather than copying the cafe next door, spend twenty minutes on your own numbers:

Estimate the extra wage bill for the day. For each rostered employee: 0.5 times their hourly rate for the hours worked, plus a full day's pay if they qualify for an alternative holiday.
Estimate the day's expected revenue from past public holidays, not from an average Tuesday. Long weekends and brunch-heavy holidays trade differently.
Divide. If the extra labour cost is NZ$900 and you expect NZ$7,500 in sales, a 12% surcharge recovers it. Charging 15% "because everyone does" is harder to defend if a customer, or the Commission, ever asks what it covers.

Two refinements worth considering:

Round the percentage down, not up. A surcharge slightly under your true extra cost is unimpeachable; one above it invites the misleading-conduct question.
Keep the calculation on file. A one-page spreadsheet dated before the holiday is your best answer to any complaint, and updating it once a year takes minutes. Tracking this alongside your other restaurant KPIs makes it painless.

One thing you do not need to worry about separately: GST. Menu prices in New Zealand are displayed GST-inclusive, and the surcharge simply forms part of the GST-inclusive total on the bill, like any other charge.

Disclosing the surcharge properly

The Commerce Commission's cases and warnings almost all come down to disclosure, so make it impossible to miss:

At the door and at the till: a clearly readable sign stating the percentage and the days it applies. A single sentence works: "A 12% surcharge applies on public holidays."
On the menu: one line, at least as visible as your prices.
On your website and Google profile: diners increasingly check before they book, and stating it upfront filters out the arguments.
In the booking flow: if you take online bookings, the confirmation message is the perfect place to restate the surcharge. With ViteUneTable's free booking system, you can put the surcharge line in your confirmation emails so every guest arrives informed, and it costs you nothing: the free version is unlimited, with 0% commission on bookings.
Brief your team: floor staff should be able to explain, in one sentence, that the surcharge covers holiday wages required by law. It turns a complaint into a nod. That kind of upfront care is manaakitanga in practice, and guests respond to it.

The days that get venues in trouble

Easter Sunday is not a public holiday. Good Friday and Easter Monday are; Easter Sunday is not, even though many shops must stay shut. A "public holiday surcharge" sign on Easter Sunday, justified by Holidays Act costs you are not incurring, is exactly the scenario the Commerce Commission has warned about, and Consumer NZ calls it out every year.
Mondayisation: when Waitangi Day, Anzac Day, Christmas, Boxing Day or the New Year days fall on a weekend, the public holiday may be observed on the following Monday for staff who do not normally work weekends. Your Holidays Act costs can land on a different day from the calendar date, so check Employment New Zealand's dates page before printing signs.
Anniversary days apply regionally. Auckland Anniversary is a public holiday in Auckland, not in Christchurch. Surcharge only where the holiday, and the cost, actually applies to your venue.

Which days count in New Zealand

New Zealand has 11 national public holidays: New Year's Day and the day after, Waitangi Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, King's Birthday, Matariki, Labour Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. On top of those, the Holidays Act makes your region's anniversary day a public holiday too, so most venues face 12 surcharge-eligible days a year.

Matariki deserves a special note. The mid-winter holiday moves with the Māori lunar calendar (Friday 10 July in 2026), and it has quickly become a genuine dining-out occasion. Because the date shifts every year, update your signage and website dates annually rather than reusing last year's collateral.

Surcharge, close, or trade as usual?

A surcharge is not compulsory, and neither is opening. The honest decision framework has three options:

Open with a surcharge. Right when the day trades strongly: long-weekend brunches, Matariki dinners, Labour Day in a tourist town. Disclose well and most guests accept it; the practice is thoroughly normalised in New Zealand.
Open without a surcharge and price it in. Some venues quietly build holiday costs into year-round prices to avoid the sign altogether. Legitimate, simpler for guests, but it means every other day of the year subsidises the holiday roster.
Close. If a holiday historically trades below the extra cost, closing is a business decision, not a failure. Compare the day's real contribution, not its revenue. If your slow days are the problem rather than the holidays, our guide to filling quiet services covers better levers than surcharges.

Whichever you choose, decide from your own booking data. A season of accurate booking records tells you exactly what Matariki or Wellington Anniversary is worth to your venue.

What about card surcharges? (Not the same thing)

Do not confuse the public holiday surcharge with the card payment surcharge debate. The Government introduced the Retail Payment System (Ban on Merchant Surcharges) Amendment Bill to ban surcharges on in-store EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard payments. The Bill passed its first reading on 17 September 2025 and the select committee reported back in November 2025, but as of September 2026 it has stalled and is not law: surcharging remains legal in New Zealand, and no commencement date is confirmed. Check the Commerce Commission and MBIE for the current status before changing your terminal settings.

Two important nuances if and when it passes:

The ban targets card payment surcharges at the terminal, not public holiday menu surcharges. Your 15% holiday surcharge is untouched by it.
The proposal covers in-store EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard, including mobile wallets, but not online payments or schemes like American Express.

Public holidays are booking days: be ready for them

Public holidays concentrate demand into brunch and early-dinner peaks, and long weekends bring out-of-towners who book ahead. Three practical moves:

Take bookings online, around the clock. Holiday demand builds while your venue is closed the night before. An online booking page captures it; a voicemail does not.
State the surcharge in the confirmation, as covered above, so nobody meets it for the first time on the bill.
Send reminders. Holiday bookings made a week out are exactly the ones people forget on a sunny long weekend, and no-shows hurt most on your highest-cost trading day. Automatic email reminders are part of ViteUneTable's free version; the Pack Standard (29 € excl. VAT per month) adds extras like booking via Google, and prices are in euros because we are a European company, worth knowing upfront.

If you are comparing tools for the holiday season, our comparison of booking systems available in New Zealand covers the local market in detail, and our guide to Christmas function bookings tackles the biggest holiday season of all.

Frequently asked questions

Can I charge a surcharge on Easter Sunday?

You can charge whatever prices you like, but you cannot call it a public holiday surcharge or justify it with Holidays Act costs, because Easter Sunday is not a public holiday. Venues that do risk breaching the Fair Trading Act. If your costs genuinely rise that day for other reasons, describe those reasons accurately or adjust menu prices instead.

Is there a legal cap on the surcharge percentage?

No. New Zealand law does not cap surcharges. But if you justify the surcharge by your extra costs, the Commerce Commission expects it not to exceed the costs you actually incur, and misdescribing it can breach the Fair Trading Act. The market norm of 10 to 15% exists because that is roughly what Holidays Act costs represent for most venues.

Do anniversary days count as public holidays for pay and surcharges?

Yes, within their region. The Holidays Act makes the local anniversary day (Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and so on) a public holiday where it is observed, so time-and-a-half and alternative-holiday rules apply to your staff, and a properly disclosed surcharge is as legitimate as on a national holiday.

Has New Zealand banned card surcharges?

Not as of September 2026. A ban on surcharging in-store EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard payments was announced and a Bill passed its first reading in September 2025, but it has stalled in Parliament and is not in force. Card surcharging remains legal; check the Commerce Commission for the latest status.

Does GST apply to a public holiday surcharge?

Yes. The surcharge is part of the price of the meal, so it is part of your GST-inclusive takings like everything else on the bill. Display it the way you display prices: inclusive, with no hidden extras.

Do I have to pay time-and-a-half to every staff member on a public holiday?

Every employee who works on the public holiday must receive at least time-and-a-half for the hours worked. The alternative holiday (day in lieu) applies only when the day is one the employee would otherwise have worked. Employment New Zealand's public holidays pages cover rosters, Mondayisation and edge cases.

Public holiday surcharges in New Zealand: the 2026 guide for restaurants