Pocket money for a 16 year old in New Zealand
At sixteen the law sets the rate in most of the countries here. The pocket wage is simply the real junior wage, paid at home.
A 16 year old in New Zealand earns
$19.16an hour
About $95.80 a week if they do 5 hours of paid jobs. That's the real legal minimum for their age. From here the law sets the rate, not us.
Worked out from Employment New Zealand — Minimum wage rates and types, rates from 1 April 2026.
The rate at every age in New Zealand.
Pocket Wage is a straight line, one step every birthday, until it meets the real minimum wage. Here's the whole ladder in New Zealand.
- Pocket wage, paid by you
- Real minimum wage, paid by a boss
At 16, the legal minimum in New Zealand is $19.16 an hour. Pocket Wage draws a straight line from there back to zero, and a kid's age picks the spot on it.
What a 16 year old can do, and what it pays.
Every paid job has a standard time: how long it should take, not how long it did. Dawdle and you earn less a minute. Get good at it and you earn more. There's no timer to game and no price to haggle.
Sixteen year olds can work legally almost everywhere, and the minimum wage that applies to them is the one Pocket Wage uses. That is the whole design: the family rate and the market rate have met, and a first job is a change of employer, not a change of world. Jobs at home are now priced exactly as an employer would price them.
If they have a job outside the house, the Jobs Board keeps going for the jobs they still do at home. If they do not, the pocket wage is a fair, legal-rate wage for real work, and the payslip they have been reading since twelve is the one they will recognise on day one of employment.
The payslip at 16
Identical to a real payslip. If you have been running Pocket Wage since they were small, this is the eleventh pay rise and the five hundredth payday or so. Graduation is next.
The Jobs Board at age 16, $19.16 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Run the whole house for a weekend | 6 hr | $114.96 |
| Full garden maintenance | 2 hr | $38.32 |
| Wash, vacuum and detail the car | 1 hr 30 min | $28.74 |
| Babysit younger siblings for an evening | 3 hr | $57.48 |
Example jobs and times. Family Duties, like clearing your own plate, are unpaid: belonging isn't billable.
How junior wages work in New Zealand.
New Zealand sets its minimum wage every 1 April. There is no youth rate for most workers: from sixteen, a young person on the adult minimum wage is owed the full adult rate, unless they are on the starting-out rate, which is 80% of the adult wage for their first six months.
Pocket Wage anchors on the starting-out rate at sixteen, because that is what a sixteen year old's first job legally pays, and draws a straight line back to zero. From sixteen the site shows the real rates.
There is no general minimum working age in New Zealand, but children under 16 cannot work during school hours and there are safety limits. The minimum wage applies from 16.
Source: Employment New Zealand — Minimum wage rates and types, rates from 1 April 2026.
Questions parents ask about 16 year olds.
Should a sixteen year old still get pocket money?
Not pocket money. A wage for work at home, at the same rate the law says an employer must pay them. Family Duties stay unpaid, as they always were.
What is the minimum wage for a sixteen year old?
The rate on this page, from the official source linked below. It is the legal junior rate for this country, not a Pocket Wage estimate.
What happens when they get a job?
Graduation. The rate at home and the rate at work are the same number, so the first payslip from a boss looks exactly like the one from home. That was the point of every birthday since five.
What is the minimum wage for a 16 year old in New Zealand?
The starting-out rate, 80% of the adult minimum, for the first six months of a job, then the adult rate. Our 16 year old page shows the official figures.
Every birthday is a pay rise.
The app runs the whole thing: the Jobs Board, the standard times, a sacred weekly payday with a payslip, and Pay-Rise Day on every birthday. No cards, no stored money. The parent is the bank.