Selling online from New Zealand
The parts nobody writes about because they are not exciting: what your invoice has to say, what a zero-rated export needs behind it, and what actually happens between a click and your bank account.
Your GST return is due 28 August. Here is the ten-minute version.
The June–July period closed on 31 July and the return is due 28 August. The three sales-side numbers, where they come from, the two exceptions to the 28th rule, and what gocushy shows and emails before each period closes.
Do I charge GST if I am not registered? No — and charging it anyway is the worse mistake
Unregistered sellers must not charge GST: the money is not a tax, no valid tax invoice can sit behind it, and the buyer cannot claim it back. What clean unregistered pricing looks like, when voluntary registration is worth the filing, and how the checkout behaves in both states.
GST on sales to Australia: zero-rated from your side, with two pieces of proof
Sales to Australian buyers go on your NZ GST return at 0%, provided you can show the buyer is overseas — the checkout stores the buyer-stated country and device IP on every order. Australia's own 10% GST and AU$75,000 remote-seller threshold are a separate, Australian question for your accountant.
Selling digital downloads in New Zealand: the NZ$29 worked example
One NZ$29 template pack followed the whole way through: unregistered it sells at NZ$29 flat, registered the invoice reads NZ$25.22 plus NZ$3.78 GST, the buyer gets the access link on the receipt the moment payment lands, and a NZ$12 order bump adds one tick and one invoice line.
Membership payments in New Zealand: every rebill is a sale, and every sale needs its invoice
A membership saves the card once, but every billing cycle is a new sale: a new charge, a new sequentially numbered tax invoice with the GST split out, and dunning with reminders and retries when a card fails. Worked example at NZ$49/month.
How tradies sell training online: the NZ$1,200 course, invoiced properly
Trade coaches sell to GST-registered businesses who claim the GST back, so the tax invoice is what closes the sale properly. The NZ$1,200 worked example, the over-NZ$1,000 buyer-details tier, and a NZ$180 template-pack order bump.
How to sell an online course in New Zealand
Where the course lives and how the money is taxed are two separate decisions. A NZ$497 worked example: 15% GST for the Hamilton buyer, zero-rated for the Sydney one, and what changes at the NZ$60,000 threshold.
A ThriveCart alternative for New Zealand sellers
ThriveCart now bills monthly in US dollars, and its GST calculation is genuinely good — the gap is everything after the calculation. What a low-risk, run-both-side-by-side comparison looks like for a New Zealand seller.
The NZ$60,000 question: when do you register for GST?
The GST registration test reads any rolling 12 months of revenue, not the tax year — and it looks forward as well as back. What crossing NZ$60,000 changes, and why charging GST while unregistered is the worse mistake.
'Tax invoices' were replaced in 2023. Here is what your receipts must say now.
Since April 2023, NZ GST law asks for taxable supply information, not a document called a tax invoice — a set of details that scales with the sale. The three tiers, what changes at NZ$200 and NZ$1,000, and why a NZ$1,800 sale must carry the buyer's name plus one identifier.
Merchant of record, or your own account: who is the seller?
Gumroad, Paddle and Lemon Squeezy sell your product in their own name for 5 to 13 percent; selling on your own account keeps the invoice, the buyer and the money yours. What the fee actually buys, what it does not, and the arithmetic on NZ$100,000 a year that usually decides it.
Selling coaching packages online in New Zealand, with the invoice done right
A NZ$1,800 package crosses the NZ$1,000 line where taxable supply information must identify the buyer — details a checkout already captures at the moment of sale. Also covers zero-rating overseas clients, monthly retainers, and a strategy-session order bump.
Do I charge GST to overseas clients?
The most-asked GST question in New Zealand, answered from Inland Revenue’s own page — including the sentence that most summaries quietly rewrite into something stricter than the rule actually is.
“No GST” or “Zero-rated”?
Two tax codes that both charge nothing, and only one keeps your input credits. It is the single most common expensive mistake in New Zealand bookkeeping for anyone selling offshore.
What Stripe actually records about where your buyer was
A field-by-field read of what a Stripe charge actually holds. The evidence for a zero-rated export is not missing exactly — it is somewhere you cannot get to from your accounts.
Zero-rating is easy. Proving it is the hard part.
Selling a course to someone in Sydney is a zero-rated export. Showing that it was, two years later, depends on evidence that existed for about four seconds during checkout — and most carts never kept it.
What makes a tax invoice a tax invoice
Your buyer asks for an invoice and you send a receipt. They are not the same document, and if your buyer is GST registered the difference decides whether they can claim anything back.
Why we ship international selling switched off
Every other checkout turns everything on and calls it flexibility. We think a setting that quietly changes your tax treatment should be a decision, not a default.
Getting paid in New Zealand dollars
Quoting in US dollars costs you three separate things, and only one of them is the exchange rate. The other two are quieter and you pay them on every sale.
Who is holding your money right now
Between the card being charged and the money reaching your bank, it sits in somebody's balance. Which one is invisible from the checkout page and matters enormously on one particular day.