Real estate commission in New Zealand: how it's worked out, with examples

What a New Zealand real estate agent charges to sell your home, how GST and marketing add up, and where you can pay less.

OpenKey guides · 7 October 2026

Real estate commission in New Zealand is usually quoted as a percentage of the sale price, and recent figures put it at roughly 1.9% to 2.6% depending on the city, before 15% GST and before marketing costs. On a $1 million sale that is about $19,000 to $26,000 plus GST. Each real estate agent sets their own structure, so the only number that counts is the one written in your agency agreement.

How real estate agent commission is worked out

No rule sets what an agent charges. Each agency runs its own business and decides its own fee structure, and one full-fee agency says plainly that real estate companies are all different and will charge differently. Some quote a single percentage of the price. Others use a tier system, such as a higher percentage on the first part of the price and a lower one on the rest, sometimes with a base fee. Ask which one you are being offered, because the shape of the fee changes the total.

Whatever the structure, the arithmetic is the same:

• Work out the commission in dollars at the price you expect to get, adding up each tier if your quote has more than one.
• Add any fixed base fee.
• Add GST at 15% on the total commission.
• Add marketing and other costs that sit outside the commission.

Ask every agent you meet to give you that final figure in dollars at your expected sale price, and at a price $100,000 either side. A percentage on its own tells you very little. Two quotes that look different can land on nearly the same dollar amount, and two quotes that look the same can differ once a base fee or marketing is added.

Commission rates by city in NZ

An industry analysis from a property news platform reports average commission rates by city:

The same analysis puts the average commission per sale at about $18,600 in Wellington, $19,600 in Auckland and $19,800 in Christchurch. The percentage is lower in Wellington, but the dollar gap is smaller than the percentage gap suggests, because the percentage and the price both matter.

So what percentage do most real estate agents charge? On these figures, somewhere between about 2% and 2.6% in the main centres. Treat that as an average, not a quote. Your own agent may charge more or less, and the analysis does not say whether its rates include GST. Confirm that, and check the rate again in 2026 against what agents actually quote you today.

Worked examples at four sale prices

The table below applies three rates from that range to four sale prices: 1.9% (the bottom of the Wellington range), 2.3% (the bottom of the Christchurch range) and 2.6% (the top of the Auckland range). It treats each rate as before GST, then adds 15% GST. Each cell shows the commission before GST, with the total including GST in brackets.

Two things stand out. At $1 million, the gap between the lowest and highest rate here is $7,000 before GST, or $8,050 with it. And a higher price lifts the commission in dollars even when the rate stays the same, which is why a small difference in percentage matters more on a dearer home.

If your agent uses a base fee or a tiered rate, your figure will differ from this table. These numbers show scale. They are not a quote, and your own return from the sale is the price less commission, GST, marketing and every other cost.

NZ GST: the tax is on the commission, not the sale price

A GST-registered agent charges NZ GST at 15% on the commission. Commission is a taxable supply like any other service fee. GST is not charged on the full sale price of your home. Registration becomes compulsory once an agent's turnover passes the $60,000 threshold, so in practice almost every agent you deal with will add GST.

This catches people out when they compare a headline rate with an invoice. A 2.3% commission on $1 million is $23,000 on paper and $26,450 once GST is added.

Marketing and listing costs on top of commission

Marketing is often charged separately. When a seller reimburses an agent's marketing expense, the agent treats the recovery as income, which tells you the cost is commonly passed on to the seller rather than absorbed.

What counts as marketing varies from agency to agency. One lower-commission agency includes photography, website and social media advertising, signage and property flyers in its package, and charges extra only for advertising in traditional print real estate publications. Other agencies set it up differently.

A published SuperGold offer from one West Auckland agent gives a useful list of what can sit outside the commission. Its 10% discount does not apply to administration fees, marketing or advertising expenses, photography, staging, auctioneer fees, legal costs or other third-party expenses. So even when commission is discounted, those items can still appear on your bill.

Before you sign, ask for a written list of every charge outside the commission, with the dollar amount and who decides when it is spent. We found no typical dollar figure for marketing, so there is no benchmark to quote. Your protection is to get the amounts in writing.

Can you claim marketing and listing costs?

For the agent, yes. Photography, signage, online listings, brochures and advertising are deductible business expenses. For you as a home seller, whether any selling cost can be claimed against tax depends on your circumstances, so ask an accountant before you assume anything. Keep every invoice either way.

The agency agreement: what the seller must be given

The Real Estate Agents Act 2008 sets the base requirement in section 126. An agent is not entitled to any commission or expenses unless:

• the work is done under a written agency agreement signed by the client and by the agent
• the agreement complies with any applicable requirements in regulations made under the Act
• a copy signed by the agent is given to the client within 48 hours after the client signed

If the agent misses the 48-hour deadline, a court can still allow commission or expenses to be recovered, but only if it is satisfied the failure was due to inadvertence or another cause beyond the agent's control, the amount is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances, and refusing would be unjust.

The practical point is simple. The commission, and anything else you agree to pay, should be written into that agreement before the listing starts. The Act can be amended, so get legal advice on the current wording and on the regulations about what an agreement must contain before you sign.

Read these parts of the agreement closely:

• the commission rate or dollar amount, and whether GST is included
• any base fee
• the marketing budget and who approves spending
• how long the agreement runs
• whether another agent can sell the home during that time
• how and when you can end it

Ending an agreement early

A reported District Court case shows why the last point matters. A vendor with a six-month agreement on a block of land was told by the Real Estate Agents Authority that a vendor could legally cancel an agency agreement after 90 days if the listing was for residential property. He cancelled and sold through another agent for $750,000. His first agency then demanded $32,142.50 in unpaid commission plus interest and legal fees, arguing the land was rural, so the six-month agreement still applied. The judge said the deal had been handled as residential, but noted that a technicality meant subdivisions were treated as non-residential under the Act. The case settled confidentially, and the vendor said he had already spent around $20,000 on legal fees.

The lesson is not that agents will sue. It is that the cancellation rights you have depend on how your property is classed and what you signed. Get advice from your solicitor before you sign, not after a dispute.

When do you pay commission?

Commission is payable on a successful sale. One agent's published terms describe the discount being applied to the final commission invoice after the property has been successfully sold and the commission becomes payable. The exact trigger is a matter for your agreement, so ask the agent and your solicitor which event makes the commission fall due. That matters most for conditional offers, which can fall over, and for sales that settle weeks after the contract is signed.

Also ask what happens if you sell to a buyer the agent did not find, or sell through another agent after the agreement ends. In the case above, the agent had signed a declaration that no commission would be charged if no sale resulted from the firm's efforts. The dispute still happened, because the firm said the sale did result from its marketing. Wording about who found the buyer, and when, is worth a careful read.

Is real estate commission negotiable in the NZ market?

In practice, yes. Commission is agreed between you and the agent before the property is listed, and the rate moves with the market and the agent.

• The property news platform reports that in Wellington, where buyers are fewer, agents are often cutting their rates upfront to win listings, and some listings are now being negotiated below 1.9%.
• Some agents offer set discounts. The West Auckland SuperGold offer, which started on 17 July 2026, gives 10% off the agreed commission when at least one registered owner presents a valid SuperGold Card before signing. The discount is written into the agreement, GST is calculated on the discounted commission, and it cannot be combined with another discount.

Here is that discount worked through. At a 2.3% rate on a $1,000,000 sale, commission is $23,000 before GST. Ten percent off is $2,300, leaving $20,700. GST of $3,105 brings it to $23,805, against $26,450 with no discount.

Be fair to the other side of the argument. One full-fee agency warns that if an agent discounts immediately just to win your listing, you can ask what else they will cut back on later. If you want to negotiate, make it a conversation about dollars at your expected price, and about what is included, rather than a demand for a lower percentage.

Are discount real estate agents really cheaper?

On the commission line, yes, by definition. A lower-commission agency says it can charge less because it does not need clients to pay for costly overheads, and that it lists on the same channels as other agencies: its own website, the main property listing sites and targeted print.

The full-fee view is that a smaller sale fee gives colleagues less reason to bring their own buyers to your home, because there is less to split, and that a low-fee agent may sell mostly to buyers they already know. Neither claim comes with independent evidence, and both come from agencies with something to sell.

So compare the total bill and the plan, not the rate. Ask each agent about their marketing strategy: how they will reach buyers, what is included, what the commission is in dollars at your price, and what you pay if the sale does not happen.

Choosing an agent: value over cost

Price should be one factor in choosing an agent, not the only one. The full-fee agency makes the case for value over cost. It says it has about 460 consultants in Christchurch, that listings are visible to about 2,500 consultants nationwide, that about 40% of its sales are done by a second consultant, and that its people have trained negotiation skills that help create competition between buyers. Those are the agency's own claims, but they point to useful questions:

• Who will bring buyers to my home, and how many do they have?
• What is the agent's record on homes like mine?
• How does the agent handle multiple offers or an auction?
• Do I trust this person to tell me the truth about price, including when the news is unwelcome?

A seller has a real choice. You can choose a full-fee agency, a lower-commission agency, or run the sale yourself. The right pick depends on your home, your market and how much of the work you want to do.

Alternatives: flat-fee services and selling privately

Besides a full-fee or lower-commission agency, you can sell the home yourself. One full-fee agency notes that selling privately is not common in its market, partly because many people prefer to rely on a network of property and legal professionals. Private sellers take on more of the work: running viewings, handling offers and the negotiation, and instructing a solicitor for the contract.

The cost difference is the point of the exercise. At $1,000,000 and a 2.3% commission, the agent's fee is $26,450 with GST. A flat-fee marketing service replaces that with a fixed cost, but you do the work an agent would otherwise do, so it only suits owners who are comfortable doing it. Some agencies also sell online kits for owners who do the selling themselves, though the page we checked gave no price.

If you go private, a few jobs do not go away:

• Pricing the home realistically.
• Getting a solicitor involved before you accept an offer.
• Keeping records of what you have paid, because they matter at tax time and in any dispute.

What do legal fees for selling a house in New Zealand cost? That depends on the solicitor and the complexity of the sale, and we have no reliable figure to quote. Ask your solicitor for a written quote before you list, whether you use an agent or not.

OpenKey is one flat-fee option: $5,000 plus GST for professional photos, a listing on New Zealand's main property sites and a dashboard for buyers' questions and offers, with half paid when the listing goes live and half when the home sells. It is not an agent, so you run the sale and your solicitor does the contract. You can see how it works on the OpenKey home page or read more private-seller guides.

What to look out for when comparing agents' commission rates

Use this checklist for each quote:

• Rate and base fee. What is the commission in dollars at your price?
• Tiers. Does the rate change at certain price points?
• GST. Is the quote before or after 15% GST?
• Marketing. What is included, what is extra, and what are the amounts?
• Other charges. Administration, photography, staging, auctioneer and legal costs can all sit outside the commission.
• Agreement term. How long does it run, and how can you end it?
• Payment trigger. What event makes commission payable?
• Discounts. Is any discount written into the agreement?

And before you sign anything, have your solicitor read it.

Jargon explained

• Agency agreement: the written contract between you and the agent. Without a signed one, the agent is generally not entitled to commission or expenses.
• Rack rate: the full, standard commission rate before any discount.
• GST: the 15% goods and services tax an agent charges on commission.
• Vendor: the person selling the property, you.
• Base fee: a fixed amount some agents charge on top of a percentage.

This guide covers selling. What a tenant pays an agent, and what a property manager charges, are separate questions about different services, so we have not priced them here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage do most real estate agents charge in New Zealand?

Recent reporting puts average rates at 1.9% to 2.1% in Wellington, 2.4% to 2.6% in Auckland and 2.3% to 2.5% in Christchurch. Agencies set their own rates and structures, so your quote can be higher or lower. Ask whether it includes GST.

Do agents charge GST on the whole sale price?

No. A GST-registered agent charges 15% GST on the commission, not on the price of your home. On a $23,000 commission, GST is $3,450.

Is real estate commission negotiable in New Zealand?

Yes. Commission is agreed with the agent before listing. Wellington agents are reported to be cutting rates to win listings, and some agents offer set discounts. Negotiate on the dollar total and on what is included.

When is an agent entitled to commission?

Only if the work was done under a written agency agreement signed by you and the agent, and the agent gave you a signed copy within 48 hours of your signing, under section 126 of the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. The exact trigger for payment is set in your agreement, so ask your solicitor.

Are marketing costs included in commission?

Sometimes, but often not. Some agencies include photography, online advertising and signage, and charge extra for print. Others charge marketing separately. Get the list and the amounts in writing.