New Zealand GST on Stripe Remote Services in QuickBooks

A US software company sells a 20 USD monthly plan to individuals and a 99 USD team plan to businesses. It has about 400 subscribers in New Zealand. Thirty of the team-plan customers typed a New Zealand GST number into Stripe Checkout. Five more were set up by hand from a sales call, and the account manager entered the 13-digit number on their invoices, which turned out to be a New Zealand Business Number (NZBN), not a GST number.

At an illustrative 0.58 US dollars to the New Zealand dollar, NZ$60,000 is about 34,800 USD, and 400 consumers on a 20 USD plan pass it in well under a year. Once the company registers, New Zealand is one of the easier regimes a foreign seller deals with: one rate, a quarterly return, no tax representative, and a rule that lets you rely on what your customer tells you about being a business. The catches are small and specific. New Zealand's residence test wants two pieces of evidence, and Stripe uses one address. Inland Revenue (IRD) accepts an NZBN as a sign that a customer is a registered business, but Stripe doesn't. And the exchange rate you pick for the return locks in for two years.

This guide covers New Zealand GST on Stripe sales of digital and other remote services by a business outside New Zealand: what counts as a remote service, the NZ$60,000 threshold, how IRD decides a customer is resident, the business-to-business exclusion and the NZBN gap, registration, the quarterly return and its currency choice, and how the GST reaches QuickBooks. A worked quarter runs through all of it. If you ship physical products to New Zealand too, that is a separate rule with its own Stripe setting, covered in our guide to New Zealand GST on low-value goods.

Acodei brings Stripe Tax amounts into QuickBooks automatically, so the New Zealand GST you collect is already in a liability account when each quarterly return comes due. Start a free trial.

What counts as a remote service in New Zealand

New Zealand has charged GST on cross-border remote services since 1 October 2016. IRD's Tax Information Bulletin Vol 28 No 6 (July 2016), which explains the legislation, defines a remote service as "a service where, at the time of the performance of the service, there is no necessary connection between the physical location of the recipient and the place of physical performance."

IRD's current page on supplying remote services into New Zealand lists the usual examples:

• digital content, such as e-books, movies, TV shows, music and online newspaper subscriptions
• games, apps, software and software maintenance
• online gambling services
• website design or web publishing services
• legal, accounting, insurance or consultancy services

The last line matters for anyone who isn't a software company. A US bookkeeping firm with clients in Auckland is supplying remote services, the same as an app.

Two groups sit outside the ordinary rules. Services that are physically performed in New Zealand are covered by the domestic rules instead. And if you sell through an app store or another electronic marketplace, the bulletin says the operator of the marketplace, "rather than the underlying supplier," may be the one that registers and returns the GST. Selling through your own website with Stripe as the payment processor doesn't make Stripe the marketplace. The obligation stays with you.

The NZ$60,000 threshold, and the forward-looking half

IRD says you must register for and charge GST when your total supplies of goods and services to New Zealand customers either:

• "were more that $60,000 in the last 12 months," (IRD's typo, not ours) or
• "are expected to be more than $60,000 in the next 12 months."

Three details decide how close you are.

It is backward and forward. Most sellers watch the trailing 12 months. IRD's second test is a forecast: if your current run rate will cross NZ$60,000 over the next year, you are already required to register. A company signing up 30 New Zealand subscribers a month on a 20 USD plan can be inside the line on its trailing number and over it on the forward one.

It counts goods and services together. The test is your "total supplies of goods and services to New Zealand customers." If you sell a digital subscription and also ship low-value physical goods, both go into the same NZ$60,000.

Business sales don't count. IRD says you don't need to register "if you only provide remote services to New Zealand businesses that are already GST registered, and the services are for their business use." Stripe's New Zealand entry agrees that "sales to New Zealand GST-registered businesses that are subject to reverse charge don't count towards the threshold."

Converting to New Zealand dollars. If you price in US dollars, the bulletin says non-resident suppliers "are able to use a fair and reasonable method of converting foreign currency amounts to New Zealand currency to determine whether the registration threshold has been exceeded." Pick a method, write it down, and use it each time you test.

What Stripe's monitor tracks

Stripe's New Zealand tax page lists the threshold as "60,000 NZD in previous or current year" and says its threshold monitoring includes "any taxable transaction." Its fuller description matches IRD's two-sided test: remote sellers "must register if their taxable turnover from these transactions exceeded 60,000 NZD within the past 12-month period or will exceed this amount in the next 12 months."

A monitor can only count sales that already happened. It can't forecast your next 12 months, and it can't see New Zealand sales you take outside Stripe. Treat the alert as an early warning and run the forward test yourself. Our post on what Stripe's registration threshold monitor counts covers the other places a monitor and an authority can disagree.

When a customer is "in New Zealand": two pieces of evidence

New Zealand taxes remote services supplied to New Zealand residents, and it tells you how to decide who is resident. IRD says: "You need 2 non-conflicting pieces of evidence showing your customers are New Zealand residents." The evidence it accepts:

• the billing address
• the IP address or another geolocation method
• bank details or the bank's billing address
• the mobile country code on the customer's SIM card
• the location of the customer's fixed landline
• any other commercially relevant information

The bulletin adds a tie-break. If you hold two sets of evidence that point to different countries, you're "required to choose the more reliable set of evidence." Its example is an app store customer who buys while on holiday in the United States. His card and billing history say New Zealand, and his SIM and IP say the US. The app store's rules give priority to card information and transaction history, so it charges New Zealand GST.

Stripe Tax works differently. Its customer location documentation says it "uses a single address as your customer's location when calculating tax." Checkout and Payment Links use the address collected in the session. For invoices and subscriptions, Stripe uses the shipping address, then the billing address, then the billing details of the payment method, then the IP address.

That single address is usually one of IRD's pieces of evidence. It isn't two. Stripe already holds a second piece for most card payments (the card's issuing country, and often an IP address), so keep that data and check it against the address Stripe used. When they conflict, the bulletin expects you to choose the more reliable set, and Stripe's calculation won't do that for you.

Business customers: the GST number, the NZBN, and the gap between them

New Zealand handles business customers by taking them out of scope. The bulletin says remote services supplied to GST-registered businesses "will be treated as being supplied outside New Zealand, unless the supplier chooses to treat the supply as being made in New Zealand," in which case the supply is zero-rated. IRD's current GST guide IR546 (March 2026) puts it plainly: non-resident businesses "are not required to charge and return GST on remote services, including online services, supplied to New Zealand GST-registered businesses. They are also not required to provide taxable supply information."

The business then handles its own side. IR546 says a registered business that uses the service partly for something other than its taxable activity, below 95%, accounts for GST on that share itself, through what IRD calls a reverse charge. That is the customer's calculation, not yours.

How you know a customer is a business

IRD's rule is a presumption with three ways out. "You should treat your New Zealand resident customers as not registered for GST unless 1 of the following applies, they:

• state they are GST-registered
• provide their GST registration number or a New Zealand business number."

You don't have to check the number with IRD. The bulletin's version of the rule is the same, and it adds that it "may not be practical for all suppliers to ask for evidence that a customer is GST-registered," so the Commissioner can agree an alternative method based on factors like the nature or value of the supply. The risk of a false statement sits with the customer: the bulletin says a person who deliberately misrepresents themselves as a registered business to avoid GST commits a "knowledge offence," with fines of up to NZ$25,000 for a first offence.

That is a real difference from Egypt, where the Egyptian Tax Authority expects you to verify each business customer's number before you treat the sale as reverse charged. Our Egyptian VAT guide covers that regime, and the Kenyan VAT guide covers one where most business customers are still charged.

What Stripe does with each number

Stripe's tax ID list has two New Zealand types, and they behave differently:

Stripe type	What it is	Example	Impact in tax calculation
nz_gst	New Zealand GST number	123456789	Yes
nz_bn	New Zealand Business Number	1234567890123	No

"Yes" carries Stripe's footnote: "Stripe Tax won't apply tax if this tax ID is provided, in line with the relevant laws." Stripe's New Zealand page says the same thing in New Zealand terms: "No tax is charged on sales to business customers who provide their GST number." Stripe's zero tax documentation says it "automatically applies the reverse charge based on the presence of a tax ID," so expect those sales to carry a taxability reason of reverse_charge in your exports. Check one in your own export before relying on it.

An nz_bn has no effect. A business that gives you only its NZBN gets charged 15%, even though IRD would let you treat it as registered.

Stripe Checkout narrows the gap from the other side. Its tax ID collection lists nz_gst for New Zealand and not nz_bn, so a business buying through Checkout can only enter its GST number. The NZBN case comes from invoices and customers you set up yourself, through the Dashboard or the API.

Stripe doesn't validate either number with IRD. It names three types it checks against a government system (Australian ABNs, EU VAT numbers and UK VAT numbers) and says Stripe Tax "applies the reverse charge or zero rate according to applicable laws when the tax ID has the required number format, regardless of the government verification result." In New Zealand that lines up with the law better than it does in most places, because IRD lets you rely on the customer's number too.

What to do about it:

1. For a business customer you set up by hand, ask for its GST number and store it as nz_gst. An NZBN identifies a business, while a GST number identifies a GST registration, so the GST number is the better record anyway.
2. If a business only has an NZBN and says it is GST-registered, IRD's rule lets you treat it as a business. Stripe won't do that from an nz_bn, so decide with your adviser how to record it, for example by setting the customer's tax status to reverse charge, which Stripe's zero tax documentation says you can do in the API or the Dashboard.

Our guide to customer tax IDs in Stripe and QuickBooks covers how those IDs are stored and where they print.

When a registered business was charged GST anyway

The bulletin covers this case. "When a GST-registered recipient is inadvertently charged GST, they will have to seek a refund from the non-resident supplier, and the non-resident supplier may make a GST adjustment in their GST return when it is apparent that a mistake has been made."

There is a cheaper option for small sales. If the payment, including GST, is NZ$1,000 or less, the supplier can instead "provide a tax invoice to the purchaser to allow them to claim a deduction, rather than to refund the GST charged and make the necessary adjustment." The bulletin says it must be a full tax invoice, even under NZ$50. The bulletin dates from 2016 and speaks of tax invoices. IRD's current guide uses the term "taxable supply information," so ask your adviser what the document needs to contain today.

Zero-rating business sales on purpose

The default for business sales is "outside New Zealand," which keeps them off your return. The bulletin says you can choose to zero-rate them instead, and IR546 explains why you might: a non-resident business can treat the supply as zero-rated "to claim back New Zealand GST on the costs incurred in making zero-rated supplies to GST-registered businesses." That only matters if you have New Zealand costs carrying GST. Most foreign software sellers don't.

Registering with IRD

IRD's registration page covers remote services, low-value goods and listed services together. You register in myIR: under "I want to...", choose "Register for GST as an overseas business" and follow the prompts. You can also email form IR994 instead. You need:

• a myIR account for the business, and an IRD number (IRD says that if you don't have one, "you need to make one to be able to register for GST")
• your taxpayer identification number from your country of residence
• your customer registration information and GST application details

IRD issues a GST number, and "your GST account will show in myIR once we have confirmed your registration."

A sales-only registration. IRD's page for overseas businesses says this registration "means it will generally only account for GST on its sales in its GST returns." The bulletin describes the two versions: a simplified "pay-only" return for suppliers that only return GST, and a full return for suppliers that also claim GST on New Zealand costs, who "may be asked to provide further information about their business during the registration process." IRD's remote services page says: "If you expect to have expenses in New Zealand, please contact us before registering." The same applies "if your New Zealand business customers want you to be GST registered."

No local representative. IRD's remote services guidance doesn't ask for a New Zealand agent or tax representative. Compare South Africa, which does: see our South African VAT guide.

Once IRD confirms the registration, add New Zealand in Stripe's tax Locations with the effective date so Stripe starts collecting. Remote services don't need the cross-border goods option that low-value goods do. That setting only changes how Stripe treats physical goods shipped in from abroad.

Your own GST number belongs on your Stripe invoices too. That is a separate setting from the registration in Stripe Tax: our guide to your account tax ID on Stripe invoices explains where it lives.

The 15% rate and the quarterly return

The rate. New Zealand GST is 15%. On a 20 USD plan priced tax-exclusive, that's 3.00 USD. If you price tax-inclusive, the GST inside the price is 3/23 of it (15/115), so a 23 USD inclusive price carries 3.00 USD of GST. Our explainer on Stripe tax behavior covers how inclusive and exclusive pricing is set.

Quarterly, on fixed dates. IRD says "You'll need to file GST returns quarterly." The bulletin sets the quarters as ending on 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March. IRD's paying GST page says payment "is due on the same day as your GST return," which "is the 28th of the month after the end of your taxable period," except that a period ending 31 March is due 7 May. For a remote services seller that gives four dates a year:

Quarter ends	Return and payment due
30 June	28 July
30 September	28 October
31 December	28 January
31 March	7 May

IRD's registration page says you file and pay in myIR, and can "set up a direct debit or use other payment options." If you later start supplying goods or services in New Zealand under the ordinary rules, IRD says you'll need to move to monthly, 2-monthly or 6-monthly filing.

Pick a conversion rate once, and live with it for two years

The return is in New Zealand dollars. The bulletin gives four choices for converting foreign-currency sales into New Zealand dollars when working out the GST to return:

• the rate at the time of supply
• the rate at the end of each taxable period
• the rate at the time you file the return (or the due date, if you file late)
• another time agreed with the Commissioner

Then the catch: "Once the supplier elects in their return to use an option they may not change their method for a period of 24 months, unless they agree otherwise with the Commissioner."

Stripe's choice is already made. Its tax reports documentation says that when the price currency differs from the filing currency, "Stripe Tax converts amounts using available exchange rates at the time of the transaction." If you elect time of supply, the New Zealand dollar columns in Stripe's export are built on the same timing as your return. If you elect end of period or filing date, you'll recompute every line yourself, every quarter, for at least two years. Our explainer on the Stripe Tax filing currency covers how the filing_currency and filing_exchange_rate columns relate. Ask your adviser whether Stripe's rate source is an acceptable time-of-supply rate before you make the election, because the election is the thing that's hard to undo.

How New Zealand GST from Stripe reaches QuickBooks

For a US QuickBooks company, the workable Acodei tax method is usually the Tax Product. QuickBooks' Sales Tax Center doesn't let third parties create official tax rates for US companies, so the tax goes to a product line instead:

1. In QuickBooks, create a non-inventory product such as "Sales Tax" and map it to a liability account.
2. In Acodei's Stripe Tax settings, choose Tax Product and select that product.
3. Each synced sale gets one line for its total Stripe Tax amount on the QuickBooks invoice or sales receipt.

It requires Stripe Tax enabled with Stripe Invoice or Stripe Checkout. You then file from Stripe's tax reports and pay from the liability account. A company whose QuickBooks file is outside the US can instead map each Stripe tax rate to a QuickBooks tax code.

On a 20 USD consumer invoice, that's 20 USD of revenue and a 3.00 USD tax line in the liability account. A 99 USD invoice to a business with an nz_gst on file carries no Stripe Tax, so it adds 99 USD of revenue and nothing to the liability.

Building the return from Stripe, not from the liability balance

The liability account holds all of your Stripe Tax, in dollars, from every jurisdiction, on every jurisdiction's calendar. The New Zealand return wants New Zealand only, for one quarter, in New Zealand dollars. Build it from Stripe's itemized tax export for the quarter, filtered to New Zealand:

• Taxed rows. Sales to consumers at 15%. These are your supplies to New Zealand residents and the GST on them. Use the filing-currency columns if you elected time of supply.
• Zero-tax business rows. Sales to customers with an nz_gst. Under the default treatment these are supplied outside New Zealand and don't go on your return. The customer_tax_id column lists the number behind each one.
• Taxed rows with an nz_bn. Business customers Stripe charged because it doesn't act on an NZBN. Decide each one using the options above: refund and adjust, or, for payments of NZ$1,000 or less, give the customer the document they need to claim the GST.

Paying it. A US company carries the liability in dollars but owes IRD New Zealand dollars. When you pay a quarter, clear the liability account by the dollars you carried for that quarter's New Zealand sales, and post the difference between that and what the payment actually cost to an exchange gain or loss account, not back to tax. Our guide to why the Stripe tax report and QuickBooks don't match covers the other usual gaps.

Refunds. In QuickBooks, a refund issued without a line-level breakdown may not reduce the tax line. Refund New Zealand invoices through a credit note when you can, which gives the sync the line-level tax breakdown it needs.

A worked quarter: July to September

Back to the company from the top. It crossed NZ$60,000 on its trailing 12 months, registered with IRD as a sales-only supplier, added New Zealand in Stripe, and prices in US dollars, tax-exclusive. On its first return it elected time-of-supply conversion, so it can file from Stripe's filing-currency columns. For simplicity, the example uses one illustrative rate of 0.58 USD per NZD for the whole quarter. Real rates move day to day, and Stripe's export carries each transaction's own.

One quarter of New Zealand sales:

Customer	Count	Sales (USD)	GST charged by Stripe (USD)	On the return?
Individuals, 20 USD plan, 3 months	400	24,000.00	3,600.00	Yes
Businesses with an nz_gst on file, 99 USD plan, 3 months	30	8,910.00	0.00	No, supplied outside New Zealand
Businesses set up with only an nz_bn, 99 USD plan, 3 months	5	1,485.00	222.75	Yes, until refunded
Total		34,395.00	3,822.75

What Stripe collected. 3,822.75 USD of GST, all of it in the QuickBooks liability account through the Tax Product line.

What happens to the five NZBN customers. Each confirms it is GST-registered and gives its GST number. The company adds each as an nz_gst so future invoices carry no GST. For the 15 invoices already issued (99 USD plus 14.85 USD GST, about NZ$196 each), it takes the bulletin's low-value option: it gives each customer the document it needs to claim the GST back, rather than refunding and adjusting. That keeps the 222.75 USD on this return.

The return, in New Zealand dollars. Supplies to New Zealand residents: 25,485 USD, which is NZ$43,939.66 at 0.58. GST: 3,822.75 USD, which is NZ$6,590.95. The 30 businesses with a GST number don't appear. Due 28 October, paid the same day in myIR.

The books. The company pays NZ$6,590.95. Its bank charges, say, 3,850.00 USD for the transfer at the day's rate. It debits the liability account 3,822.75 USD, which clears what Stripe collected for the quarter, and posts the 27.25 USD difference to its exchange gain or loss account. If the dollar had strengthened instead, the difference would have been a gain.

What would have gone wrong without the election. Had it elected end-of-period conversion, every line in that table would need the 30 September rate instead of Stripe's per-transaction rate, and the company would be rebuilding Stripe's filing columns in a spreadsheet for at least eight quarters.

Common mistakes with Stripe and New Zealand GST

• Watching only the trailing 12 months. IRD's test also asks whether you expect to pass NZ$60,000 in the next 12. Stripe's monitor can't forecast.
• Keeping goods and services in separate buckets. The threshold counts total supplies of goods and services to New Zealand customers.
• Treating one address as proof of residence. IRD wants two non-conflicting pieces of evidence. Stripe uses one address, so keep the card country and IP data.
• Storing an NZBN and expecting no GST. Stripe acts on nz_gst only. An nz_bn has no effect on the calculation.
• Charging GST to a registered business and leaving it. The bulletin expects a refund and an adjustment, or, under NZ$1,000, a document the customer can claim from.
• Choosing a conversion method casually. It holds for 24 months. Time of supply is the one that matches Stripe's export.
• Turning on the cross-border goods option for software. That setting is for physical goods. Remote services need the registration only.

Frequently asked questions

Do foreign digital sellers have to register for GST in New Zealand?

Yes, once total supplies of goods and services to New Zealand customers were more than NZ$60,000 in the last 12 months or are expected to be more than NZ$60,000 in the next 12 months. Sales to GST-registered New Zealand businesses don't count. Stripe tracks the same NZ$60,000 threshold, but it can only count past sales, not forecast the next 12 months.

Do I charge New Zealand GST to business customers?

No, if the customer is GST-registered and buys for business use. IRD says to treat New Zealand customers as consumers unless they state they are GST-registered or give a GST number or New Zealand Business Number. Those supplies are treated as made outside New Zealand and stay off your return. You can choose to zero-rate them instead if you want to claim New Zealand GST on your costs.

Does Stripe Tax charge GST when a New Zealand customer has a tax ID?

It depends on the type. Stripe charges no GST when the customer has an nz_gst (New Zealand GST number) in the right format. An nz_bn (New Zealand Business Number) has no effect, so Stripe charges 15%, even though IRD lets you rely on an NZBN. Stripe Checkout collects only the GST number for New Zealand. Stripe doesn't verify either with IRD, and IRD doesn't require you to.

When is the New Zealand GST return due for a remote services seller?

Quarterly. Quarters end 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March. The return and payment are due on the 28th of the following month, except the quarter ending 31 March, which is due 7 May. You file and pay in myIR.

Where does New Zealand GST go in QuickBooks?

With Acodei's Tax Product method, each synced Stripe sale carries its Stripe Tax amount as one line on a non-inventory product mapped to a liability account. A 20 USD New Zealand consumer invoice becomes 20 USD of revenue and 3.00 USD of tax liability. Business sales with a GST number add revenue but no tax. You build the quarterly return from Stripe's itemized export filtered to New Zealand, then pay from the liability account and post any currency difference to exchange gain or loss.

Acodei syncs Stripe Tax into QuickBooks automatically, so every New Zealand return starts from a liability account that already holds what you collected. Start a free trial.