Short-Stay Airbnb GST Calculator

GST registration is compulsory when your taxable supplies reach $60,000 in any rolling 12-month period — past or expected. "Taxable supplies" includes your Airbnb / Bookabach turnover plus any other GST-vatable income (sole-trader services, online sales, etc.). Long-term residential rental is NOT taxable; it's exempt — so a property let to a single tenant for 4+ weeks doesn't add to the $60k count.

The $60k is gross turnover, not profit. A $50,000-revenue Airbnb with $40,000 of costs has $50k turnover (still under), not $10k. The threshold also looks BACKWARDS at the past 12 months and FORWARDS at expected 12 months — if you're projecting to cross $60k in the next 12 months, register now.

From 1 April 2024 (Income Tax — Annual Rates and Listed Services Act 2023), supplies of "listed services" via electronic marketplaces — including short-stay accommodation, ride-sharing, and food delivery — are subject to a new GST collection regime:

• The marketplace operator (Airbnb, Bookabach, Booking.com when offering NZ short-stays) must charge 15% GST on the supply, regardless of the host's GST status.
• For UNREGISTERED hosts: the marketplace remits the 15% to IRD, then pays the host an 8.5% flat-rate credit on the GST-exclusive price. The credit recognises that unregistered hosts can't claim back the GST embedded in their costs.
• For REGISTERED hosts: the host's supply to the marketplace is zero-rated; the marketplace remits the 15% directly to IRD; the host claims input GST on their costs as normal via their GST returns.

The flat-rate credit is the practical upshot for most hosts: you stay unregistered, do less paperwork, and get an 8.5% top-up that approximates the GST you couldn't otherwise claim. Voluntary registration becomes worthwhile only when your costs are so high that the input claim exceeds the flat-rate credit.

If you take bookings directly (your own website, repeat guests paying via bank transfer), the listed-services rules don't apply — there's no marketplace to handle GST. Below the $60k threshold and with direct bookings only, you can stay unregistered and keep 100% of guest payments without any GST flow at all. This is the highest-profit option for low-cost hosts who don't need marketplace volume.

In practice, most NZ short-stay hosts use Airbnb / Bookabach for the booking volume. The "direct booking" option only applies if you genuinely take bookings outside marketplaces. Mixed cases — some bookings via marketplace, some direct — are the norm; you split the totals proportionally for the calculator.

Two scenarios where GST gets harder than the basic registration question:

• Buying a property and registering for GST: if you GST-register and use the property for short-stay, you can claim 15% input GST on the purchase price (significant for a $1m+ property). BUT you must remit 15% on the sale price when you eventually sell. Net effect depends on capital appreciation. Once the property has been GST-claimed, it's locked into the GST system — selling without remitting GST requires going through a complex change-of-use process.
• Change of use from short-stay to long-term rental: long-term residential rental is GST-exempt. If you switch a GST-claimed property to long-term rental, you trigger an output GST adjustment for the unrecovered input GST. The adjustment can be substantial.

These scenarios are beyond the basic calculator and benefit from professional tax advice. The calculator focuses on the day-to-day registration decision for an established short-stay operation.