Pocket money for a 5 year old in New Zealand
Five is where a pocket wage starts, and the rate is deliberately small: the point is the habit, not the money.
A 5 year old in New Zealand earns
$5.99an hour
About $8.99 a week if they do 1½ hours of paid jobs. That's 25% of the minimum wage in New Zealand.
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 5 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.
A five year old can do real work if the job is short and the finish line is obvious. Put the shoes in the rack. Carry the cutlery to the table. Feed the cat, with someone watching the scoop. Each job takes five minutes at most and pays a few cents, and that is exactly right. The lesson at five is that work has an end, and the end is when you get paid.
Do not start with a chart of ten jobs. Start with two, do them at the same time every day, and hand over the money on payday in coins they can hold. A five year old understands three coins in a jar far better than a number on a screen.
The payslip at 5
One line: jobs done, and what they paid. No deductions yet. The whole point is that the number on the payslip is the number in their hand.
The Jobs Board at age 5, $5.99 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Put the shoes in the rack | 5 min | $0.50 |
| Carry the cutlery to the table | 5 min | $0.50 |
| Feed the cat | 5 min | $0.50 |
| Put the toys back in the box | 10 min | $1.00 |
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 5 year olds.
Is five too young to pay for jobs?
Not if the jobs are five minutes long and the pay arrives the same week. What is too young is a weekly amount that shows up whether or not anything happened, because that teaches the opposite lesson.
How many jobs a week should a five year old do?
About an hour and a half of paid work spread over the week, which is two or three short jobs a day. Family Duties, like clearing their own plate, are on top of that and unpaid.
Should I pay in cash?
Yes, at five. Coins in a jar make the maths visible. The app keeps the ledger, and you hand over the physical money on payday.
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.