Holidays Act Payroll for NZ Civil Contractors: A Plain-English Guide

The Holidays Act 2003 has caught out some of New Zealand's biggest employers — remediation bills in the tens of millions. For a civil contractor with variable hours, weekend work and wet-weather days, the risk is real. Here's the plain-English version of what you must get right.

Working a public holiday: the two-part rule

• Pay at least time-and-a-half for the hours actually worked on the public holiday.
• If the day was an 'otherwise working day' for that employee, they also get a full paid alternative day (day in lieu).

What is an 'otherwise working day'?

It's whether the employee would normally have worked that day if it weren't a holiday. For crews with regular Monday–Friday patterns it's easy. For casual and variable rosters you look at the work pattern over the recent weeks — this is where paper records fall apart and digital timesheets save you.

Not working the public holiday

If it's an otherwise working day and the employee doesn't work, they're paid their relevant daily pay or average daily pay for the day — not just left unpaid.

The traps that catch construction firms

• Averaging pay over the wrong period when hours vary week to week
• Missing alternative days for workers on rotating or weekend rosters
• Regular overtime and allowances excluded from holiday pay calculations
• No records proving which days were 'otherwise working days'

How software keeps you clean

Accurate, timestamped, per-day records are the foundation of Holidays Act compliance. Fieldlink's pay run takes the crew's actual recorded hours, applies time-and-a-half and flags alternative days for public holidays, then exports the result to Xero or MYOB — with the audit trail attached.

MBIE's own guidance says most Holidays Act failures trace back to poor records, not bad intent.

This guide is general information, not legal advice — for edge cases talk to your payroll provider or employment lawyer.