Local Government - Local authority income and expenditure 1993–2025

Local government: New Zealand has a system of local government administered by local authorities. Local authorities comprise city councils, district councils, regional councils, and unitary authorities. Unitary authorities are city and district councils that also perform the functions of a regional council. Local authorities all have elected boards called councils.
Local government funding: Councils are free to set their expenditure priorities and overall levels of expenditure. They receive income from many sources including rates, sales, and grants. Local government in New Zealand is not involved in the funding, administration, or management of education, social welfare, police, traffic control and enforcement, or urban fire services.

INCOME FROM CURRENT OPERATIONS:
- Rates:
Include all forms of rates such as uniform annual general charges, water rates, and targeted rates. Rates collected on behalf of other local authorities (such as regional councils) are not included. Water sold by meter is included in sales and other operating income.
- Regulatory income and petrol tax:
Include fees, consents, fines, penalties (including rates penalties), and local and regional council petrol taxes.
- Current grants, subsidies, and donations income:
Include those from central government (such as roading and transport grants from NZTA) as well as those from all other sources for operational (current) use.
- Interest income:
Includes interest earned from interest bearing deposits, short and long-term investments, loans, and all other interest bearing investments.
- Dividend income:
Arises from council ownership of equity in CCO and other entities, and includes councils’ share of profits or losses from associates.
- Sales and other operating income:
Include income from admission charges, water sold by meter, rental income from properties, rubbish bag sales, and other miscellaneous operating income. Internal transfers and charges (such as overheads) are excluded.

EXPENDITURE ON CURRENT OPERATIONS:
- Employee costs:
Gross earnings of all paid employees in the authority. Overtime, sick and holiday pay, severance and redundancy payments, levies paid to the Accident Compensation Corporation, and employer contributions to superannuation schemes are all included.
- Depreciation and amortisation:
Depreciation on fixed assets includes depreciation on infrastructural assets, restricted assets, buildings, vehicles, other plant, machinery and office equipment, and all other types of fixed assets. Amortisation is charged on intangible assets, the most significant being computer software.
- Current grants, subsidies, and donations expenditure:
Include those that local authorities give to others for operational (current) use.
- Interest expenditure:
Includes interest on all loans and other interest bearing liabilities raised by councils.
- Purchases and other operating expenditure:
Include payments for expert advice and services (such as consultants, legal, and other experts), business and property insurance premium payments, rent, fuel, postage, repairs and maintenance, contracts for services, fringe benefit tax, and other purchases of goods and services.

INCOME FROM NON-OPERATING TRANSACTIONS
- Income from valuation changes:
Includes realised and unrealised gains on the revaluation of financial assets and liabilities (including foreign exchange transactions), and gains on the sale of fixed assets.
- Other non-operating income:
Includes all other non-operating income not included elsewhere.

INCOME FROM CAPITAL TRANSACTIONS
- Capital grants, subsidies, and donations income
- Development and financial contributions:
Development contributions are charges placed on developers for development work (such as subdivisions or buildings) to cover additional infrastructure costs incurred by councils.
Financial contributions are charges imposed to promote sustainable management of natural and physical resources. These contributions may be financial and non-financial (such as land).
- Vested assets:
The transfer of ownership or control of assets by a third party to local authorities. This includes transfer of roads and land from developers, or special purpose (restricted use) transfers such as reserve land.

EXPENDITURE ON NON-OPERATING TRANSACTIONS
- Expenditure on valuation changes, provisions, and write-offs:
Include realised and unrealised losses on the revaluation of financial assets and liabilities (including foreign exchange transactions), losses on the sale of fixed assets, and provisions for doubtful debts, and write-off of bad debts.
- Other non-operating expenditure:
Includes all other non-operating expenditure not included elsewhere.

EXPENDITURE ON CAPITAL TRANSACTIONS
- Capital grants, subsidies, and donations expenditure.

The Local Authority Census for the recent years did not achieve full coverage. Historically, the legal requirements to provide financial data to Stats NZ, and the Local Government Act, have meant that Local Authority Census returns and annual reports have been available for all units.

Before 2009:
- current grants, subsidies, and donations was likely to have included some capital grants.
- other non-operating income was included in income from valuation changes.
- some capital grants, subsidies, and donations were likely to have been included in current grants.
- other non-operating expenditure was included in expenditure on valuation changes, provisions, and write-offs.
- some capital grants, subsidies, and donations expenditure was included in expenditure on valuation changes, provisions, and write-offs.

At URL provided, download 'Local authority financial statistics: Year ended June 2025 – CSV' zip file.

Local authority financial statistics provide information on the annual performance of core non-trading activities of all New Zealand's territorial and regional councils.

Stats NZ collect data on local authorities' finances in the Local Authority Census, a comprehensive and detailed questionnaire. For most local authorities, the requested data will be based on their audited financial accounts, supplemented by information from individual local authority annual reports and subsequent enquiries to councils.
Information collected from New Zealand museums are also included in this release as these data are covered in government finance statistics (local government).