Calculator Guide

How to use the New Zealand calculator

Follow the controls in the order they appear, then check the calendars, settings and excluded dates. This page explains the tool, Use Cases show completed setups, and Articles explain the source rules and annual holiday dates.

Open Calculator

A step-by-step guide to the controls, New Zealand calendar choices, specialist assumptions and results.

Last reviewed: August 2026

Step 1

Choose the calculation you want to run

At-a-Glance

•Manual rules cover one deadline, or the gap between two dates
•Sequential chains two or more stages you define
•No Court calculation profiles are maintained for New Zealand

Start with the job you need doing, because that choice changes which controls appear underneath it.

Manual rules

One working-day or calendar-day deadline, or the count between two dates you already have.

Sequential

One known period finishes and the next begins. Each stage carries its own regional anniversary days, exclusions and boundary settings.

You bring the rule; the calculator applies it

Your legislation, contract, court rule or workplace policy is what fixes the start event, the period, the regional calendar, the year-end definition and the boundary wording. Settle those first, then set them here.

Try it as you read

Both calculation choices sit at the top of the form.

Open the calculator

Manual rules

Run a manual deadline or date-difference calculation

At-a-Glance

•Deadline when you have a start date and a period
•Days between when you already have both dates
•Set both boundary boxes from the wording of your source

Work down the form in the order it appears.

New Zealand calculator set to a forward working-day deadline using the Auckland anniversary calendar — A standard forward count with Auckland selected as the regional calendar. Select the image to open the full-size view.

Deadline or Days between

Deadline works out a date for you. Days between counts between two dates you already have.

Direction

Forward adds the period. Backward counts back from an event date, which is what you want for notice periods.

Counting method

Select Working days or Calendar days from the wording of your source. Holiday-region and exclusion controls appear only where that method can use them.

Start date, unit and count

Take the trigger date and the number of days from your source. In Days between mode you enter the two dates instead.

Holiday calendar

Choose any regional anniversary days and items under Additional excluded periods that your source applies.

Dates to include

Include the start date only where it is day 1. Include the end date where the calculated date itself completes the period.

A three-day check worth doing

Start on Monday 2 February 2026 and enter 3 working days. Exclude the start and you get Thursday 5 February; include it and you get Wednesday 4 February. If your answer is one day out, this is usually why.

Not sure which date counts?

Check the wording of your source before you touch either box.

Read the boundary guide

Related Resources

Section 54: do the start and end dates count?

How after, from, on and before map onto the boundary controls

Regional holidays

Choose the regional anniversary calendar

At-a-Glance

•Nationwide public holidays always apply; Regional anniversary days only add anniversaries
•Leave Regional anniversary days empty when no regional anniversary applies
•Choose from the rule you are applying, not from where you are sitting

Nationwide public holidays always come out in working-day mode. The Regional anniversary days control is only about whether one or more regional anniversary days come out as well, and it gives you three ways to answer that.

No regional anniversary days

Nationwide public holidays only, and what you get by default. Leave Regional anniversary days empty.

One region

Auckland, Canterbury, Chatham Islands, Hawke's Bay, Marlborough, Nelson, Otago, South Canterbury, Southland, Taranaki, Wellington or Westland. Check the governing rule, then select the applicable area.

Several regions

A day comes out if it is an anniversary in any region you have selected. Useful for a combined calendar when the governing rule requires it.

Whichever you pick, Calculation details names the regions applied and Non-working dates lists every anniversary in the period. Worth a look before you rely on the date.

One region, one day of difference

Count one working day forward from Friday 23 January 2026 with the start excluded. No regional anniversary days gives you Monday 26 January. Auckland gives you Tuesday 27 January, because Auckland Anniversary Day comes out.

Location here is a legal question

Work from the rule, not from wherever you happen to be sitting.

Choose a regional calendar

Related Resources

NZ regional anniversary days

Working out which calendar your rule points at, and confirming the date

New Zealand public holidays 2026

Nationwide and regional dates for the current year

NZ Mondayisation rules

Which holidays move to a weekday, and how substitute days work

Working-day exclusions

Select any additional date exclusions

At-a-Glance

•Six fixed windows, three weeks apart end to end
•Additional excluded periods do not change Regional anniversary days

Additional excluded periods appears for working-day calculations. Each selected window sits on top of the weekends, nationwide holidays and regional anniversaries already coming out. On the same inputs these definitions can land three weeks apart, so every selection must come from the governing document rather than from the date ranges alone.

New Zealand calculator with the RMA year-end exclusion and no regional anniversary days selected — The RMA year-end window selected independently of the regional calendar. Select the image to open the full-size view.

ADLS / TLANZ–REINZ / NZS 391x24 Dec – 5 Jan

ADLS agreement — LIM date24 Dec – 15 Jan

Legislation Act definition25 Dec – 2 Jan

High Court Rules summer exclusion25 Dec – 15 Jan

Resource Management Act definition20 Dec – 10 Jan

Every window is inclusive of both its dates. Windows that look almost identical are not interchangeable, so check the version of the agreement, court rule or statute governing your deadline, including any amendments or special clauses.

Don't choose by date range alone

Confirm the definition in the agreement, rule or statute that governs you.

Compare the exclusion choices

Related Resources

ADLS summer shutdown dates and other NZ exclusions

All six windows compared, with three weeks between the extremes

Property settlement working days

A full property count using the summer window

Specialist calculations

Set the ADLS, court or RMA exclusions

At-a-Glance

•Use the year-end definition your governing source names
•Choose the regional calendar as a separate decision
•Keep pauses, extensions and case-specific directions out of the count

These are ordinary calculations that you control. Nothing here is inferred from your other selections, and changing one setting never quietly changes another. For a property deadline, take the year-end definition, the province and the boundary wording from the agreement itself. For a court deadline, use the High Court Rules working-day definition only where the procedural rule you are working under adopts that definition; no Court calculation profiles are maintained for New Zealand. For an RMA count, take the RMA year-end window and then choose Regional anniversary days as a separate step, because the RMA option does not switch the Regional anniversary days control for you.

Which leaves a fairly clean split of responsibilities:

Handled for you

Weekends, nationwide holidays, the anniversary calendar you selected, the year-end window you chose, and your boundary settings.

Yours to settle

Which source governs, the trigger date, the period, the relevant province, the right year-end definition, and whether a pause or extension changes the count.

Yours to check

The current text of your source, any case-specific direction, and every excluded date in the result.

RMA and Regional anniversary days stay independent

Count seven working days from Friday 16 January 2026 with the start excluded and no regional anniversary days gives you Tuesday 27 January; Auckland gives you Wednesday 28 January. Pick the calendar your source calls for; nothing here will overrule it.

Follow a completed specialist setup

See the holiday-region, exclusion and boundary controls working together.

Open the property example

Related Resources

Property settlement example

A completed Wellington count using the ADLS sale and purchase agreement window

RMA submission example

A completed count using the RMA year-end exclusion

RMA working-day guide

What the fixed setting covers, and what still sits with you

Topic

Build sequential

Set up and review each documented stage before running the combined calculation.

Sequential

Build and review sequential

At-a-Glance

•Give every period a real label and a number of days
•Boundaries, regional anniversary days and exclusions are set per period
•Add and reorder periods before you calculate

Reach for Sequential when your source sets out two or more consecutive stages. The single-calculation controls give way to period tabs.

New Zealand calculator reviewing two sequential working-day periods with separate settings — Review all periods lists both stages and their calendar choices before you calculate. Select the image to open the full-size view.

Overall start date

The date the first period starts from.

Period label

Swap the generic label for the real stage — Due diligence, Finance, Settlement — so the result reads back sensibly.

Number, Unit and Direction

Enter that stage's period. Each period counts forward from the date reached by the one before it.

Holiday calendar

Set regional anniversary days and Additional excluded periodsper period. A later stage can use a different calendar from the one before it.

Dates to include

Decide separately for each period whether its start and end dates count, using the wording of the source for that stage.

Add another period

Add each documented stage, then check every card's label, period and rules before calculating.

Move left / Move right

Reorder a card when the stages are not in the sequence required by your source.

Calculate

The result joins the periods in order and shows the date reached at every boundary, not just the final one.

All of which chains up the periods you enter, and stops there. Whether a condition was actually satisfied, when a notice was received, and whether the next period legally started are questions for you and the file.

See three periods joined up

The preset shows each completed stage becoming the next one's start date.

Open the sequential example

Related Resources

Sequential property transaction

Due diligence, finance and settlement chained together

Before relying on the answer

Read and verify the result

At-a-Glance

•The headline date is the start of the review, not the end
•An exclusion you expected and cannot find means a setting is wrong
•Resolve any warning before you export or share

Everything below the headline is there so you can see how the count was reached. Here is what each part of the panel is telling you.

New Zealand working-day result showing the timeline, calendar and review controls — The result records the calendar, shutdown and non-working dates behind the count. Select the image to open the full-size view.

Headline: The date, and whether it was counted or excluded. Check it answers the question you meant to ask.
Calculation details: The direction, counting method, boundaries, regions and other assumptions applied to the result.
Timeline and calendar: A visual check of the counted and excluded dates. In sequential work, each period remains identifiable.
Non-working dates: Weekends, public holidays, anniversary days and other exclusions. This is the row that explains a surprising answer.
Warnings: Coverage, data and configuration problems, which are worth resolving before you rely on the answer.
Export to PDF: The PDF keeps a record of what you ran, which is not the same as a second opinion on the governing rule.

Check the result against its source

An exported answer is only ever as sound as the settings behind it.

Run a calculation

Related Resources

NZ working-day use cases

Completed setups for legal, property, HR, RMA and sequential work

Topic

Troubleshooting

Find the setting most likely to explain a one-day difference or missing exclusion.

Common checks

Troubleshoot an unexpected answer

At-a-Glance

•One day out is nearly always a boundary setting
•A missing anniversary or exclusion is nearly always a calendar choice

The answer is one day earlier or later

Start with Include the start date and Include the end date, which explain most one-day discrepancies. If those look right, check that Deadline versus Days between and Forward versus Backward match the question you meant to ask.

The Regional anniversary days or Additional excluded periods control is missing

Both apply only where the selected counting method can use them. In Sequential they appear inside each period card.

An anniversary day was excluded unexpectedly

Check how many regions are selected. With more than one, a day comes out if it is an anniversary in any of them.

The year-end dates look wrong

Read every Additional excluded periods label back against your governing source. The NZ windows overlap heavily but start and finish on different days.

An RMA answer includes or excludes an anniversary day

Regional anniversary days and the RMA window are independent controls, so leave the areas empty or select named areas deliberately from the source you are applying.

The result includes a warning or unsupported date

Missing data is not confirmation that no holiday applies. Check the date against the current official source, and send us the preset URL so the gap can be filled.

Keep a record you can reproduce

Save the preset URL alongside a note of the source, its version and the assumptions you made. If someone disagrees with the date later, that is far easier to work through than a headline date on its own.

Still can't explain the result?

Send the preset URL, the answer you expected and the rule you are applying.

Report a problem

Related Resources

All New Zealand articles

Source-focused guides to holidays, property, employment and RMA rules