Māori businesses in New Zealand

Geographic units belonging to economically significant enterprises; economically significant enterprises are generally defined as enterprises with GST turnover greater than $30,000 per year.
Māori authorities are geographic units belonging to economically significant enterprises, identified as Māori by the Business Register.
South Island comprises the West Coast, Canterbury, Otago, Southland, Tasman, Nelson, and Marlborough regions.

Note: Due to rounding, figures may not sum to the stated total(s).

A Māori business is a business that is owned by a person or people who have Māori whakapapa, and a representative of that business identifies the business as Māori.

Māori authorities are economically significant businesses involved in the collective management of assets held by Māori.
‘Other Māori enterprises’ in this release refers to Māori businesses that are economically significant and are not Māori authorities.

Maori tourism business information presented in this dataset comes primary from member list of New Zealand Māori Tourism and was expanded on by adding any other Māori authority or business where those enterprises, or a business location belonging to those enterprises, was engaged in a selected range of ANZIC06 industry:
• all of division accommodation and food services
• interurban and rural bus transport
• rail passenger transport
• water passenger transport
• scenic and sightseeing transport
• motor vehicle and transport equipment rental and hiring
• travel agency services
• all of division arts and recreation services.

Not all units in the Māori business population can be matched to the data from the various sources used for Tatauranga Umanga Māori. Each dataset has a specific population scope, such as including only economically significant businesses. Different surveys may exclude specific industries, sectors, or size of business from their population. Therefore, the population of relevant Māori businesses may differ between data sources. Additionally, some units may not have been selected for a specific survey, may have missing data, or were not matched to the dataset.
Stats NZ acknowledges that the coverage of the business population for Tatauranga Umanga Māori needs further improvement. Stats NZ is continuing to work with stakeholders to obtain new and updated Māori business population lists. This will help to ensure that the statistics we produce are representative of the Māori business population.

The number of "other Māori enterprises" identified in this release has significantly increased compared with previous releases, due to the addition of new population sources. Therefore, the data here differs from data published in previous Tatauranga umanga Māori releases.

At URL provided, select 'Tatauranga umanga Māori – Statistics on Māori businesses: 2024 (English) – CSV' file.

Tatauranga umanga Māori Statistics on Māori businesses presents information on two subsets of Māori businesses that contribute to our country’s economy.

Māori businesses can be identified via:
- self-identification through the Business Operations Survey
- self-identification through the New Zealand Business Number
- IR tax code
- third-party lists (Poutama Trust, New Zealand Māori Tourism)
- publicly available information on post-treaty settlement entities.
Māori authorities are mainly identified via Inland Revenue (IR) tax code information. Some may also be identified via publicly available information. Stats NZ also include data for businesses that are 50 percent or more owned by Māori authorities.
Other Māori enterprises may be identified via membership lists, through self-identification on the New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) register, or through self-identification questions in the annual Stats NZ Business Operations Survey (BOS).
Membership lists were received from Poutama Trust and New Zealand Māori Tourism in 2016, and have not been updated in recent years. Collection of self-identification in the BOS started in 2015 and is limited to businesses covered by and responding to the BOS. Self-identification questions in the NZBN register were added in April 2021.