If you work for yourself, ACC levies you directly. Inland Revenue passes on the income from your IR3 (or IR7 for a partnership) and ACC sends a CoverPlus invoice, usually around September. You’re on CoverPlus automatically unless you’ve applied for CoverPlus Extra.
Sources: ACC — Understand your CoverPlus invoice (last published 22 September 2025, checked 30 September 2026); ACC Levy Guidebook 2026/27 (checked 30 September 2026); ACC Levy Guidebooks 2022/23 to 2026/27, levy rate tables (cross-checked against the schedules of the Work Account Levies Regulations 2022 and 2025 — 8,055 figures, no differences, checked 25 September 2026); ACC — Cover for self-employed (last published 14 March 2024, checked 30 September 2026)
ACC treats you as full-time if you work on average more than 30 hours a week over the tax year, counting all your work. Full-time and earning less than $50,501 (2026/27), you’re levied on $50,501 less any wages you also earned as an employee. A full-time carpenter who made $30,000 would pay $1,951.37 including GST — the levies on $50,501, not on $30,000.
Part-time, you’re levied on what you actually earned. Either way, nothing above $156,641 is levied.
Sources: ACC — Understanding your levy invoice (last published 16 September 2025, checked 30 September 2026); ACC — Understand your CoverPlus invoice (last published 22 September 2025, checked 30 September 2026); Accident Compensation (Work Account Levies) Regulations 2025 (SL 2025/17) (regs 6, 7 and 9, checked 23 September 2026); Accident Compensation (Earners’ Levy) Regulations 2025 (SL 2025/18) (regs 4 and 6, checked 23 September 2026); ACC — Calculating your levies: minimum and maximum liable income levels (checked 22 September 2026)
Sources: ACC — Understand your WorkPlace Cover invoice (last published 22 September 2025, checked 30 September 2026); ACC — Cover for shareholder-employees (last published 18 May 2023, checked 30 September 2026); ACC Levy Guidebook 2026/27 (checked 30 September 2026)
CoverPlus is the standard cover. If an accident stops you working, ACC pays weekly compensation of up to 80% of your taxable income, based on the most recently completed financial year, starting a week after the injury. Your levies follow your actual income.
CoverPlus Extra (CPX) lets you agree a cover amount with ACC in advance — between $40,401 and $125,313 for 2026/27. The levy is worked out on that amount instead of your income, so the invoice is predictable, and weekly compensation is 100% of the agreed cover before tax. ACC says it may suit you if your income changes from year to year, or if you’re newly self-employed with no earnings history.
CPX comes in two forms: full compensation, and a “lower level of weekly compensation” (LLWC) option with a slightly lower levy, whose payments drop if you go back to work part-time or the business keeps earning. Part-timers must take full compensation. The rates are separate columns in the guidebook: for carpentry (42420) in 2026/27, $2.40 standard and $2.29 LLWC per $100, against $1.76 on CoverPlus.
You can apply if you’re self-employed or a shareholder-employee not paid through PAYE, and you work full-time — or part-time with earnings above the CPX minimum. You apply through MyACC for Business, and the cover starts once you accept ACC’s offer letter.
Sources: ACC — Cover for self-employed (last published 14 March 2024, checked 30 September 2026); ACC — CoverPlus Extra (CPX) (last published 27 July 2026, checked 30 September 2026); ACC Levy Guidebook 2026/27 (checked 30 September 2026); ACC — Calculating your levies: minimum and maximum liable income levels (checked 22 September 2026)
If you do two or more kinds of work, the guidebook says you must use the code with the highest Work levy rate. There’s one exception worth knowing: “If the CU with the highest Work levy rate makes 5% or less of your total self-employed earnings, we can use the CU with the lower Work levy rate.” You need records showing how your earnings split.
Say you earn $100,000, of which $4,000 comes from carpentry (42420, $1.76 per $100) and the rest from specialised design services (78520, $0.10). Levied as a carpenter, the Work levy is $1,760.00; on the design code it’s $100.00 — $1,660 a year apart. The carpentry is 4% of the total, so the lower code can apply.
The rule says “we can use”, so it’s ACC’s decision and it rests on the records. It’s written for the self-employed. For employers there’s a different test per employee: work that makes up 5% or less of an employee’s earnings is ignored.
Source: ACC Levy Guidebook 2026/27 (checked 30 September 2026)
Your tax return carries the BIC code you chose when you started, and ACC turns it into your classification unit. For a self-employed person the guidebook says the code should describe the work you do, not the business you do it in. If your work has changed since, or the code was never quite right, the difference is charged every year.
Sources: ACC — Understanding your levy invoice (last published 16 September 2025, checked 30 September 2026); ACC Levy Guidebook 2026/27 (checked 30 September 2026)
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