44 Bowen Street
Private Bag 6995
Wellington 6141
New Zealand
T 64 4 894 5400
F 64 4 894 6100
www.nzta.govt.nz
6 March 2025
E. Burgueno
[FYI request #30095 email]
REF: OIA-17624
Dear E. Burgueno
Request made under the Official Information Act 1982
Thank you for your email
of 14 February 2025 requesting the following information regarding road user
charges (RUC) licences under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
1. A breakdown of the different items/services/etc that each of these fees supports paying for.
This would ideally be expressed in percentiles, e.g.: "label printing: 3%, postage: 27%" etc.
A table would be nice but not required.
Channel purchased through:
Component
Agent ($)
Industry agent, Direct
Online ($)
Phone/fax
Connect customers,
($)
ERUC provider ($)
Staff costs
0
0
0.08
2.19
Agent fees paid
6.44
0
0
0
POLi or credit card
0
0
4.47
4.47
fees
Label productions and
0
0
0.79
0.79
mailings
Business and
5.48
5.48
5.48
5.48
Corporate overheads
Total (excluding GST)
11.92
5.48
10.82
12.93
Grand total (including
13.71
6.30
12.44
14.88
GST)
2. Total admin fees collected since RUC for EVs have been introduced, tabulated by year
and online vs OTC [over the counter]
.
We have interpreted this part of your request as for total RUC administration fees only and not Motor
Vehicle Licensing and registration administration fees
Information for this part of your request is outlined in the following document:
• Attachment 1 – RUC administration fee data April 2024-February 2025
(spreadsheet).
The following should be noted in relation to Attachment 1:
• It is difficult to split information between internet (online) and over-the-counter transactions.
Transactions involving agents, including our contact centre, have therefore all been included in the
“Over the counter/Agents/Contact Centre” category.
• Information is provided for the period from when RUC on electric vehicles (EVs) went live on 1
April 2024. Given this is a period of 11 months, we have provided monthly figures rather than
yearly.
• Due to the nature of the RUC Admin Other category transactions, a reporting materiality allowance
of $100 per month has been applied to the reporting splits.
• The values given in Attachment 1 are exclusive of GST. When purchasing RUC a GST rate of 15
percent is charged and collected on top of these fees.
You may also be interested in information about the fees and funding review which is available on our
website at:
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/about-us/public-consultation-hub/archived-consultations/regulatory-funding-
and-fees-consultation/
3. Sum of "number of RUC units" purchased per transaction since RUC for EVs have
been introduced (eg: xx transactions purchased 1 unit, yy transactions purchased 5 units,
etc).
On 18 February 2025 you clarified this part of your request as follows:
For the purposes of this question (part 3), please provide information on all RUC units. If
it's possible to discriminate between EV and non-EV RUC units, I would appreciate both
figures; but should this be burdensome, totals for all fleet are fine.
Information for this part of your request is outlined in the following table:
RUC purchases since 1 April 2024 by RUC Units and Motive Power
RUC Units
Motive Power
(1,000 km)
BEV
HEV
ICE
Unpowered
1 Unit
30,040
19,654
726,462
133,254
2 Units
27,680
11,986
533,839
84,833
3 Units
20,674
10,329
364,200
66,365
4 Units
8,835
4,728
118,180
16,185
5 Units
40,785
21,569
552,489
88,291
6 Units
4,864
2,625
49,495
3,858
7 Units
2,621
1,367
32,514
1,443
8 Units
2,152
1,257
26,230
2,482
9 Units
806
619
11,859
636
10 Units
31,668
20,321
396,793
13,676
11 Units
306
176
8,217
525
2
RUC purchases since 1 April 2024 by RUC Units and Motive Power
RUC Units
Motive Power
(1,000 km)
BEV
HEV
ICE
Unpowered
12 Units
867
397
12,136
827
13 Units
373
132
6,809
450
14 Units
215
115
5,100
487
15 Units
1,569
1,255
35,057
1,407
16 Units
117
61
3,392
271
17 Units
62
28
2,821
96
18 Units
79
40
2,789
150
19 Units
65
35
1,922
68
20 Units
2,237
1,587
50,361
1,066
21-25 Units
235
133
10,548
274
26-30 Units
225
160
11,510
156
31-50 Units
192
80
11,078
114
51-100 Units
19
20
7,795
19
>100 Units
0
0
11,433
3
The following caveats should be noted:
•
Data has been extracted from the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) and is current as at 3 March
2025.
•
Data can only be reported on vehicles that have ever been entered into the MVR. Imports for
private off-road use would not be recorded. Data is sourced from RUC licences and from vehicle
attributes.
• Data is limited to RUC licences that have been purchased since 1 April 2024 (when RUC for EVs
was introduced), and to RUC licences that have not been reversed and which were purchased for
a non-zero number of distance units. Data is also limited to registered vehicles that had an active
registration status at the time of RUC purchase.
•
One RUC distance unit equates to a 1000km distance.
•
Motive Power types for which the RUC licences have been purchased are:
-
"BEV" - Battery Electric Vehicles
-
"HEV" - Hybrid Electric Vehicles (plug-in and non-plug-in)
-
"ICE" - Internal Combustion Engine vehicles, powered by petrol, diesel, LPG, CNG or other
fuel types
-
"Unpowered" - Towed vehicles (trailers and caravans).
•
Vehicle types for which the RUC licences have been purchased are:
-
PASSENGER CAR/VAN
-
GOODS VAN/TRUCK/UTILITY
-
BUS
-
MOTOR CARAVAN
-
SPECIAL PURPOSE VEHICLE
3
-
MOBILE MACHINE
-
TRAILER/CARAVAN
-
TRAILER NOT DESIGNED FOR H/WAY USE.
• “Registered” means that a vehicle is registered under Part 17 of the Land Transport Act 1998, and
consequently a vehicle will have plates issued to it.
• “Active” means that the vehicle's registration has not been cancelled and the registration has not
lapsed.
• “Cancelled” means that the vehicle has been manually deregistered.
• “Lapsed” means that the vehicle has not had a valid vehicle licence for 12 months and has been
automatically deregistered.
• Data includes vehicles that may or may not be currently licensed for road use.
• “Licenced” means that the current annual licensing fee for a vehicle has been paid, allowing it to
travel on New Zealand roads. It is commonly referred to as “rego” by the New Zealand public.
• MVR vehicle attributes are free text or user-selection. Mistakes may occur when this type of
information is entered into the MVR (for example, misspellings, wrong selection type).
4. Any official explanation, policy, past, present or future plans, or otherwise information
around the need for
4. a. using printed labels (as opposed to managing RUC licenses digitally)
Section 9 of the Road User Charges Act 2012 requires RUC licences to be purchased before a vehicle
is operated on a road, and section 19 of the Act requires RUC licences to be displayed or carried in
accordance with regulations. The Road User Charges Regulations 2012 sets out the requirements for
display and carriage requirements for vehicles, and clauses 13 to 15 provide for both printed and
electronic display.
Officials have previously considered and consulted on the possibility of removing the requirement to
physically display a RUC licence. The most recent engagement was undertaken by Ministry of
Transport Te Manatū Waka as part of the 2022 Driving Change consultation, and proposal 3.9 of the
document is available on its website at:
https://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/RUCDD-2022.pdf
Following that consultation, no decisions were made by Cabinet to change requirements to display a
RUC licence. Any change to transport legislation is a decision for both Minister of Transport and
Cabinet.
4. b. charging a flat fee regardless of number of RUC units purchased per transaction I
am particularly interested in any cost-benefit analysis that may have been done for
different alternatives around these options.
At present, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) does not have the technology to enable
variable charges to the payee at point of sale. NZTA charges an average flat rate administration fee on
4
each transaction, irrespective of the transaction amount, which has enabled NZTA to provide
customers with the certainty of transaction value from the outset.
NZTA looks across evolving payment solutions to maintain reasonable costs for our customers.
In line with NZTA policy, this response will soon be published on our website, with personal
information removed.
If you would like to discuss this reply with NZTA, please contact us by email to
[NZTA request email].
Yours sincerely
Chris Rodley
National Manager, Regulatory System Design
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