Am I owed holiday pay back-pay in New Zealand?

If you worked for an employer that miscalculated Holidays Act 2003 entitlements — including Health NZ, most schools, and many government agencies — you may be owed a remediation payment. Former employees usually must register to be paid; payments are not automatic.

Is there a register of Holidays Act remediation programmes?

No central government register exists. Each employer runs its own programme with its own registration channel. This page maintains a directory of known programmes with each one's registration link, email or phone.

How do former Health NZ staff register for holiday pay remediation?

Register at remediate.tewhatuora.govt.nz/hnz — contact details first, then employment validation with your former district(s), then bank verification. Payment tranches run from August 2026 to March 2027.

Were you ever underpaid holiday pay? Probably worth two minutes.

For over a decade, a long list of New Zealand employers miscalculated leave under the Holidays Act 2003 — especially for anyone with irregular hours, overtime or allowances. The money is being paid back through employer-by-employer remediation programmes, and here is the catch: former employees usually have to register to be paid, and there is no central register of programmes anywhere. Health NZ alone has roughly 86,000 former staff who have not yet registered, with payment rounds running from August 2026 to March 2027.

So we keep the register. Search below — it is free, nothing you type leaves this page, and if your employer is not listed you get the exact question to put to their payroll instead of a shrug.

Who did you work for? (employer, or just what you were — "nurse", "teacher")

Type at least three letters. The registry currently lists 14 employers and employer groups with reported programmes — and if yours is not there, the no-match guidance gives you the exact question to put to their payroll.

The law just changed, and it matters here

The Employment Leave Act 2026 passed on 29 July 2026. Repeals the Holidays Act 2003, commencing about two years after assent. Schedule 3 creates an opt-in statutory remediation process covering current AND former workers for the six years before commencement — but the claim procedures live in regulations that have not been made yet. When they are, this registry likely grows sharply.

"They say I'm not in their records"

Some workers were never properly registered — paid with a payslip (or without one), but missing from the payroll system a remediation programme validates against. That situation strengthens your position rather than weakening it: employers are legally required to keep wage, time and holiday records, and when they cannot produce them, your own evidence carries the weight — theirs is the breach.

Build your evidence bundle: payslips, bank statements showing the pay landing, rosters, shift messages, and your IRD income summary (if PAYE was ever filed, IRD has you on record even when the employer's system doesn't).
Put it in writing: your dates, your role, your evidence, and the question — "please confirm my holiday pay entitlements for this period were correctly calculated and paid."
If they won't engage: the Labour Inspectorate complaint at gethelp.employment.govt.nz is free and covers both the unpaid entitlement and the record-keeping failure. If the payslip shows PAYE that was never passed to IRD, that debt is the employer's problem, not yours.

Who this is for — and who it is not

Anyone who worked for a remediating employer since about 2010, especially nurses, teachers, police, shift workers and anyone whose pay varied week to week. If you worked steady 9-to-5 hours on a flat salary for a small private employer, your exposure is much lower — a programme would still owe you whatever it owes you, but do not expect a windfall.

Registry compiled from each employer's own published pages; every entry carries its source. Last reviewed 2026-08-06. Spotted a programme we are missing? Tell us — additions cite their source or they do not go in.