Calculators

ACC weekly compensation, with the floor and the ceiling both shown

Estimate what ACC pays while an injury stops someone working.

"80% of your earnings" is the headline and it is incomplete three ways.

  • The FIRST WEEK is the employer's cost, not ACC's. ACC starts from the second week. People routinely budget as though payments start on day one, and first_week_paid_by says who actually pays it.
  • There is a CEILING. Compensation cannot exceed 80% of the maximum liable earnings, the same ceiling the earner levy stops at. A high earner is capped well below 80% of what they were making.
  • There is a FLOOR, but only for full-time earners, meaning 30 hours a week or more. It is 80% of the adult minimum wage for a 40 hour week. A part-timer on low earnings is NOT lifted to it, which is the part most often assumed the other way round.

Both bounds are derived from the rate register rather than typed, so they move on 1 April with the levy ceiling and the minimum wage. minimum_applied and maximum_applied say whether either actually bound this answer, and ceiling_source and floor_source carry the provenance.

The short-term basis uses the four weeks before the injury and applies for the first four weeks. After that ACC moves to a 52 week basis, which matters a great deal for anyone with irregular earnings.

post/v1/acc-weekly-compensation

Request

  • Base URL: https://api.calculate.co.nz
  • URL: https://api.calculate.co.nz/v1/acc-weekly-compensation
  • Auth: API key in header X-API-Key

Request body

weekly_earningsnumber required

Gross weekly earnings before the injury.

hours_per_weeknumber

Hours normally worked. 30 or more qualifies for the full-time minimum.

basis'short_term' | 'long_term'

'short_term' for the first four weeks, on the four weeks before the injury. 'long_term' after that, on 52 weeks.

Example request

{
  "basis": "short_term",
  "hours_per_week": 40,
  "weekly_earnings": 1400
}

Response

What ACC pays each week, and which bound applied.

disclaimerstring required

Scope and limits of this estimate.

Example response

{
  "disclaimer": "An estimate on the published ACC settings. The first week is the employer's liability, not ACC's, and entitlement depends on cover being accepted and on an assessed incapacity. Not a decision on any claim.",
  "result": {
    "basis": "Average earnings over the four weeks before the injury",
    "ceiling_source": {
      "effective_from": "2026-04-01",
      "id": "acc-max-liable-earnings",
      "next_expected_change": "2027-04-01",
      "next_expected_change_basis": "derived from the review cycle",
      "source": "paye-data.php $NZ_ACC_MAX_LIABLE_EARNINGS",
      "value": 156641,
      "verified_on": "2026-08-09"
    },
    "compensation_rate": 0.8,
    "first_week_amount": 1120,
    "first_week_paid_by": "employer",
    "floor_source": {
      "effective_from": "2026-04-01",
      "id": "minimum-wage-adult",
      "next_expected_change": "2027-04-01",
      "next_expected_change_basis": "derived from the review cycle",
      "source": "hardcoded per page",
      "value": 23.95,
      "verified_on": "2026-08-09"
    },
    "inputs": {
      "basis": "short_term",
      "hours_per_week": 40,
      "weekly_earnings": 1400
    },
    "maximum_applied": false,
    "maximum_weekly": 2409.86,
    "minimum_applied": false,
    "minimum_weekly": 766.4,
    "uncapped_weekly": 1120,
    "weekly_compensation": 1120,
    "weekly_earnings_used": 1400
  }
}

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 1 revision of this API.