What the international student levy is

The international student levy is a per-student fee the Government charges as a contribution to public services students use while in New Zealand. Any state or state-integrated school or kura that has fee-paying international students pays the levy for those students.

The levy does not apply to overseas students with domestic status, including:

• exchange students
• New Zealand residence visa holders
• New Zealand Aid (NZAID) programme students.

We calculate the international student levy 3 times per year and then deduct it from your operational funding instalments.

What you need to do if you have international students

Under the Education and Training Act 2020, you must inform the Ministry of any fee-paying international students who have attended your school and ensure that this information is correct. This information is used to calculate the international student levy.

Use ENROL directly for students who are:

• attending on their own or part of a family,
• attending for longer than 12 weeks.

Use the RS14G group form in ENROL for students who are:

• attending as part of a group of 2 or more, and
• attending for between 2 and 12 weeks.

Do not use the form for any students already recorded in ENROL.

International Student Levy for Group Students (RS14G)

Dates and deadlines

We calculate the levy 3 times a year around May, August and the end of the school year.

We will email your school’s ENROL contact person each trimester with the deadline to update your data in time for the levy calculation.

The levy calculation is finalised on the deadline date. Refunds will not be provided in cases where the issue is due to your school not making sure ENROL data is correct.

Checking student information in ENROL

You should check that:

• Students are correctly assigned as international fee-paying or domestic students.
• Students are only enrolled for the period they were paying a fee for. For example, if an international student was absent from the school for a period yet still paying fees for that time period, that student should still be recorded as enrolled at your school. Alternatively, if the student has paid in advance for a different time period occurring in the future, do not record them as enrolled until the time period they have paid for occurs.
• The weeks the international student was enrolled at your school is up to date in ENROL and matches your student management system.
• The correct fee amount for the international student is recorded in ENROL.
• Any previous changes made during the trimester to an international fee-paying student’s ENROL details relate to the correct time period. For example, if the amount of fees charged for the student changed on 1 August but the change in ENROL was updated on 20 August, check that the fee change has been historically applied from 1 August rather than from 20 August.

ENROL: the school student enrolment register

Pourato

You can also check what information we have recorded about individual fee-paying students in Pourato.

Pourato – Applications and Online Systems

How the international student levy is calculated and deducted

For each international fee-paying student, the number of enrolled weeks is multiplied by a weekly rate to calculate the levy amount. The calculation excludes holiday dates and is rounded to the nearest week.

There are different rates for primary and secondary schools. These are published in the operational funding rates list.

Operational funding

You can see how much was deducted from your operational funding instalment in Pourato.

Pourato – Applications and Online Systems